Black Box same-store sales and traffic trends have been encouraging to-date in 3Q, with July and August same-store sales up +0.5% and +2.1%, respectively. Although traffic during these two months remained negative, both numbers improved sequentially on a two-year basis. In many respects, August was the strongest month of sales data we’ve had in over two years. Is this the start of a trend? Potentially, but we’ll wait for September’s sales and traffic numbers before we turn outright bullish. Negative traffic remains an issue, but the key takeaway here is that, on the margin, the macro environment seems to be improving for restaurants.
Howard Penney
Managing Director
Fred Masotta
Analyst