We began publishing our Kalinowski Restaurant Industry Index – a same-store sales index with all components consisting of publicly-traded restaurant concepts, weighted by those concepts’ domestic system sales – back in mid-2018, starting with an index number for Q2 2018. As of this writing, through the end of Q3 2025, we have published 30 index numbers ahead of these components publicly reporting their same-store sales results. In that context, it’s a reasonable question to ask: how has our index performed over time, relative to the eventual, publicly-reported results for the components?

The latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) data shows that prices for food-at-home (grocery stores and supermarkets) rose by +1.9% in November — sequentially down by a pretty big -80 basis points since September’s +2.7%. (Due to the recent government shutdown, data for October was not published.) This +1.9% number for November compares with price for food-away-from-home (restaurants) that increased by +3.7% year-over-year in November (sequentially the same as September’s +3.7%). This marks the 32nd month in a row for which restaurant pricing is outpacing grocery/supermarket pricing.