From coast to coast, Valentine’s Day restaurant performance has been growing exponentially since 2010. Avero restaurant software data shows that 2014 was no expception, with YOY gross sales up 27.9% in Miami, 19.8% in Los Angeles, 15.1% in Philadelphia, 7.2% in New York and 3.9% in Boston compared to 2013. Some claim that Valentine’s Day taking place on a Friday this year meant more people went out on the actual day as opposed to spreading it out across the week and weekend, but Avero wanted to take a closer look at the specifics.
Across all restaurant menu categories, wine and dessert sales were the largest contributor to sales growth YOY. The performance varied from city to city slightly, but overall there was an upward trend in both categories for the last 4 years. Avero’s recent analysis of restaurant dining trends shows that specialty seasonal cocktails, creative sourcing for wine lists and thoughful beverage packaging overall is a signifcant trend in the industry, and these beverage trends definitely support the strong growth of wine sales.
Wine sales spiked most significantly in Miami and Philadelpia with an increase of 46.9% and 18.7%, respectively. A separate analysis Avero performed in late 2013 shows Miami as having one of the largest growths of beverage sales YOY across several major U.S. Cities. Boston and New York were not far behind with gross wine sales increasing 11.6% and 7.1%, respectively.
Valentine’s Day is a holiday of decadance, and the numbers back this up — dessert sales show similarly strong performance over the last four years. Los Angeles and Miami took the lead with gross dessert sales increasing 13.6% and 19.5%, respectively, and New York and Philadelphia had noticable increases as well with 1.2% and 8.6%, respectively.
Read more of Avero’s restaurant sales analyses.
