Dive Brief:

• Consumer spending at restaurants grew 5% in 2023 compared to 4% growth in 2022, according to data shared by Circana in a Monday press release. 
• Industry sales in 2023 exceeded 2019 sales by 12%, even though traffic is 8% below its pre-pandemic levels. Traffic grew 1% last year compared to 2022. Circana predicts that the restaurant industry will see 1% traffic growth this year.
• The top 50 restaurant chains have seen their sales grow relative to the overall industry, Circana found. Aggregate consumer spending rose 7% and reached $313 billion, compared to a 2% dollar growth seen at all other restaurants in 2023.

Dive Insight:

Circana’s count of the top 50 restaurant chains only includes brands with consumer spending above $1 billion, and represents 61% of the entire restaurant industry’s consumer spending, despite comprising just 24% of all restaurant locations. The top QSR chains — McDonald’s, Starbucks and Chick-fil-A — accounted for over $100 billion in consumer spend and nearly one-third of all the sales by Circana’s top 50. 

Several new chains made their way into the top 50 restaurants in 2023, including BJ’s Restaurants, Tropical Smoothie Cafe and Firehouse Subs. Jersey Mike’s rose 14 spots, while Whataburger jumped up six spots and Raising Cane’s and Popeyes rose five spots apiece. Arby’s slid five spots and Cracker Barrel was down by four places. 

Within the top 50, The Cheesecake Factory reported the highest average unit volume of around $12.8 million, more than $5 million above Chick-fil-A’s AUV. Circana noted that the Cheesecake Factory’s AUV is remarkable given its relatively small footprint; the brand has only 216 locations. Cheesecake ended last year with same-store sales up 3% during the 52 weeks ending Jan. 2, 2024 and nearly 14% compared to 2019, according to an earnings release.  

“Comparable sales and traffic at The Cheesecake Factory restaurants outperformed the broader casual dining industry in the fourth quarter,” David Overton, Cheesecake Factory chairman and CEO, said in the earnings release. “Execution within our restaurants was outstanding with our operators delivering improvements in labor productivity, food efficiency, wage management, and hourly staff and manager retention, driving solid flow-through to support profitability.”

Other notable insights from Circana’s data include evidence that fast casual chains outperformed the overall industry, with spending up 9% last year. Consumers also favored the morning meal as well as afternoon and evening snack dayparts. The QSR snack channel was up 8% year over year in spending, per Circana. Several chains, including McDonald’s, Starbucks and Subway, have emphasized the snack daypart with new offerings of late.