Restaurant Chains Struggling To Survive Despite Record Economy, Food Spending

For the U.S. restaurant business, 2020 has already started with a bang, or rather, a crash.

Within days of each other, the parent companies of three sit-down chain restaurants, Bar Louie, Bakers Square and Village Inn, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Food service is a notoriously volatile industry, so these bankruptcies, along with other recent bankruptcies and closures of sit-down chains, could simply reflect industry churn. But industry experts say deeper changes in the industry are also impacting chains, leaving them even less room for error as they struggle to grow or even survive...

...Not only are Americans spending more food money away from home, they are more sophisticated when it comes to dining out than previous generations...