Nearly one year into the COVID-19 pandemic, which was officially declared last March, the trend of limited-service brands performing well while full-service brands see same-store sales drop continues to hold.
In their most recent earnings calls, most companies across all segments said performance was improving each month. This bodes well for the restaurant industry as a whole, especially as cities and states begin to loosen indoor-dining restrictions and more of the U.S. population gets vaccinated.
Casual-dining and family-dining brands in the most recent quarter continued to introduce and expand virtual brands in an effort to bring in off-premise dollars. BJ’s expanded its delivery-only concept Slo Roast to 13 restaurants, while more than half of Denny’s U.S. locations have signed up for one or both of the company’s virtual brands, The Burger Den and The Melt Down.
Meanwhile, quick-service and fast-casual brands continued to push off-premise in their own ways. Of the more than 200 stores Chipotle plans to open in 2021, 70% will have Chipotlanes for pickup orders. Taco Bell, the only Yum Brands restaurant to post an increase in same-store sales in the latest quarter, credited a growth in delivery.
Click through for details on how these and other restaurant companies have been performing.