Consumer
Olive Garden Owner Darden Seeing Lower-Income Diners Spend Less
- Bad January weather, consumer weakness led to dining pullback
- But Darden said households earning over $150,000 spending more
Customers enter an Olive Garden restaurant in Pittsburg, California.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Darden Restaurants Inc. is seeing lower-income consumers pull back, Chief Executive Officer Rick Cardenas said, depriving some of the company’s major brands a key revenue stream.
Transactions from households with incomes below $75,000 “were much lower than last year,” Cardenas said on a Thursday earnings call, saying the operating environment was “tougher than we anticipated” and one that affected the overall restaurant sector.