Credit card swipe fees, delivery platform commissions, and immigration enforcement aren't background noise. They are active line items eating into your margins right now, and the industry groups fighting these battles in 2026 need to know you're behind them. Find your state restaurant association, make sure you're a member, and respond when they ask you to contact your rep. The operators who shape these outcomes are the ones who show up.
Beef is up 16% year-over-year and nobody in Washington has a fix that lands on your cutting board this week. Whatever happens with tariffs, your protein costs are already a problem you have to solve on your own. Look at your beef-heavy menu items right now, price them against your actual current cost, and decide which ones earn their place and which ones you're running out of habit.
Traffic is down 2.3% across the industry, and fuel costs are part of the reason people are making fewer trips. The part worth paying attention to is that some operators are holding their numbers, which means this is not a universal problem. It is a competitive problem. Look at your last four weeks of cover counts and find out whether your traffic is tracking the industry average or doing worse. If it's worse, the answer isn't in the economy. It's in your value proposition.
If you're in California and you sell gift cards, as of April 1, 2026, any balance under $15 has to be redeemable for cash on request. That changes your redemption liability and could affect how you structure gift card promotions going forward. Pull your current gift card program terms, talk to whoever manages your point-of-sale redemptions, and make sure your staff knows the rule before a guest asks and gets the wrong answer. ---