How will gas prices affect restaurants? This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Rich Shank, senior principal with the data firm Technomic. We like talking with Shank periodically to get a pulse on where the industry is at and there are all kinds of questions about it right now, thanks to gas prices. Gas prices are near a national average of $4 a gallon, according to AAA, up $1 compared with the past year, driven largely by the U.S. attack on Iran. That has a real impact on consumers at a time when many of them are already feeling pinched by inflation. We ask Shank what kind of impact this will have, what restaurant chains will feel it the most and at what point does it diminish industry growth projections. We also talk a bit about other issues like beef costs and store operations and what happened with the fast-casual sector. Always great talking with Rich Shank so please check it out.

How rising gas prices will affect restaurant sales

A Deeper Dive

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** A Deeper Dive

## Participants

- **Jonathan Mays** (Restaurant Business)
- **Rich Shank** (Technomic)
- **Rich Shank** (Technomic)

## Transcript

As you mentioned, just with gas prices alone, $30 a month is going to hit two to three trips a month in terms of disposable income. And you add that to heating prices, you add that to all the other expenses that are going up, you know, rents, those sorts of things. It's, you know, it's eating into whatever advantage that bill was giving consumers, which was small to begin with. Right. Yeah.

I always find, like, to me, gas prices are almost more psychological than anything else. And again, I don't mean to diminish the impact of higher costs on people, but like everywhere you go, you have a big advertisement. And you got people like me that, like me, like when gas prices go up, everybody writes stories about it because. Yeah, it's right there. You can see it when you drive down the street. Right. And if you're in a car with someone, you're probably having a conversation about it. You know, two blocks ago, it was only this and now it's that.

You know, and it's something that's very noticeable and it changes so often. People tend to notice that kind of price change more so than most others. How will gas prices affect restaurants? Hello, this is Jonathan Mays, editor in chief of Restaurant Business. And in this week's episode of A Deeper Dive, I speak with Rich Shank, senior principal with Restaurant Business sister company, Technomic.

We like talking with Rich periodically to get a pulse on where the industry is at. And there are all kinds of questions about it right now, thanks to gas prices. Gas prices are near a national average of four dollars a gallon. According to AAA, that's up a dollar compared with the past month, driven largely by the U.S. attack on Iran. And that has a real impact on restaurants at a time when many of them are already feeling pinched by consumers cutting back over inflation.

We ask Rich what kind of impact this will have, what restaurant chains will feel the most, and at what point does it diminish overall industry growth for the year? We also talk a bit on other issues like beef costs and operations and what happened with the fast casual sector last year. Always great talking with Rich, so please check it out. All right. I'm here with Rich Shank. Rich, welcome again to the podcast. Rich, thanks for having me, Jonathan. It's nice to see you.

All right. Well, have you heard that gas prices are up? You heard something? There's a rumor, I guess, right? Everybody keeps telling me this. Yeah, I haven't gotten any questions about it over the last two weeks at all. None whatsoever, huh? All right. About once a day, generally. Really? Who's asking you these questions? Restaurants from all over the map, really? You know, kind of what did we see last time they spiked? What did the recession look like in 2008?

You know, those sorts of things. Well, wh...

How rising gas prices will affect restaurant sales

Transcript

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Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
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How rising gas prices will affect restaurant sales

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.