For months, we’ve been trying to articulate the general state of the restaurant industry and its consumers, and it’s all been a bit dizzying if we're being honest. To nutshell, operators were desperate for optimism in the latter part of 2022 as they continued to manage historically high inflation and labor shortages, and as nearly every crystal ball showed a recession manifesting at some point in 2023. At the same time, consumers were proving they really, really wanted to eat at restaurants after two years of not being able to consistently. The opportunities and the challenges were creating a weird balance.