Americans have been walking away from sit-down chain restaurants as convenience and affordability take precedence.
Ruby Tuesday announced this week that its CEO is resigning, and the chain forecasts another quarter of lower sales as it closes locations. It’s the latest of several established restaurant players that are retrenching, changing management or scrambling to adapt as people have more food choices all around them, The Associated Press reports.
Restaurants suffering the most appear to be those where people sit down for waiter service and pay more. Ruby Tuesday’s five straight years of declining sales at established locations is an extreme example, but others are feeling it.
Chili’s saw sales fall 2.2% at established locations for the fiscal year. Applebee’s sales edged up just 0.2% for its fiscal 2015, but then dropped in the first two quarters of this year. Darden Restaurants rid itself of Red Lobster in 2014 after the seafood chain suffered years of declining sales.
It’s an effect of people’s changing changing food preferences and lifestyles. Darren Tristano, president of the restaurant industry tracking firm Technomic, says younger people in particular are on the go and want their food to be, too.
“They’re looking for convenience, quality, portability and healthfulness,” Tristano says, adding that a decade ago sit-down restaurants accounted for 53% of the restaurant industry. Now, the balance has shifted and fast-food places—those without waiters or waitresses—have 53% of the market.
Panera Bread, which opened a location at 7877 Jefferson Hwy. in 2014, displaced Applebee’s, the last sit-down chain in the top 10 restaurant companies by sales, last year, according to Technomic. The Applebee’s location at Perkins Rowe closed in June, and the chain has just one restaurant in Baton Rouge, on Airline Highway.
