US Restaurants "Takeaways from Early '26 Industry Insights Webinar" Geiger

Research evidence excerpt

US Restaurants "Takeaways from Early '26 Industry Insights Webinar" Geiger

Global Research

28 May 2026ab

US Restaurants Equities

AmericasTakeaways from Early '26 Industry Insights

Webinar Restaurants

Dennis Geiger, CFA

Analyst

dennis.geiger@ubs.com

Restaurant traffic remains depressed given consumer spending pressures +1-212-713 9313

We recently attended the quarterly Restaurant Industry Snapshot webinar hosted by Paul Hao

Black Box Intelligence (BBI) and came away with greater insights into the challenges the Associate Analyst

restaurant industry is experiencing currently. According to BBI, restaurant spending in paul.hao@ubs.com

1Q26 was ~54.1% of total share of stomach, or 8.2 pct points above grocery spending +1-201-352 1091

share. Restaurant spending held up its share as a % of total consumer retail spend in 1Q Nikhil Gunderia

at 13.7%, or flat from a year ago, but up from 12.7% in 1Q19. That said, restaurant Associate Analyst

traffic has remained pressured YTD, with March traffic down 2.4%, sequentially slower nikhil.gunderia@ubs.com

through the year, while check growth was 3.1%, driving comp sales growth of 0.7%. +1-212-713 3258

BBI believes elevated restaurant pricing in recent years is one of the key reasons for the Emily Li

challenged traffic, with a forecast that the pricing gap to grocery will remain above Associate Analyst

0.8% for '26. However, average check growth for the overall industry and each emily.li@ubs.com

restaurant segment were lower than the pricing increase, as guests are trying to keep +1-212-649 8262

spending down either through check management or from aggressive value offerings.

Fast casual under pressure, while full service growth remained solid

By segment, QSR led all restaurant segments in 1Q with 2.2% sss and a -1.5% traffic