Economy Key to Casual, Fine Dining Recovery

ROCKVILLE, Md.A rejuvenated affluent consumer will help provide needed economic life into casual and fine dining restaurant sales, according to market researcher Packaged Facts Dinner Trends in the U.S. Foodservice Market." The report suggests full-service restaurants sales in particular are on the upswing, which bodes well for the dinner daypart.

"For the restaurant industry to rebound, we believe increased discretionary income is the key. Without it, there will simply be no rebound. The bottom line is that consumers with more money and more stable finances have the potential to spend and our data shows that consumers are making headway in cleaning up their balance sheets," said David Morris, Packaged Facts analyst and Mosaic Research Consulting LLC associate. "But for now at-home breakfast and dinner trending remains significant."

Like family restaurants, casual and fine dining restaurants rely more on the dinner hour: 55% of casual restaurant users got a meal at a casual restaurant for dinner, a 175% increase over lunch usage. Fine dining restaurants are often wholly reliant on the dinner daypart, reflecting in dinner usage that is almost eight times that of lunch usage.

According to the report, casual and fine dining establishments are on the road to recovery; however, fast food and quick-service restaurants are more pressured because of consumer expectations of lower pricing and that "trading up" among recently invigorated spenders will hurt traffic in much the same manner that "trading down" benefitted the segment in 2008 and into 2009.

The dinner daypart is important to the fast food/quick-service restaurant segment, with 42% of respondents to Packaged Facts June 2010 survey revealing they had gone to a fast food/QSR in the past month. Lunch and breakfast also draw strong usage, with lunch as the most used daypart.

The findings revealed eating dinner at home instead of at a restaurant may bring the greatest economic benefit to the average American family. The trend toward eating dinner at home is most pronounced among consumers age 18-24, students, homemakers, females and consumers in households with an income less than $50,000. Consumers say that a dinner meal at a family restaurant costs about 29% more than lunch at a family restaurant and 21% more than breakfast at a family restaurant. While fast food has lower prices points across all dayparts than family and casual restaurants, consumers report dinner costs 45% more than a fast food breakfast meal and 26% more than a fast food lunch meal.