Spend on food and drink in outlets run by 22 of the UK's major pub and restaurant operators dropped 6 per cent in May compared with April while like-for-like sales dropped 0.3 per cent.
Peter Martin of Peach Factory said May's poorer weather and the post-Easter and Royal Wedding hangover would have inevitably 'played their part' in the drop in sales, but was nevertheless disappointed by the negative dip.
"It marks the first month this year which has seen a fall in eating and drinking out sales, albeit a marginal one," he said.
Tough trading
Restaurant and pub operators had a positive start to 2011 with like-for-like sales up 10.7 per cent in January and sales continuing to rise slowly throughout the spring. However, operators are warned to expect a difficult year following May's figures.
Richard Hathaway, head of travel, leisure and tourism at KPMG said: “Broadly flat like for likes are indeed relatively sound in the context of recent retail numbers, but they also show that trading remains tough – it’s difficult to see strong sustained growth for the rest of 2011 from all but the top operators and hottest brands.”
Better than retail
Despite the drop, compared with figures from the British Retail Consortium and KPMG's Retail Sales Monitor, the eating out sector is performing better than retail. Sales in that sector were 2.1 per cent lower on a like-for-like basis in May, with total sales down 0.3 per cent.
“The good news is that if eating and drinking out are a better barometer of consumer confidence than retail, then the country is perhaps in better spirits than many think,” said Martin.
Mark Sheehan, managing director of Coffer Corporate Leisure, who compiles the tracker with Peach, KPMG and UBS, said: "“The May figures still demonstrate that eating and drinking out numbers are holding up relatively well despite overall weakness in consumer spending."