Evolve or Die: The Digital Disruption of the Restaurant Industry

6 Min Read By MRM Staff

Morningstar believes restaurant operators must take the time to reinvent themselves with respect to changes in consumer eating habits, the advent of new front- and back-of- house technologies, the blurring of lines between on-premise and off-premise sales and supply chain innovations.With counterparts from Pitchbook, they took a closer look at how restaurant and restaurant technology transactions are changing and how that may continue to evolve in the years to come in a Commercial Observer report that has an “evolve or die” theme.Key highlights from the report include: ​

Expect additional restaurant closures and decelerating industry growth. We expect restaurant unit counts to decrease by 0.6 percent over the next five years in U.S. with casual dining and smaller quick-service restaurant (QSR) chains being the hardest hit. This will result in average industry sales growth slowing from four percent from 2012-2017 to 3.4 percent from 2017-2022. We see growth opportunities…