Most Restaurants Still Spending on Equipment Even as Customer Traffic Issues Persist

The restaurant industry experienced a moderate decline in September as operators reported negative customer traffic for the eighth consecutive month.

The number of operators reporting a year-over-year customer traffic decrease rose from 42 percent in August to 52 percent in September, according to the National Restaurant Association’s monthly Restaurant Performance Index (RPI). With fewer customers coming through their doors, only 34 percent of operators expect higher sales in six months. Still, more operators than not are seeing a sales increase. Forty-five percent of respondents said their same-store sales rose between September 2024 and September 2025, compared with 44 percent who noted a sales decline — roughly in line with the readings for August.

Those dampened results led to a 0.4 percent decrease in the overall RPI for September, falling to a level of 99.4, the lowest reading since March. The index is designed so that any number below 100 indicates a period of contraction for the industry, while a number above 100 signals expansion.

Despite the challenging conditions, spending on equipment purchases and other capital expenditures appears resilient. Fifty-two percent of operators said they made a capital expenditure in the past three months, marking the fourth consecutive month above 50 percent. Looking ahead, 51 percent of operators plan to make a capital expenditure during the next six months, representing the sixth consecutive month where a majority of operators planned for capital spending.

The full RPI report for September is available here.