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An up-trend at last

bodegahwy

New member
In our little burg the economic meltdown came later than it did in many places. If the news on CNBC is too be believed things have been getting better in some places for a while now.

For a tourist ecomomy like ours, sales tax results from the city are a pretty clear snapshot of how things are going and so far it could only be said that the decline has stopped. Full year sales tax receipts from restaurants are going to come in around -3-5% but with the largest declines in Jan-Mar and a mixed result with some up and down months since then.

In our business we went to more or less flat comps in late winter and have showed a modest up-trend since memorial day. I use a 91 day trailing number (divides by 7 so there is always an even number of the various days of the week) That trailing number went positive (compared to the same period one year earlier) a number of weeks ago and has stayed positive. It is gradually increasing and stands at about +8% right now. We also went positive on comparisons to 2008 this week: The first two year positive numbers since October 2008.

To say it is a load off my mind might be premature, but it is finally looking better. The good news is also that our labor is down by about $2500 per month on average from last year and cheese is at an OK price range unlike the perfect storm of high costs and low sales we went through last year!

What are you guys seeing?
 
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It is good to see your sales heading back in the right direction. We have been in business going on 16 years now, and have seen several rollercoasterlike sales trends. The last 2 years for us were down and this year is up enough to be our best year ever. The only thing we can do is hope that our sales peaks are higher and that our valleys don’t dip as low.
 
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We have been open almost 12 years and have have seen cycles too… but nothing like this one. We are still far below our 2007 numbers (city sales taxes are down about 25% from those levels and our numbers are in line with that) The last downturn was 2002 when 9/11 hurt travel and construction slowed. That slowdown lasted for about a year but the down draft was only high single digits and when it came back it came back strong with strong increases four years in a row. I don’t expect to see a record any time soon.
 
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