Lingering tailwinds from government relief payments and the lifting of dine-in restrictions in states such as Georgia, Florida and Texas helped to improve U.S. restaurant chain transactions, which saw smaller declines in the week ending May 3, reported The NPD Group.
For the week ending May 3 total transactions were down 26 percent from year ago compared to a 32 percent decline the prior week and a decline of 43 percent the week ending April 12, the low point of the COVID-19 disruption, according to CREST Performance Alerts, which provides a rapid weekly view of chain-specific transactions and share trends for 70 quick service, fast casual, midscale and casual dining chains.
Restaurant dine-in restrictions have been lifted for nearly 192,000 restaurant units or about 29 percent of all units since May 1, based on an analysis using NPD’s ReCount restaurant census. Required social distancing limits, however, can reduce dining room capacity by as much as 75 percent i
