Lila Margalit

How did Mother’s Day (May 12th, 2024) impact retail and dining foot traffic this year? We dove into the data to find out. 

The Hallmark Holiday

Urban legends notwithstanding, Mother’s Day wasn’t actually created by the greeting card industry. But the occasion hasn’t become known as the “Hallmark holiday” for nothing. Every year in the run-up to Mother’s Day, shoppers descend on the chain to purchase everything from cards to candy. 

Most years, the day before Mother’s Day is Hallmark’s busiest day of the year, with Super Saturday (the Saturday before Christmas) a not-so-close second. In 2023, Mother’s Day was edged out by Super Saturday, which converged with Christmas Eve Eve to create a pre-holiday shopping bonanza for the ages.

And this year is shaping up to be no different: On May 11th, 2024 (the day before Mother’s Day), Hallmark experienced a major visit spike – leaving all other Saturdays, including the Saturday before Easter, in the dust.

A Variety of Retail Categories Benefit From Mother’s Day

But greeting card retailers like Hallmark aren’t the only ones to benefit from Mother’s Day. A look at foot traffic to major industries on May 11th, 2024 shows that retailers across segments – from Home Improvement chains to Superstores – enjoy substantial visit boosts on the day before Mother’s Day. (Recreational & Sporting Goods, not so much).

For Home Improvement, Department Stores, Hobbies, Gifts & Crafts, and Clothing, May 11th, 2024 was the busiest day of the year so far, while for Discount & Dollar Stores and Superstores it was superseded only by March 30th – the day before Easter.

Going Out to Eat: Only the Best for Mom

While the day before Mother’s Day is an important retail milestone, Mother’s Day itself is an occasion for treating mom to a nice meal out. And though grabbing a bite at a fast food joint or fast-casual fave is lots of fun – it decidedly isn’t the Mother’s Day vibe. A special occasion calls for a splurge, and Mother’s Day is Full-Service Restaurants’ time to shine. 

On May 12th, 2024, Quick-Service and Fast-Casual Restaurants received about the same number of visits as on an average Sunday this year. But Full-Service Restaurants saw visits skyrocket – outperforming an average Sunday by 49.6%.

A Day for Olive Garden

And drilling down into the data for six of Mother’s Day’s busiest Full-Service Restaurant chains shows Olive Garden emerging as a major holiday winner – with 89.0% more visits on May 12th, 2024 than on an average Sunday this year. Olive Garden drew more visits this Mother’s Day than on any other day since the beginning of the year – with Valentine’s Day (February 14th, 2024) coming in a close second.

But the Italian-American cuisine giant certainly isn’t the only FSR to enjoy a substantial visit boost on the big day: Texas Roadhouse, Cracker Barrel General Store, Chili’s Grill & Bar, Applebee’s, and IHOP saw respective May 12th visit increases of 55.1%, 51.0%, 46.4%, 44.4%, and 29.3%, compared to an average Sunday.

Final Thoughts

Mother’s Day comes but once a year – and grateful offspring nationwide show their appreciation with gifts and celebratory meals, generating boons for businesses across categories. 

With Father’s Day right around the corner, what kind of impact will Dad’s big day have on retail and restaurant visits? Will Recreational & Sporting Goods brands have their day in the sun?

For more data-driven retail and dining insights, follow placer.ai.

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The Placer.ai Nationwide Office Building Index: The office building index analyzes foot traffic data from some 1,000 office buildings across the country. It only includes commercial office buildings, and commercial office buildings with retail offerings on the first floor (like an office building that might include a national coffee chain on the ground floor). It does NOT include mixed-use buildings that are both residential and commercial.

Recent survey data shows that while most people don’t want to go back to the office five days a week, they also don’t want to be fully remote. Many employees – and companies – prefer a middle-of-the-road approach that balances flexibility with opportunities for in-person engagement, learning, and collaboration. 

But what’s happening on the ground? We checked in with our Nationwide and regional Office Indexes to find out.

Office Visit Gap Continues to Narrow

Last month saw a continuation of the positive office recovery momentum observed in February and March 2024. April 2024 office visits were just 32.2% below what they were in the equivalent period of 2019 (pre-pandemic), and nearly the highest they’ve been since COVID. Comparing monthly visits to an April 2019 baseline also shows that April 2024 was outperformed only by August 2023 – a rare month featuring 23 business days. (April 2024 had 22 business days – as did April 2019). 

Miami, New York, Washington, D.C., Dallas, and Atlanta Outperform Nationwide Baseline

Drilling down into the data for major regional hubs shows Miami and New York solidifying their office recovery leads with respective pre-COVID visit gaps of just 14.0% and 16.9%. But these weren’t the only cities to shine: Washington, D.C., Dallas, and Atlanta also outperformed the nationwide baseline – and like Miami, experienced their single busiest in-office months since COVID.

San Francisco Wins Again

All the analyzed regional hubs saw significant YoY office visit growth – with the prize once again going to San Francisco, where visits were up 26.0%. Though San Francisco still lags significantly behind other regional hubs compared to pre-COVID, the city’s persistent YoY office visit growth may signal a light at the end of the Golden Gate City’s commercial real estate tunnel.

To be fair, April 2023 had two less business days than April 2024 – a fact that may have served to amplify YoY growth trends across the board. But even accounting for this discrepancy, last month’s strong office recovery was a particularly strong one – showing that RTO remains very much a work in progress.

Looking Ahead 

The benefits and drawbacks of remote work are still being debated. But no matter how you slice it, spending some time in the office each week seems to have its benefits. As companies and employees continue to negotiate the new hybrid status quo, office visit patterns will continue to shift nationwide. 

Follow Placer.ai for more data-driven office insights.

Dining took a hit over the past few years, with major challenges from COVID to rising costs weighing on the category. And perhaps no food-away-from-home segment was more impacted than Full Service Restaurants (FSR) – which stagnated as consumers traded down and sought out more affordable ways to treat themselves. 

But new years present new opportunities – and there are signs that sit-down restaurants may be springing back to life. So with 2024 underway, we dove into the data to explore the current state of FSR. Is cooling inflation prompting a rise in Full Service Restaurant activity? How did FSR leaders like Dine Brands (owner of casual dining favorites Applebee’s and IHOP), Bloomin’ Brands (owner of popular grill and steak chains like Outback Steakhouse and Carrabba’s Italian Grill along with high-end Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar), and Texas Roadhouse fare in Q1?

Restaurants To Dine For: Applebee’s and IHOP

With some 1500 locations nationwide, Applebee’s has long been a mainstay of the American casual dining scene. Like other FSR chains, Applebee’s experienced a setback during the pandemic and has since faced industry-wide headwinds. But even though the brand’s store fleet shrunk by around 30 stores last year, overall YoY visits to Applebee’s declined just slightly between October 2023 and February 2024 (January’s weather-driven slump aside). And in March, the chain saw a promising 3.8% YoY visit uptick.

Breakfast leader IHOP also experienced negative YoY visits in October and November 2023, but in December – when the pancake chain traditionally enjoys a major holiday boost – visits jumped 2.8% YoY. Like Applebee’s, IHOP felt the effects of January’s Arctic blast, but saw its visits recover quickly in February and March 2024.

Bloomin’s Grill and Steak Chains on a Comeback

Bloomin’ Brands’ leading casual dining chains Outback Steakhouse, Carrabba’s Italian Grill, and Bonefish Grill appear to be following largely similar trajectories. 

Though the brands experienced YoY visit gaps through most of Q3 2023 – and were whalloped by January’s inclement weather – all three chains experienced YoY visit increases in March 2024. Given the fact that the restaurants’ store counts didn’t change significantly last year, this visit growth appears to portend good things for Bloomin’s fast casual portfolio in the year ahead.

But it is Bloomin’ Brands’ fine dining concept, Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar, that really seems to be hitting it out of the park. While Fleming’s also saw visit gaps between October 2023 and January 2024, the chain experienced 9.6% and 7.5% visit growth, respectively, in February and March 2024 – closing out Q1 with a bang.

Fleming’s particularly robust recent performance may be due in part to its relatively affluent customer base. Nearly one-third of households in Fleming’s captured market have an annual income of $150K or more – compared to just 18.6% to 23.7% for Bloomin’s casual dining concepts. Though a night out at the fine-dining steakhouse can be expensive, Fleming’s well-heeled visitor base is better positioned to absorb price increases than other consumers.

Texas Roadhouse’s Sizzling Success

Appealing to affluent consumers, however, isn’t the only way to go. Texas Roadhouse is firmly in the casual dining space and tends to cater to average-income diners. (In Q1 2024, just 15.2% of its captured market had a household income ≥$150K.) But the steakhouse’s strategy of satisfying steak lovers with high-quality, affordable offerings is working: Throughout Q1, Texas Roadhouse experienced strongly positive YoY visit growth. And while some of this growth is attributable to the brand’s increasing unit count, the average number of visits per location is generally keeping pace – showing that Texas Roadhouse’s expansion continues to meet strong demand.

Poised for Further Growth

Though more affordable Dining segments like QSR and Fast Casual began to spring back to life last year, FSR has yet to fully recover from the double whammy of COVID and inflation. But if March 2024’s promising numbers are any indication, the category may be in for a turnaround. How will FSR continue to perform as 2024 progresses?

Follow Placer.ai’s Dining deep dives to find out.

Restaurants continue to face headwinds, from still-high food-away-from-home prices to rising labor costs. But despite these challenges, there are promising signs that the industry may be in for an upturn. And increasingly, chains are leaning into breakfast and late night offerings to maximize revenue and foster customer loyalty. 

So with Q1 2024 under our belts, we checked in with Wendy’s and Denny’s, two dining leaders with very different offerings in the breakfast space. How did they weather the first quarter of 2024 (pun intended)? And which dayparts experienced the biggest visit boosts in Q1? 

Key Takeaways

• After dipping in January, year-over-year (YoY) visits to Wendy’s and Denny’s picked up in February and March 2024 – driving a YoY increase in quarterly visits for both chains.
• For Wendy’s, the breakfast daypart experienced the biggest visit increase, followed by the 8:00 PM to 12:00 AM time slot.
• Denny’s, which famously offers breakfast 24 hours a day, saw the biggest YoY visit increases midday and during the late night hours.

A Strong Start to the Year

After a tough Q4 2023 – and a January 2024 dragged down by cold and stormy weather – YoY visits to Wendy’s and Denny’s began to pick up in February and March 2024. And even accounting for January’s Arctic blast, Wendy’s and Denny’s came out ahead on a quarterly basis, with YoY visits up 0.7% and 1.0% respectively.

Wendy’s Ups its Breakfast and Nighttime Game

Wendy’s first launched its breakfast menu in March 2020, just before COVID sent the dining industry into a tailspin. But despite a rocky start, Wendy’s doubled down on the morning daypart, continually tweaking its breakfast offerings and investing ad dollars to boost breakfast sales. 

Drilling down into hourly visit data shows that this strategy is paying off. Visits to Wendy’s during the morning daypart (between 6:00 AM and 11:00 AM) jumped 9.3% in Q1 2024 compared to Q1 2023. The chain’s nighttime daypart – which the burger giant began advertising in 2023 for the first time in four years – also saw a YoY boost. Meanwhile, Wendy’s traditional lunch and dinner time slots held steady, with just minor quarterly visit gaps, indicating that the chain’s overall YoY visit growth in Q1 was driven by its breakfast and nighttime push.

Denny’s Anytime Breakfast Drives Lunch Time and Late Night Visits

Denny’s has always been all about breakfast. And with some 75.0% of Denny’s locations open 24/7 (even on Christmas), hungry diners frequent the chain day and night to satisfy their cravings for hash browns, eggs, pancakes, and other breakfast favorites. 

Unsurprisingly, the chain gets most of its visits in the morning and early afternoon. But in Q1 2024, it was the late night daypart that experienced the biggest YoY visit bump – perhaps driven in part by Denny’s push last year to increase the number of locations open in the wee hours. 

But Denny’s busiest time slot, between 11:00 AM and 3:00 PM, also experienced a YoY visit increase – showing that even as the chain cements its role as a go-to nighttime destination, it continues to face healthy demand during more traditional dining dayparts.

The Most Important Meal(s) of the Day

Breakfast and late night dining offerings have emerged as important drivers of dining success. How will these dayparts continue to fare as the year wears on? And which other brands will make inroads into the breakfast and nighttime dining game?

Follow Placer.ai’s data-driven dining analyses to find out. 

Amid the economic headwinds that plagued the wider dining industry in 2022 and 2023, the QSR and Fast Casual segments offered price-conscious consumers places to treat themselves to affordable indulgences and grab quick meals on the go. 

Many of the major chains in this space – including Burger King, Popeyes, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and KFC – are brands owned by Restaurant Brands International (RBI) or Yum! Brands. How are these players faring in 2024? 

We dove into the data to find out.

Key Takeaways

• RBI’s Popeyes and Tim Hortons experienced positive quarterly visit growth in Q1 2024, 
• Quarterly traffic numbers for RBI’s Burger King held steady, even as rightsizing efforts boosted the chain’s average number of visits per venue. Firehouse Subs, for its part,  was significantly impacted by January’s inclement weather – but rallied in February and March with YoY visit growth.
• YUM! Brand’s Pizza Hut and Taco Bell also enjoyed positive visit growth in Q1 2024.
• Both RBI and YUM! Brands are finding success with promotions and limited time offerings: Pizza Hut drew huge numbers of fans on Super Bowl Sunday, while Firehouse Subs drove visits with its leap day special.

RBI Chains Enjoy Mostly Positive Visit Growth

Restaurant Brands International, Inc. owns three leading QSR banners – Burger King, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, and Tim Hortons – as well as Fast Casual chain Firehouse Subs. And since December 2023, all four chains have experienced mainly-positive year-over-year monthly (YoY) foot traffic growth – with the stark exception of January 2024, when unusually cold weather caused overall dining visits to dip.

The January Arctic Blast did not impact all RBI brands equally: Coffee favorite Tim Horton managed to maintain positive visit growth throughout the first month of the year, perhaps thanks to the chain’s emphasis on hot drinks. On the other hand, YoY visits to Firehouse Subs dropped 8.8% in January 2024 – so although the traffic picked back up in February and March, the brand still finished out Q1 2024 with a minor YoY quarterly visit gap.

Popeyes, for its part, enjoyed a 4.4% quarterly visit bump in Q1 2024, fueled in part by the chain’s fleet expansion. And though Burger King ended the quarter with just a slight overall quarterly visit increase (0.3%), this is likely a reflection of the chain’s rightsizing efforts: In Q1 2024, the average number of visits to each of the chain’s venues increased by 4.3%.

YUM! Brand’s Largest Banners Poised to Thrive

Yum! Brands also owns three major fast food chains – Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and KFC – in addition to Fast Casual The Habit Burger Grill. And though KFC – which has been focusing on international expansion – maintained a Q1 2024 YoY visit gap, quarterly visits to YUM!’s two biggest QSR banners, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, were up 4.3% and 3.8%, respectively.

Making the Most of Super Bowl and Leap Day

Neither RBI nor YUM! banners are resting on their laurels. Banners at both companies are finding creative ways to drive business, leaning into limited time offers (LTOs) to help customers mark special occasions.

RBI’s Firehouse Subs celebrated leap day – Thursday, February 29th, 2024 – with a special 2-for-1 LTO for customers whose names start with the letters L, E, A, or P. The day of the promotion was the restaurant’s single busiest Thursday between March 2023 and March 2024: Visits were up 21.5% compared to an average Thursday, and about 6.0% compared to an average Friday or Saturday (Firehouse Sub’s two busiest days of the week).

Super Bowl Sunday came this year just two days after National Pizza Day – and YUM!’s Pizza Hut enticed hungry viewers with crowd-pleasing limited time menu offerings. Although many football fans likely ordered their grub online, February 11th, 2024 was still the chain’s busiest day of the past year – with visits up 47.5% compared to a daily average. In the Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise, NV CBSA, which hosted Super Bowl LVIII, Pizza Hut’s big-day visit spike was an even more impressive 74.1%. 

Final Thoughts

Inflation may have cooled, but food-away-from-home prices remain high – and are likely to continue to increase this year. Against this backdrop, companies like RBI and YUM! that offer hungry consumers affordable ways to fill up and have fun appear poised for success. 

Follow Placer.ai for more data-driven dining insights.

This blog includes data from Placer.ai Data Version 2.0, which implements improvements to our extrapolation capabilities, adds short visit monitoring, and enhances visit detection. ‍

The Placer.ai Nationwide Office Building Index: The office building index analyzes foot traffic data from some 1,000 office buildings across the country. It only includes commercial office buildings, and commercial office buildings with retail offerings on the first floor (like an office building that might include a national coffee chain on the ground floor). It does NOT include mixed-use buildings that are both residential and commercial.

Is return-to-office picking up steam? 

Last month, location intelligence indicated that the office recovery needle was starting to move once again. Whether due to stricter corporate mandates – especially in the finance sector – or to employees seeking to reap the rewards of in-person collaboration and mentoring, office activity appeared to be on an upswing.

But what’s happened since then? Has the momentum worn off, or is RTO still trending on the ground? 

Key Takeaways

• In March 2024, nationwide office visits were just 32.7% below March 2019 levels – and higher than nearly every other month since COVID. 
• Miami and New York held onto their regional post-pandemic recovery leads, with impressively small respective visit gaps (compared to March 2019) of 14.1% and 17.2%.
• Though San Francisco still had the biggest visit gap versus Pre-COVID (~50.0%), the city continued to lead other major hubs in year-over-year (YoY) office visit growth – perhaps reflecting the upswing in demand for office space that has observers bullish about local market prospects.

Office Visits Trending Upwards

Hybrid work may be here to stay – but the situation on the ground remains very much in flux. Last month, office visits nationwide were just 32.7% below what they were in March 2019 (pre-pandemic). This represents a significant narrowing of the visit gap in relation to March 2022 and March 2023 – when visits were down 48.2% and 36.3%, respectively.

And comparing monthly visits to a March 2022 baseline shows that visits last month were among the highest they’ve been since COVID. Only August 2023 (which had two more working days than March) and October 2023 featured higher visitation rates.

Miami and New York Continue to Lead The Recovery 

Drilling down into the data for eleven major cities nationwide shows that Miami and New York are holding firmly onto their regional RTO leads – with less than a 20% visit gap compared to pre-pandemic levels. And RTO appears likely to continue apace in both cities, driven by tech companies in Miami and finance firms in the Big Apple. Indeed, in Miami, visits to office buildings in March 2024 were the highest they’ve been in four years. Washington, D.C., Dallas, Atlanta, and Denver also outperformed the nationwide baseline compared to pre-COVID, while Chicago, Boston, Houston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco lagged behind.

A San Francisco Turnaround?

But despite bringing up the rear for overall post-COVID office recovery, San Francisco has been experiencing outsize YoY office visit growth for some time now. And in March 2024, the city continued to lead the regional YoY visit recovery pack – tied for first place with Washington, D.C.

Given San Francisco’s stubbornly large post-COVID visit gap, it may come as no surprise that the city’s office vacancy rate is higher than it’s ever been. But demand for office space in San Francisco is back on the rise, leading market observers to conclude that bright times may be ahead for the local market. 

San Francisco’s strong YoY office visit performance may be a reflection of this increased demand, providing another sign of good things to come in the Golden Gate city.  

A Work (Still) in Progress

Remote work carries plenty of benefits, but a variety of factors – from Gen Z work-from-home fatigue to the better wages and opportunities available to on-site employees – are driving increased office attendance. And if March 2024 data is any indication, further shifts in the RTO/WFH balance may yet be in the cards. 

For more data-driven return-to-office updates, follow Placer.ai.

This blog includes data from Placer.ai Data Version 2.0, which implements improvements to our extrapolation capabilities, adds short visit monitoring, and enhances visit detection. ‍