I once did a project looking at trends in auto sales at big outdoor lots depending on the weather. Not surprisingly, rainy and snowy days cut sales at those lots, especially on weekends. Even if the weather was good the next week, the sales never quite came back. Here is a new study described in Pizza Marketplace which discusses how weather impacts visits to various types of restaurants based on data from FourSquare linked with weather data by Accuweather. Some of the more surprising findings:
- QSRs are typically less impacted by weather than casual dining venues.
- In the fall, rain has only a minimal influence on restaurant traffic.
- Very hot days align with some of the best traffic in barbecue and seafood brands.
- Coffee shop brands see slightly more traffic on very hot days, but less when it rains, snows or get really cold.
- New York diners are influenced the most by heavy rain vis-à-vis eating out.
