What we learned about local restaurant sales in New York

New York is the 19th-ranked state for average restaurant revenues in the United States, pulling in 1% more in daily revenue than the national average on a given day.

How much do restaurants in New York make on an average day?

On a given day, restaurants in New York brought in $1,280 in revenue. The average restaurant also processed about 39 transactions each day while seeing customers spend an average of $33.20 per ticket.

Sales Revenue	Transactions	Ticket Size
$1,280	39	$33.16
National Rank: 19	National Rank: 30	National Rank: 6

 

How much do local restaurants in New York make each week?

Weekends are big for restaurants across the country, and things were no different in the Empire State, with 55% of all revenue coming in between Friday and Sunday.

Saturday was the biggest day of the week, accounting for 20% of all local restaurant revenue. Monday was the lowest performing day of the week, accounting for 10% of all revenue.

 

Friday was the busiest day of the week in terms of foot traffic, with New York restaurants processing an average of 47 transactions per day.

New Yorkers open their pocketbooks the most on Saturdays, spending $40.47 per ticket on average. Which is 22% more than the average ticket throughout the week.

 

 

How much does the average restaurant in New York make in a year?

Restaurants in New York, like most restaurants across the country, saw very little change in month to month revenue throughout the year.

 

Top 5 days for New York restaurants

Mother's Day weekend was responsible for the top two days in New York, with Cinco de Mayo and big weekends in April all appearing in the top five.

#1	#2	#3	#4	#5
5/13/18 Mother's Day	5/12/18 Day before Mother's Day	5/5/18 Cinco de Mayo	4/21/18	4/28/18
Sunday	Saturday	Saturday	Saturday	Saturday

 

New York restaurants on prominent days

Restaurants look to events and holidays to generate big sales for their business. Here’s how prominent days rank compared to the average day.

	Day rank based on total sales			How much did restaurants that were open make?
Day	Day Rank	Total rev vs avg	% of restaurants open	Avg rev	Rev vs avg	Avg txns	Txns vs avg	Avg ticket	Ticket vs avg
New Year's Day	343	-41%	55%	$1,192	-7%	29	-24%	$40.60	22%
Super Bowl Sunday	242	-18%	76%	$1,206	-6%	33	-14%	$36.49	10%
Valentine's Day	94	22%	88%	$1,545	21%	42	8%	$36.93	11%
President's Day	320	-35%	74%	$973	-24%	32	-16%	$30.10	-9%
St. Patrick's Day	19	51%	89%	$1,880	47%	47	23%	$39.66	20%
Saturday before Easter	73	36%	89%	$1,690	32%	43	11%	$39.48	19%
Easter Sunday	168	-1%	60%	$1,840	44%	35	-9%	$52.47	58%
Cinco de Mayo	3	64%	94%	$1,941	52%	49	26%	$39.90	20%
Day before Mother's Day	2	70%	95%	$1,992	56%	46	18%	$43.72	32%
Mother's Day	1	81%	85%	$2,362	84%	42	8%	$56.43	70%
Memorial Day	283	-26%	65%	$1,272	-1%	36	-6%	$35.04	6%
Day before Father's Day	14	52%	96%	$1,771	38%	43	12%	$41.03	24%
Father's Day	61	39%	86%	$1,801	41%	39	2%	$45.68	38%
4th of July	310	-32%	55%	$1,363	6%	39	1%	$35.05	6%
Labor Day	263	-23%	62%	$1,395	9%	39	1%	$35.74	8%
Halloween	199	-8%	88%	$1,168	-9%	40	4%	$29.22	-12%
Veteran's Day	129	10%	78%	$1,566	22%	40	4%	$39.20	18%
Thanksgiving	363	-55%	37%	$1,371	7%	30	-23%	$46.32	40%
Black Friday	192	-7%	78%	$1,330	4%	33	-15%	$40.49	22%
Saturday before Christmas	74	36%	82%	$1,832	43%	42	9%	$43.36	31%
Christmas Eve	203	-9%	68%	$1,502	17%	30	-23%	$50.33	52%
Christmas Day	365	-70%	25%	$1,342	5%	28	-28%	$48.57	46%
New Year's Eve	120	12%	74%	$1,683	31%	37	-5%	$45.78	38%

Tips and ideas from the New York Restaurant Association

Melissa Autilio Fleischut, President and CEO of the New York State Restaurant Association, gives the following advice to New York restaurant owners:

"Keeping up to date on market trends, understanding the environment and evaluating competing restaurants are imperative to succeeding in our incredibly competitive industry, particularly in New York. Market data provides restaurateurs with essential insights into current and upcoming trends, as well as common industry challenges and successes. Arming themselves with this information will assist restaurant owners in staying relevant and competitive. Beyond that, the insight provided from research on customer satisfaction is invaluable. Understanding changing customer needs and wants enables restaurateurs to make necessary adjustments to improve the customer experience.

Restaurants big and small are already fighting an uphill battle against shifting business climates and regulations that make it difficult to open and operate successful restaurants. If restaurants have access to this critical information it can give them an advantage and allow them to strengthen their business plans."

Utilizing this data to identify common industry issues and comparing them to your restaurant and anecdotal information will help to provide an understanding of the current limitations restaurants are faced with. Understanding these limitations allows restaurateurs to identify effective solutions. Ultimately, this research equips restaurateurs with critical industry information while also helping them to prepare for both their restaurant’s and the industry’s futures."

Methodology

Womply analyzed daily revenue for 42,223 restaurants in all 50 states, including New York, as well as the District of Columbia for all 365 days of the 2018 calendar year. Restaurants were only qualified for the analysis if they qualified as small businesses, Womply had a full year of transaction history, and the business recorded multiple transactions per day, on average.