Takeout and dining out has never been so popular – how U.S. restaurants survived and now thrive
It’s been a crazy year and a half for the restaurant business, but many of the companies that survived are starting to thrive.
Take Darden Restaurants
DRI,
+2.26%,
owner of the popular chains Olive Garden and Longhorn Steakhouse.
Sales at Darden sank 43% to $1.27 billion in the three months that ran from March to May 2020, when the pandemic shut down much of the U.S. economy. Fast forward one year later and quarterly sales have bounced back strongly to $2.28 billion.
“Olive Garden broke its all-time single day sales record on Mother’s Day,” Chief Operating Office Rick Cardenas told Wall Street analysts on a conference call to discuss the company’s most recent financial results.
Darden stock has experienced a similarly harrowing whipsaw. Shares nosedived to $39 from $121 in the first month of the pandemic, but it recently touched an all-time high of $145.
The scene is playing out across the…
