The outlook for the restaurant industry grew more optimistic in recent months, as the National Restaurant Association’s comprehensive index of restaurant activity registered its fourth consecutive monthly gain in April.

The Association’s Restaurant Performance Index (RPI) — a monthly composite index that tracks the health of and outlook for the U anchor.S. restaurant industry — stood at 98.6 in April, up 0.8 percent from March, its highest level in 11 months.

A month after Gov. David A. Paterson dropped his proposal for a soda tax, New York City’s health commissioner has written an article advocating “hefty” taxes on sodas and sports drinks containing sugar. Such a tax, the article said, could be the biggest boon to public health since tobacco taxes.

The President of the American Beverage Association issued a statement on Wednesday responding to the article: “We agree that obesity is a serious and complex problem. It defies both science and common sense, however, to think singling out one product as a unique contributor to obesity will make a dent in the problem.” They dispute the link between sugar-laden drinks and obesity, saying that soft drink sales have been declining for much of this decade, as obesity rates have been rising.

Director of Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, says that based on experience with tobacco taxes, a soda tax would be “highly effective” in reducing the $79 billion in annual health care costs associated with obesity and overweight across the country.

Now consumers are cutting back, and dining out is among the casualties. Finer restaurant chains have been hit hard, and so have the casual sit-down places that flooded suburban shopping centers and tourist districts across the country, aimed straight at middle American tastes.

A few chains have boarded up already. Many others are going into survival mode, trying to renegotiate their loans, cutting staff, offering bargains to customers and closing less profitable restaurants. Analysts predict thousands more restaurants could close in the next year or two.

Are you in compliance? PayMaster Pro’s payroll program enforces all minimum wage rules and correctly calculates overtime for tipped employees even when they work multiple jobs.

1. Assign not the job of the hostess to the unworthy.
2. Prepare for guests a pleasant table.
3. Honor thy regulars.
4. Work well the service fundamentals.
5. Hearken to thy feedback.
6. Rethink thy wine list.
7. Retainest thou thy trained employees.
8. Expand thy horizons beyond the dining room.
9. Make flexibility thy watchword.
10. Work today with an eye on tomorrow.

“The immediate response has to be, rip it off the menu,” said Johnny Iuzzini, pastry chef at Jean Georges, who checked the Food and Drug Administration’s Web site daily until the restaurant’s Bronx-based nut supplier, Bazzini, was completely cleared.

Hundreds of products containing peanut butter have been recalled, all of them involving the products of the Peanut Corporation of America. All the major supermarket brands of peanut butter have been cleared of any contamination.

Records show peanut plant president complained about delays caused by contamination reports.

WASHINGTON — As salmonella illness began spreading across the country in the fall, the owner of a Georgia peanut company that was causing the outbreak railed against the cost and delays that the contamination was causing his businesses, according to internal company documents obtained by Congress.

Stewart Parnell, president of the Peanut Corporation of America, also pressed federal regulators to allow him to continue using peanuts from the tainted plant and shipped products to customers with a homemade certificate that falsely attested to their purity

As disposable incomes shrink and savings plummet, residents across the region say there are still some luxuries they won’t let go of, no matter how bad it gets. They might be clipping coupons, joining warehouse clubs and carpooling, but they’re still willing to spend their hard-earned cash on one non-negotiable something — be it gourmet hot chocolate, cigars, pricey bottled water or a ski trip out West — that soothes the spirit. In about 75 interviews, residents said the prospect of money spent on friends, family or for a small boost to their well-being is worth it.

U.S. restaurants are enduring their toughest time in 17 years as tight credit and falling home prices compel consumers to eat out less or spend less when they do, a National Restaurant Association economist said on Wednesday.

“This is the most challenging environment for restaurant operators since 1991,” Hudson Riehle, NRA chief economist, told Reuters. “Depending on how consumer spending proceeds in the fourth quarter, it could be the most challenging environment since the early 1980s.”

Using retail sales data released early on Wednesday, Hudson put restaurant sales growth at about 4.2 percent for the first nine months of 2008. But, when higher wholesale food costs are taken out, he said the industry’s growth is flat.

“Restaurant spending in 2008 is definitely weaker than it was in 2001, the last recessionary period. The previous weakest year was 1991 for the industry, when real sales growth actually declined by .2 percent,” he said.

So far in 2008, consumers are still spending about half of their food budget at restaurants, however it appears that spending has been at lower-cost restaurants.

“The lower the average check of the operation, the slightly more optimistic those operators are,” said Riehle.

“Quick service restaurants, which have a lower average check, in general those operators tend to be somewhat more optimistic than higher average check operations,” he said.

Reducing the glut. With way too many restaurants serving far too few customers, at least 1,000 casual dining units will close over the next 12 months — helping to lessen the glut of casual dining spots, says Ron Paul, president at researcher Technomic. “In the eyes of consumers, these restaurants are the same. There are too many. They are too similar. And their prices got out of whack.”

Stand out. Casual dining’s long-term problem is one that vexes all companies as they age: how to stay fresh, while offering a unique draw to which no one else in the category can lay claim. Such as Cheesecake Factory’s giant portions. Outback’s high-quality steaks. Olive Garden’s Tuscan-like ambience. And Seasons 52’s bite-size desserts. “Each concept must stand for something unique to survive,” says Christopher Muller, an industry consultant.

Lower prices. More than anything, high prices are what rile USA TODAY readers. “The prices used to be reasonable, so you could go out more often,” says Marcia Lafferman of Paradise, Calif. Now, she says, casual dining prices have crept so high, she’s stopped going. To save money, Brace Cain, an events planner from Atlanta, stopped going to casual dining spots for dinner but goes at lunch, when prices are lower.

Fix the food. Casual dining’s takeoff 20 years ago was driven a lot by the fact that the food quality far exceeded fast-food offerings — but the prices did not. Fast food’s quality has gone way up, but the prices have risen relatively slowly.  At the same time, casual dining’s food quality and innovation stagnated, even as its prices kept creeping up, he says.

Improve service. Slow service and discourteous staff have given casual dining a black eye. Lengthy waits for meals “don’t reflect how Americans eat,”

Spiff up stores. “We have an entire industry of 20-year-old locations,” says Marc Buehler, CEO of Lone Star Steakhouse. “They need more than a coat of paint.”

Get kid-friendly. Families are a big part of casual dining’s business, and for many parents, what matters most is how happy their hungry kids are. Looking for casual dining spots to be more kid-friendly, she wonders if they could install kid playgrounds. Or maybe they could lend kids handheld video games at the same time parents are handed those electronic pagers.

Restaurants, now working to secure supply and price contracts for meat and other commodities for the upcoming year, are expecting big increases in food costs – increases that will likely lead to menu changes and price hikes.

Some chains are already adjusting their menus to reflect current high costs for both beef and chicken. CKE Restaurants Inc., which operates the Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. chains, stopped offering Double Cheeseburgers in its 2 for $3 promotion at the end of August and replaced them with Jumbo Chili Dogs and Hot Ham ‘N’ Cheese Sandwiches to avoid selling pricey beef at a lower price.

Even fast-food leader McDonald’s Corp. is considering making some changes to its popular dollar menu – either by changing the items on the menu or bumping up prices – saying the cost of selling meat at such low prices might be too high.

The decision to raise prices or change menus could have some harsh repercussions, especially because more diners are already eating at home to avoid pricey restaurant food. With the stock market dropping and consumers questioning whether their retirement savings will be available when the time comes, paying more for a meal out may be even harder to stomach.

But for restaurateurs, there may not be much of a choice.

“This is the most challenging environment for restaurant operators regarding food price inflation on the wholesale level for almost 30 years,” said Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of research at the National Restaurant Association.

Riehle said wholesale food prices have jumped 8.7 percent year-to-date through August. That’s on top of a 7.6 percent increase in 2007.

Restaurants typically either pay for their meat on the spot market, which can be volatile because prices are based on supply and demand, or they negotiate longer-term contracts with suppliers that set the price.

Part of the problem stems from protein producers’ plans to cut back on production in the next year to avoid paying more for animal feed, which has been a huge weight on profits as the cost of corn has skyrocket. Beef producers cut supply by slaughtering more animals, which sends more product to market initially but reduces the size of herds to lower future inventory levels. Chicken producers, meanwhile, set fewer eggs to hatch.

To offset the costs, some restaurants are already planning price increases.

Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. has said it will raise its prices in its fourth quarter to offset an expected 7 percent to 10 percent rise in food costs next year. McCormick & Schmick’s Seafood Restaurants Inc. has also said it will boost its prices due to higher commodity costs.