(Leesburg, VA) – GuestMetrics shipped out some stats this week for the first part of the year for the on-premise channel. Beer is still off to a rough start reflecting overall trends. More below…

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> Traffic trends: Traffic to on-premise started off the first 8 weeks of 2014 on a very weak note at -4.5% (-4.6% during 4 weeks thru 1/26/14 and -4.5% for 4 weeks thru 2/23/14), a concerning deterioration versus the -2.3% seen in 4Q13 and the -1.4% for overall 2013. The deterioration is almost certainly due to the unusually harsh weather conditions experienced over much of the United States over the past 10+ weeks, so key will be to see whether there’s any type of rebound from potential pent-up demand as we head into the warmer months. Looking at the specific channels, traffic to bars/clubs improved slightly in the past 4 weeks from -5.8% in the 4 weeks ending 1/26/14 to -4.1% during the 4-weeks ending 2/23/14 (but still weaker than the -3.6% in 4Q13 and -2.5% in 2013); traffic to casual dining improved very slightly from -5.1% in 4 weeks ending 1/26/14 to -4.7% in 4 weeks ending 2/23/14 (but still weaker than the -2.6% in 4Q13 and -1.8% in 2013); traffic to fine dining deteriorated from -2.1% in 4 weeks ending 1/26/14 to -3.5% in 4 weeks ending 2/23/14 (quite a bit weaker than the -0.6% in 4Q13 and +0.5% in 2013).

> Beer: Beer volumes improved slightly from the concerning -7.3% seen during the 4 weeks ending 1/26/14 to -5.6% in 4 weeks ending 2/23/14, but still quite a bit weaker than the -4.0% seen during 4Q13 and -3.6% during 2013, so the first 8 weeks of 2014 (at -6.4% volumes) are unfortunately a very weak start to 2014 for the beer category.