Adjusting to the Move Away from Booze

This is not a news release you’re likely to have seen a decade ago: Daybreaker and FlavCity Are Throwing the Biggest Sober Dance Party in U.S. History. Back in the day, a “sober dance party” might have been considered an oxymoron. No more.

In recent years, Americans have been consuming less booze. Adding weight to anecdotal accounts of such changing behavior is the release of a recent, widely followed study from Gallup which found that the percentage of U.S. adults who say they consume alcohol has fallen to 54%, the lowest by 1 percentage point in the nearly 90 years the polling firm has followed that trend. “This coincides with a growing belief among Americans that moderate alcohol consumption is bad for one’s health, now the majority view for the first time,” the report notes.

Among the many businesses impacted by this trend are restaurants.  Eateries that sell alcohol “reap the benefits of big sales, big margins, and veto vote power,” Nation’s Restaurant News reported in the aftermath of the Gallup study’s release. “… But this cash cow is starting to slow down a bit and the trend could make a big dent in profits.”

NRN then went on to look at how several well-known chains are adjusting to lower demand for alcohol. Here’s what two of them had to say:

• Josh Kern, CEO of SPB Hospitality (operator of such chains as Logan’s Roadhouse and J. Alexander’s), said his company is “definitely feeling that alcohol consumption is down” and that its brands have started leaning more into non-alcoholic drinks. “Last year, this conversation was just getting started and now we’re adding mocktails to menus,” Kern said. “Now it’s at that next level.”
• Texas Roadhouse recently added a new beverage program that includes mocktails to make up for softer alcohol sales. During the company’s second quarter earnings call earlier this month, head of investor relations Michael Bailen said the negative mix pressure from alcohol is societal and not “Roadhouse-specific, and that’s what drove us partly to introduce mocktails.” He added those non-alcoholic beverages have generated a positive sales mix and have so far been well received by customers.

Click here for more from the Gallup study about how Americans’ alcohol consumption is decreasing.