MRM Research Roundup: Mid-January 2020 Edition

This edition of Modern Restaurant Management (MRM) magazine's Research Roundup features a gloomy start to the new year, dining trends for 2020, the importance of discounts,  holiday gift card  sales results, delivery frustrations, soda curiosity and a consumer culture report.

An Uncertain Start to 2020?Restaurant year-over-year sales growth was weak during December. A shift in the Thanksgiving holiday is partly responsible for the abysmal results, reversing the positive figures recorded in November. Same-store sales growth was -2.1 percent in December, the worst result for the industry in over 2 years. This report comes from Black Box Intelligence™ (formerly TDn2K™) data based on weekly sales from over 47,000 restaurants and $75 billion in annual sales.

“As bad as the month seemed, as we said last month, the topline growth result is not telling the full story,” commented Victor Fernandez, vice president of insights and knowledge for Black Box Intelligence. “As…