Same-store sales and customer traffic

Restaurant operators reported a net increase in same-store sales in May, with results coming in similar to April. 

Fifty percent of restaurant operators said their same-store sales rose between May 2025 and May 2026, according to the National Restaurant Association’s monthly tracking survey. That was up slightly from 48% of operators who reported higher sales in April. 

Thirty-three percent of restaurant operators said their sales declined in May, unchanged from April.

Restaurant operators: Want to know how your business compares to similar restaurants on a monthly basis? Find out by taking a few minutes to participate in the National Restaurant Association’s Restaurant Industry Tracking Survey. All survey respondents receive exclusive access to the detailed survey results each month, broken out by industry segment and type of ownership.

In contrast to the positive sales results, customer traffic levels remained dampened in May. 

Twenty-nine percent of operators said their customer traffic rose between May 2025 and May 2026, up slightly from 27% in April. Forty-five percent of restaurant operators reported lower traffic in May, down from 49% in April. 

May represented the 15th time in the last 16 months that operators reported a net decline in customer traffic.

Track more economic indicators and read more analysis and commentary from the Association's economists.