By Hayley Peterson From Business Insider

U.S. restaurant traffic has failed to recover from the slowdown of the recession.

Consumers made 61 billion visits to restaurants in the year ending May 2014, which is roughly 2 billion fewer visits than in 2008, according to data from The NPD Group, an industry research firm.

Traffic has remained relatively flat since 2010. Here’s a chart from NPD showing the trend over the last six years:

Restaurant traffic isn’t expected to pick up any time soon, according to NPD restaurant analyst Bonnie Riggs.

“The restaurant industry in total is forecast to grow less than .5% a year over the next decade,” she said.

Quick service restaurants, such as McDonald’s, and casual dining chains, such as Olive Garden and TGI Fridays, will suffer the most from the traffic slowdown, she said.

Fast casual restaurants, however — which include chains like Chipotle and Panera — will see traffic grow at a faster rate of about 2% per year, according to NPD’s estimates.

McDonald’s same-store sales in the U.S. fell 1.5% in the most recent quarter, the company reported Tuesday. By comparison, Chipotle’s same-store sales rose 17% in the second quarter.

Consumers perceive fast casual restaurants, which are often more expensive than quick service, as having healthier, better quality ingredients, Riggs said.

“When you deliver on consumers’ value expectations, price isn’t the issue,” she said.

IMAGES:

Olive Garden/Darden Restaurants

NPD restaurant dataThe NPD Group

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Related story:

Chipotle is experimenting with ‘really small, scrappy’ restaurants

By Hayley Peterson From Business Insider

Chipotle is testing a new restaurant layout with scarce room for seating.

The restaurants would primarily serve take-out orders, which now account for two-thirds of Chipotle transactions, up from 50% 14 years ago, according to Chipotle Chief Financial Officer Jack Hartung.

“We feel good about the idea of going out and building some really, really small scrappy restaurants and we will continue to experiment with that in the future,” Hartung said on an earnings call Monday.

He noted that the company has been scouting out locations for the new store formats in the U.S., England and France, specifically in places where real estate costs are high.

“I think that the seating component of what we do has become a little less important as more people know who we are and also we’re more comfortable with it now, now that the brand has been more established,” Hartung said. “So we aren’t as worried about — we aren’t as concerned about someone coming in and not getting ‘the full Chipotle dining experience’ or being part of the restaurant atmosphere.”

Chipotle has 1,681 restaurants in the U.S. and is planning to build up to 195 more this year. Hartung didn’t say how many smaller-format stores the company plans to build.

IMAGE: Interior of a Chipotle WikiMedia Commons

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