Category: Casual Dining
60 Seconds: A Tale of Two Septembers
Out-of-home Leisure: Weather matters Structural trends in out-of-home Leisure have grabbed the headlines recently, resulting in a string of profit warnings. More and more operators are stepping forward to comment on soft summer trading across the industry. This is because of factors including oversupply, commodity inflation, rising labour costs, and extortionate rents. Year-on-year weather variation…
60 Seconds: Tough summer dents pub profits
Tough summer dents pub profits. Greene King says LfL managed sales in the 18wks to 3 Sep fell by 1.2%. Sales in the first 10wks were flat (0% LfL). This implies they fell by more than 2.5% LfL in July & August. September comps are very tough; there will be a relative September shortfall.
Restaurants: The Going Gets Tough…
60 Seconds on cinemas: A tough year in prospect?
The current situation: US cinema attendances are down 52% y-t-d (per Box Office Mojo). BOM unhelpfully adds ‘summer 2017 is closing out with the worst Labor Day weekend in 17yrs’. Such trends have a habit of crossing the pond. How did we get here? TV did the damage 50yrs ago. Cinema subsequently rallied…
60 Seconds on Restaurant Group, Marstons, and Greene King
The scene is set… The market responded well to Restaurant Group’s first half trading update last week, with shares up c10% (338p). Confidence is growing in Restaurant Group’s turnaround but its sales trend is negative at a time when its industry is oversupplied and facing cost pressures. Management itself says: ‘like-for-like sales and margins will…