New Census Outlook Survey Shows Challenging Conditions for Restaurant Operators

Dr. Chad Moutray

The U.S. Census Bureau has introduced an experimental data set, the Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS). This relatively new series “consists of approximately 1.2 million businesses split into six panels (approximately 200,000 cases per panel). Businesses in each panel will be asked to report once every 12 weeks for a year.” New data are released every other week, starting late last year through the present. This large sample of respondents includes restaurants, providing another data point to assess the health of the sector.

Similar to recent trends in the Restaurant Performance Index, the BTOS shows that conditions are challenging for eating and drinking places. While 51.4% of restaurants operators suggest that their business’s current performance is average in the latest survey (the 16^th biweekly period in 2024), 30.7% suggest that conditions are either below average or poor while 18.0% feel that they are either above average or excellent. Moreover, those who were above average or excellent has slipped from 24.2% saying the same thing at the end of 2023, with 27.3% citing below average or poor conditions in the final survey of last years.

The result is that many of the key indices for the eating and drinking places sector have remained consistently below the key threshold of 50, reflecting more negative than positive sentiment. It is notable that restaurant operators began 2024 on a solidly negative note—including for revenues, employment, hours and demand—but conditions have stabilized somewhat since then, albeit still weaker than desired. In addition, the rate of decline lessened somewhat between the 15^th and 16^th biweekly survey for 2024.

While this might be disconcerting, one could also frame this more positively. In the latest survey, those restaurants feeling that their current performance was average, above average, or excellent totaled 69.4%. This perhaps suggests more resilience than not, even if conditions are weaker than ideal.

Moving forward, the storyline is quite similar. Nearly 55% of respondents in the eating and drinking places sector felt that their business’s performance would be average six months from now. Those expecting above average or excellent performance totaled 17.5%, while 27.8% predicted below average or poor conditions. These responses have weakened year to date. In the final survey of 2023, those noting expectations of above average or excellent performance totaled 22.8%, or just slightly above the percentage feeling that conditions would be below average or poor, at 22.1%.

The future-oriented indices highlight the challenging expectations of respondents in the eating and drinking places sector for the next six months, with each of the key measures trending lower year to date.

The National Restaurant Association will continue to monitor this new experimental data set, providing insights on upcoming trends in the restaurant sector in this exciting survey development.

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