Frigid Weather? Rising Inflation? Restaurants Are Having a Big Winter Anyway.
The New York Times
January and February are usually the doldrums for dining, but Americans have been eating out, and spending, with gusto.
This winter, Denver has faced record-breaking Arctic blasts — below-zero temperatures, heavy snowfalls and brutal wind chills. But at Barolo Grill, a longtime Italian fixture in the affluent Cherry Creek neighborhood, the mood is warm. The restaurant has just logged its most lucrative January and February since it opened in 1992.
“It is actually a bit bewildering,” said the owner, Ryan Fletter. “I am thrilled and surprised.”
The first two months of the year are typically the slowest period for restaurants, and many take a January hiatus. This winter has posed even more challenges: frigid weather across the country, egg prices at a record high and fears that food costs will continue to rise. Overall consumer spending in the United States fell in January for the first time in nearly two years.
Yet Americans have been dining out in unusual numbers, and spending more money doing it. January sales at eating and drinking places were $98.6 billion, almost $2 billion higher than in January 2024 when adjusted for inflation, according to census data analyzed by the National Restaurant Association. (February figures have not yet been released.) The number of diners this January and February was about 5 percent higher than a year earlier, according to data from OpenTable.
Many restaurants, both casual and high-end, report that business in both months was surprisingly robust. At Barolo, even as menu prices have stayed the same, the average check has increased by about 10 percent, Mr. Fletter said. Diners “are having a nicer bottle of wine, they are consuming more food, they are doing tasting menus and not à la carte.”
In interviews, restaurateurs offered several theories for the unexpected boom. Unemployment rates are low. Some said diners were less stressed and more interested in socializing because it’s not an election year. Others said customers were seeking comfort amid the unpredictability of the changes coming out of the White House.
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