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Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Restaurant industry barometer reaches 6-year high
Here’s a draft version of a story that is scheduled to run in Wednesday’s Dayton Daily News:
A closely watched barometer of the restaurant industry nationwide surged to its highest level in nearly six years, the National Restaurant Association announced Tuesday in a development that could help fuel the economic recovery.
Because the restaurant and food-service industry employs an estimated one out of 10 Americans, an expansion in that sector could provide a much-needed spark to what has been a rather bleak jobs outlook.
The restaurant association’s Restaurant Performance Index (RPI) rose sharply in December, assisted by a mild winter, solid same-store sales and a bullish outlook among restaurant operators, association officials said. In addition, restaurant operators’ plans for capital spending on new equipment and renovations rose to its highest level in more than four years, a positive sign for construction and restaurant-supply companies both locally and nationally.
Some Miami Valley restaurant owners said ample evidence of the national surge is showing up in their dining rooms.
Lori Camplin, co-owner of Chappys Tap Room and Grille in Moraine, said that Chappy’s set all-time, single-day sales records twice on consecutive Saturdays in January — traditionally a comparatively slow month for restaurants. And during last week’s Restaurant Week promotion, Chappys sold 512 special three-course meals, up from 394 last year.
“I would definitely say the national data is accurate — we have been on an upward trend since October and November,” Camplin said. “We had a lot of new faces in here last week, and we were thrilled to see that.”
That growing optimism helped prompt Lori and her husband Dave Camplin to decide to renovate Chappys patio this spring, to “give it more of a courtyard setting” and possibly add music, she said. There’s no cost estimate for the renovation yet, but such spending on renovation and expansion projects by restaurants has a positive impact on other businesses.
Dan Young — owner of Young’s Jersey Dairy and the Golden Jersey Inn at 6880 Springfield-Xenia Road (U.S. 68) in Clark County north of Yellow Springs — said he too is seeing several positive signs both inside his restaurants an in the broader restaurant sector.
“Our sales were up in November and December, and are up quite a bit in January,” Young said. “I think it’s due in part to the very mild winter, and of course, last year was especially cold and snowy, so being up in sales and guest counts compared to last year isn’t that amazing. But still, we’ve had a strong beginning for the year.”
Young’s Dairy customers, Young said, “are feeling better about the economy than the past few years — not anywhere near wildly optimistic, but better. Other operators I have talked to are seeing similar trends. I certainly hear more talk of upgrading/remodeling and opening new units here and there. I think the current economic conditions in Ohio, and in the Dayton-Springfield are specifically, are looking better for the first time in many years.”
Dan Bushong, owner of Bushong Restaurant Equipment in Dayton, said he sees a brighter outlook than he did three or four years ago. Many independently owned restaurants have been holding off on replacing equipment for the last couple of years because of the soft economy. “At some point they just can’t duct-tape things together anymore,” Bushong said. “We are seeing a lot of activity in the replacement market because of that.”
New construction by independent restaurants started to accelerate about six months ago, although corporate-owned restaurants, which have been the driving forced in equipment sales, remain “very conservative” in their expenditures, Bushong said.
Ohio Restaurant Association spokesman Jarrod Clabaugh said the state’s restaurants employ about 525,000 people and are a driving force in Ohio’s economy. “In addition to representing 10 percent of the state’s employment, restaurants are the cornerstones of their communities, and stronger food-service sales often reflect upticks in both consumer spending and overall optimism in the economy,” Clabaugh said.
The National Restaurant Association’s Restaurant Performance Index tracks the health of and outlook for the U.S. restaurant industry, although it doesn’t break down its numbers by state. The RPI stood at 102.2 in December, up 1.6 percent from November. In addition, December represented the third time in the last four months that the RPI stood above 100, which signifies expansion in the index of key industry indicators, association officials said.
“Aided by favorable weather conditions in many parts of the country, a solid majority of restaurant operators reported higher same-store sales and customer traffic levels in December,” said Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of the Research and Knowledge Group for the association. “In addition, restaurant operators are solidly optimistic about sales growth in the months ahead, and their outlook for the economy is at its strongest point in nearly a year. Coupled with the solid November results, the RPI’s impressive December performance bodes well for continued positive industry momentum in the year ahead.”
Sixty-nine percent of restaurant operators reported a same-store sales gain between December 2010 and December 2011, while only 18 percent reported a same-store sales decline. This marked the strongest net positive sales performance since February 2004. Customer traffic counts also were up, and 55 percent of restaurant operators plan to make a capital expenditure for equipment, expansion or remodeling in the next six months, up from 47 percent in November and the strongest level in more than four years.
The RPI is based on the responses to the National Restaurant Association’s Restaurant Industry Tracking Survey, which is fielded monthly among restaurant owners and operators nationwide on a variety of indicators including sales, traffic, labor, and capital expenditures.
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Three decades later, London Bobby Fish & Chips revived in Kettering
KETTERING — What’s old is new again: Cassano’s Pizza King has brought London Bobby Fish & Chips back to the Dayton area, about 30 years after the last London Bobby restaurant closed.
The London Bobby Fish & Chips menu was added to the Cassano’s Pizza King restaurant menu at 1680 E. Stroop Road. The headquarters and commissary of the 33-store Cassano’s pizza chain are housed in an adjacent building.
The first of the second-generation London Bobby restaurants opened in Trenton in late 2010, also in an existing Cassano’s. If the newly offered fish and chips menu goes over well, it will show up at a handful of other Cassano’s locations in the Miami Valley, perhaps later this year, according to Chris Cassano, president of Cassano’s Pizza King and part of the third generation of the Cassano family now operating the local chain.
Cassano’s founder Vic Cassano launched the London Bobby Fish & Chips chain in the 1970s and operated several free-standing stores in the Dayton area until the early 1980s. Chris Cassano said he and his siblings — company CEO Vic “Chip” Cassano III and Lora Cassano Hammons, the company’s director of community relations — wanted to bring back one of their grandfather’s other restaurant concepts. The response has been encouraging, and several customers remember the previous incarnation of London Bobby, he said.
Additional expansion will occur within existing pizza stores; there are no current plans for free-standing London Bobby locations, Cassano said. That will keep the costs of expanding the London Bobby brand down, since the overhead and employees are already in place in the pizza restaurants, he said.
The London Bobby locations offer beer-battered fish, shrimp and chicken, with sides of fries, hush puppies, onion rings and creamy cole slaw.
Cassano’s Pizza King began in Dayton in 1953. Two months ago, it opened a new restaurant in Centerville, the decor of which will serve as a model for upcoming renovations of existing stores, Cassano said.
The Kettering restaurant’s hours are 10 a.m. to midnight Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 1 a.m. Friday and Saturday, and 10:30 a.m. to midnight Sunday. To place an order, call the Cassano’s call center at (937) 294-5464.
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