sales and profits

Portillo's sees consumers reaching boiling point on pricing

By Lisa Jennings on May 07, 2024

When lower-income diners are feeling budget strain, the fast-casual Portillo's feels it most in the drive-thru. To address that, the restaurant chain is working to get orders through car windows faster.

Financing

First Watch's traffic slides in Q1, but don't expect price-off specials to follow

By Peter Romeo on May 07, 2024

Management at the daytime dining chain said it will focus instead on bringing back strong customer lures from the past.

Financing

5 bonbons from Denny's not-so-sweet quarterly update

By Peter Romeo on May 01, 2024

Traffic slumped, but the family-dining stalwart offered a few aha moments in its recount of what happened.

Financing

Higher prices and more locations drove chain restaurant sales last year

By Jonathan Maze on Apr. 16, 2024

Technomic Top 500: Chain restaurants continued to record strong growth last year, but mostly without higher traffic. And there were wide variations in performance throughout the ranking.

Financing

Fast-growing Crumbl's unit volumes and store profitability took a hit last year

By Jonathan Maze on Apr. 11, 2024

Average unit volume for the cookie chain declined 37% last year even as location count grew 41%. Per-store profits were cut by 58%.

Leadership

Cracker Barrel's new CEO airs her roadmap back to better times

By Peter Romeo on Feb. 27, 2024

Julie Masino wants to accelerate the family dining chain's rejuvenation efforts and menu evolution.

Financing

Financial roundup: Olo, US Foods, Ark Restaurants, newcomer Pinstripes, Chuy's

By Peter Romeo on Feb. 22, 2024

This earnings season brought the addition of newly public food-and-games concept Pinstripes. Here in brief are how it and several other public companies fared during the latter part of 2023.

Financing

After shutting 60 namesake units, Denny's readies Keke's for expansion

By Peter Romeo on Feb. 13, 2024

A Keke's unit was opened for the first time outside of Florida, to encouraging results, the company said. It sports a new look and menu, as well as alcoholic beverages.

Financing