Restaurants heading south

Some of us have been marveling at the way travel and restaurants appear to be showing no signs of the recession. How can so many people be eating out and going to Vegas if things are so bad? One explanation has been a “whistling past the graveyard” approach that denied reality—until it caught up. Well, perhaps things are catching up.

Yesterday, new unemployment numbers were bad, and the consumer confidence numbers were worse. Today, we have this news from the restaurant industry that for the first time in five months, the index of restaurant activity is down (Business Insider). Once the reality of the bad economy starts to hang on Obama, his already sagging poll numbers will start to look like President Bush’s.