While Olympic organizers may currently be praying for snow, it's
likely that they are in the minority. This winter has seemed
especially unkind to much of the country. Winter storms have
become a weekly occurrence throughout much of the Midwest and we
all saw the massive amounts of snow that blanketed portions of the
East Coast in recent weeks. Even here in Dallas, Texas we had
a record snowfall just last week---12 inches in 24 hours.
While our kids may enjoy playing in the snow and a few of us may
appreciate the occasional day off, one thing is for certain:
inclement weather is brutal for the restaurant business. Just
how bad is it? Let's take a look at the latest guest traffic
numbers from People Report's sister company, Black
Box Intelligence.
For the week of January 25-31, same store guest traffic was up
0.3% for the same period one year ago for the country as a
whole. The following week, February 1-7, traffic was down
4.9% from the previous year's levels. However, compare this
to the traffic counts for the Mid-Atlantic states (Delaware,
Washington D.C., Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West
Virginia).
While same store traffic was down 6.4% for the last week of
January, the following week (as the Washington corridor was
blanketed with over three feet of snow) guest traffic counts
dropped 34.2% from levels for the same week the previous
year. In a business where traffic drives sales, the
"Snowpocalypse" of 2010 was a week most restaurant operators would
like to forget.
If you would like more information regarding Black Box
Intelligence and their suite of sales and financial tools, please
contact Bill Schaffler at
bschaffler@blackboxintelligence.com.