Restaurant sales and traffic challenges were a huge story in 2025.

This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive takes a look at the most popular episodes of the year.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, each of them dealt with the challenged industry environment. We spoke with Circana’s David Portalatin about consumers buying on a deal. We spoke multiple times with Technomic’s Rich Shank about the state of the restaurant industry.

We also spoke with National Restaurant Association Chief Economist Chad Moutray about the impact this is having on profitability.

And we wrap it up with Savory Fund Cofounder Andrew Smith on what private equity thinks of all this, specifically why this can be a good time to find high-quality chains.