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Casual dining is beating fast food right now

The Week in Restaurants: This week’s episode of the restaurant news discussion podcast looks at the gap in performance between casual-dining and fast-food chains.

Casual-dining restaurants are outpacing fast-food chains again.

This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast The Week in Restaurants looks at the differing directions that casual-dining and fast-food chains are going in.

This has been a big earnings week. A bunch of limited-service restaurants have reported weak results, including KFC, Pizza Hut, Jack in the Box and Del Taco. McDonald’s sales were good until its Minecraft promotion ended. And Wendy’s and Sweetgreen just reported weak results. 

On the other hand, chains like Applebee’s, Olive Garden and BJ’s Restaurants, not to mention Chili’s, are doing well. 

We discuss why that is. In addition, Senior Tech Editor Joe Guszkowski talks ghost kitchens on Tech Check.

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