MRM Research Roundup: Mid-November 2018 Edition

40 Min Read By MRM Staff

Modern Restaurant Management (MRM) magazine's "According to a recent study/survey …" column has been rebranded as MRM Research Roundup. 

This time, we feature 2018 restaurant startup costs,  fast food vs. fitness Google searches, Thanksgiving's Halo Effect  and lots of food and beverage trends for 2019.

Positive Sales Trend ContinuesHeadlines continue to be encouraging for the industry, as chain restaurants posted their fifth consecutive month of positive same-store sales growth during October. This month’s sales growth rate of 0.8 percent does represent a slowdown from the 1.2 percent reported for September and the 1.8 percent for August, but there was a promising sign in October’s results. Same-store sales growth on a two-year basis was 1.1 percent during October. As a comparison, two-year sales growth rates averaged -0.9 percent for the previous six months. These insights come from TDn2K’s Black Box Intelligence™ data, based on weekly sales from over…