Independent restaurant units dropped by 2% compared to a year ago, and chain counts were flat.
"These [image-nocss] past two years have been particularly tough for independents, which don't have the resources to compete with the chains," said Greg Starzynski, director, product development for foodservice at NPD. "Over the past few years we've lost several thousand independent restaurants."The total restaurant count declined from 584,653 in fall 2009 to 579,102 in fall 2010.
The chain count was essentially flat (a slight dip), going from 267,499 to 267,408; the independent count was down from 317,154 to 311,694.
The QSR count declined from 307,966 in fall 2009 to 305,844 in fall 2010; the full-service restaurant count fell from 276,687 to 273, 258.According to The NPD Group's CREST, which tracks consumer usage of commercial and noncommercial foodservice outlets, restaurant traffic has been down since January 2009, although visit declines are softening. For year ending November 2010, U.S. restaurant traffic declined by 1% compared to a year ago. This is an improvement over the 3% declines in visits for year ending November 2009 compared to the prior year.
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