Jonathan Maze

1 week ago | supermarketnews.com | Jonathan Maze

Consumers are growing increasingly fretful about the state of the economy and worried about the prospect of higher prices as awareness about tariff pain grows. Consumer confidence fell 11% in April, according to the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index. It was the fourth straight month the index has fallen, a period in which consumer sentiment has fallen 30%. What’s more, consumers are increasingly worried about the state of their jobs and the prospects of inflation.

1 week ago | restaurantbusinessonline.com | Jonathan Maze |Lisa Jennings |Joe Guszkowski

FacebookTwitterLinkedInImage by Nico HeinsRestaurant operators have been hit with a lot over the past few years: A pandemic, inflation, regulations, supply shortages, labor shortages, frustration over high prices. You can now add tariffs to that list. President Trump earlier this year instituted new tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China and then earlier this month announced sweeping new import taxes on the bulk of world countries.

1 week ago | restaurantbusinessonline.com | Jonathan Maze |Lisa Jennings

FacebookTwitterLinkedInAnother Burger King franchisee filed for bankruptcy. This week’s episode of The Week in Restaurants includes a discussion on the bankruptcy filing of a 57-unit Burger King operator in Florida and Georgia. In addition, we talk about Raising Cane’s surpassing KFC, and other topics from the Technomic Top 500 Chain Restaurant Report. We talk about the big takeaways from the Restaurant Leadership Conference.

1 week ago | restaurantbusinessonline.com | Jonathan Maze

FacebookTwitterLinkedInStarbucks and other major chains had a weak 2024. | Photo: Shutterstock. Chain restaurant sales grew just 3% in 2024, according to the 2025 Technomic Top 500 Chain Restaurant Report, as a consumer frustrated by high fast-food prices shifted spending from traditional, big-name players to smaller, up-and-coming names or they stayed home altogether. The 500 largest chains in the U.S. generated $437.1 billion in 2024.

1 week ago | restaurantbusinessonline.com | Jonathan Maze

How did restaurants do in 2024? This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive is all about the Technomic Top 500 Chain Restaurant Report. Kevin Schimpf, senior director of industry research at Restaurant Business sister company Technomic, joins the episode to talk about the ranking. The restaurant industry did not have a great year in 2024 if you look at the overall numbers. Kevin and I talk about that and why restaurants didn’t do as well.