Hospitality and Restaurant News – October 12, 2015
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
Restaurant Same-Store Sales Slow In Q3
Data from TDn2K’s Black Box Intelligence through The Restaurant Industry Snapshot demonstrated that same-store restaurant sales growth slowed in Q3 2015, with a 0.3 percent drop from the second quarter. That’s according to the Nation’s Restaurant News. Third quarter sales rose just 1.5 percent, and while the rate of growth was lower, it marked the fifth consecutive quarter of positive sales growth for the industry overall. The data also shows that year-to-date same-store sales growth stands at 2.1 percent through the end of September, far above the 0.6 percent growth reported for 2014. “We have just experienced the best five quarters since the recession based on sales growth, but concern remains for chain restaurants overall due to the continuously falling guest counts,” Victor Fernandez, executive director of insights and knowledge for TdDnsK explained. “The last time we reported such a long period of consecutive same-store sales growth was in 2011-2012, but we are seeing much stronger growth in sales today.” The rise in sales growth is due to increases in average guest checks, however, since guest counts have lagged behind over the last five quarters.
Public Health Expert Sees Social Media As A Potential Tool In Identifying Illness Outbreaks
Social media can be leveraged as a potential tool in the early detection of food-borne illness outbreaks, according to Public health expert Craig Hedberg, professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health. “In theory, social media works just like other complaint systems: People are sick. They talk about it in their social media networks. And then that information can get right to the health department without going through all these other filters that take time to go through,” Hedberg explained at a presentation at the Nation’s Restaurant News’ 10th annual Food Safety Symposium. Using social media networks like Twitter and Facebook, as well as review websites like Yelp, could provide valuable information for identifying and responding to illness outbreaks. “There is a lot of interesting right now in mining things like Twitter and Facebook to find this kind of discussion going on to identify what is out there before the complaints actually get realized and submitted to the health department,” he said. The vast amount of data generated would require automated algorithms, however, to make sense of the chatter. So, for now, Hedberg asserted, “We would be better served by trying to get these people who already recognized that they are part of an outbreak to report that directly to the health department rather than just stew about it in a social network.” But given the appropriate resources, this type of tool could prove to be quite powerful in tracking food-borne incidents.
Hotel Etiquette Study Reveals Guests’ Top Frustrations
Expedia.com has released the results of its Expedia 2015 hotel Etiquette Study, which found that the most aggravating hotels guests are those parents who let their children run wild, called out by 67 percent of those surveyed. Commissioned by Expedia, the study was conducted by GfK, an independent global market research company, and polled 1,022 Americans to rank the behavior of their fellow guests. Here is the top ten list of pet peeves:
- Inattentive Parents – 67 percent
- The Hallway Hellraisers – 64 percent
- The Complainers – 54%
- The In-Room Revelers (noisemakers nearby) – 52 percent
- The Bickerers – 26 percent
- The Poolside Partiers – 22 percent
- The Loudly Amorous (indiscreet lovemakers) – 21 percent
- The Hot Tub Canoodlers (amorous couples in a public hot tub) – 20 percent
- The Business Bar Boozer (sloshed business travelers) – 12 percent
- The Elevator Chatterbox – 6 percent
“While etiquette violations differ, they tend to come down to the same behavior: whether or not guests respect the strangers in close proximity to them,” said John Morrey, vice president and general manager, Expedia.com. “The same is true for flying, or for driving. A modicum of consideration for your fellow travelers can go a very long way and may ultimately enhance your overall travel experience.”
How the Affordable Care Act Affects Restaurants
This article from the Nation’s Restaurant News highlights four issues that have an impact on restaurants as a result of the Affordable Care Act. Among the issues most crucial to restaurateurs are: 30 vs. 40 hours; reporting requirements; discrimination rules; and the so-called “Cadillac plan tax.” One of the most contentious issues is the redefinition of full time by the ACA. Congress has now defined 30 hours per week as the floor for full time in an effort to prevent employers from reducing their “full-time” worker hours to 38 or 39 to avoid paying for benefits. Tim McIntyre, vice president of communications for Domino’s Pizza, argued, “Defining full time as 30 hours could be devastating to the work force, especially if small business owners find the need to cut back employee hours. What you’d likely see is a workforce full of people working multiple part-time jobs.” The ACA also implemented fairly extensive reporting requirements for tracking compliance for each covered employee.
The core idea of the ACA is to eliminate the gap in healthcare coverage between workers, and end the discrimination by health insurance plans in favor of more highly compensated individuals. Under the “Cadillac plan tax,” the ACA imposes a 40-percent excise tax, beginning in 2018, on any health insurance plan that is too expensive according to the specific parameters established. “You penalize companies for not providing it, but then with the discrimination penalty and Cadillac tax, you also penalize companies for providing benefits that are too lucrative,” Roland Dickey, Jr., CEO of Dallas-based Dickey’s Barbeque Pit, said. “What if they had gone and incentivized companies?”