Tuesday January 6, 2026, 07:00:00
By Mark Kalinowski
With this report, we update our data-driven Kalinowski Family Dining Index for Q4 to down by -1.9%. Comparing to Q4 2019 levels — a pre-pandemic basis — the Kalinowski Family Dining Index for Q4 2025 is at +3.0%. This is the lowest such number of any major U.S. restaurant industry segment. Our latest numbers are based on our latest proprietary checks/data as regards same-store sales performance for this segment during October, November, and December.
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Monday January 5, 2026, 07:11:50
By Mark Kalinowski
In the past, we’ve sometimes remarked to buysiders that it wouldn’t be a bad investment strategy — when choosing between large-cap restaurant stocks McDonald’s and Yum Brands — to simply pick the one with the more attractive (i.e., lower) valuation. In that frame of mind, we published notes examining this simple strategy back on January 8, 2023, on January 7, 2024, and on January 6, 2025. With this note, we take an updated look at that approach as a possible simple investment strategy.
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Tuesday December 30, 2025, 07:00:00
By Mark Kalinowski
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?
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