It’s Time for Restaurant Realignment

Although restaurant industry sales reached an all-time high of $799 billion in 2017, up 1.7% when adjusted for inflation, and captured 48% of America’s food dollars, it’s been another tough year for the foodservice industry and anything but business as usual (NRA 2017a).

For the year ended in spring 2018, the number of U.S. restaurants fell 1% to 660,755; the number of independent restaurants is down 2% (NPD 2018a).

Although foodservice spending rose 2% for the year ended May 2018, growth was pri…