Sales crunch: Takings at Frankie & Benny’s owner suffer the chills in first quarter

Sales at Frankie& Benny’ s owner The Restaurant Group were chilled by the win try weather in the first quarter as t he casual dining sector continues to suffer from a slowdown in consumer spend- ing. The company, which also owns brands including Garfunkel’ s, Joe’ s Kitchen and Chi quito, booked a 4.3 per cent fall in like- for- like sales in the 20 weeks to 20 May. Total revenue dropped 3.1 per cent at the group. It said: “Trading in the period was heavily impacted by the adverse weather and on an underlying basis, excluding the impact of snow, like - for- like sales were down 3.1 per cent.”