Industry reports improvement, but rising fuel and commodity costs threaten progressIndustry reports improvement, but rising fuel and commodity costs threaten progress

By Robin Lee Allen


As restaurant operators from across the country descend on Chicago for the 2011 National Restaurant Association Restaurant, Hotel-Motel Show, they are buoyed by a tenuous optimism that many acknowledge could evaporate at any moment.


Some signs are mounting that the economic recovery is moving forward, with nonfarm jobs trending up by 216,000 in March, even as the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 8.8 percent. And anecdotal evidence is growing, too, with many operators saying that sales are on the rise. 


Still, the momentum remains frustratingly slow, with higher commodity costs and escalating gas prices threatening to extinguish the economy’s fragile progress.


In April The NPD Group reported in conjunction with M...