Restaurants all over the country are beginning to see signs of a potential recovery after a dismal 2009. Sales at some restaurants have risen in the last few months, and the industry has hired thousands of additional workers. “There’s no question about this,” said Harry Balzer, chief industry analyst at the NPD Group, a market research firm that tracks sales at 47 restaurant chains with a total of 103,000 outlets. “There’s a recovery going on.” Mr. Balzer said that March sales at restaurants open for at least a year were up 1 percent compared with March of last year. While that might not seem like much, it broke a string of 10 months of negative sales. He cautioned that while the sales trends were uneven across the industry, almost half the chains he tracks — mostly fast-food and family dining restaurants like Denny’s — had begun showing gains. (more…)

After spending 10 days in the Bay area I was really struck by the number of 20-somethings (or younger) carrying reusable water bottles in a personal act of going green. Wherever I looked — on the streets of the city, on the slopes in Tahoe, or at the field of a local lacrosse game — colorful refillable bottles were everywhere.  The city of Portland is making a huge commitment to this initiative by offering access to tap water in 52 locations. Clearly this is a trend that shows no signs of abating on the west coast and who knows how far it will travel. Good news for manufacturers of the bottles but not so much for companies like Coca-Cola who manufactures Dasani (plant based bottle or not). Still, I am not certain reusable bottles will translate well throughout the country — especially in a city like Atlanta that has really awful tasting tap water. (more…)