Highlights
- The share of US consumers planning to spend more on restaurants, bars, and takeout fell 2 percentage points in August to roughly 24.5%, the second-lowest reading since September 2025.
- The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index dropped 0.8 points to 89.4, its second straight monthly decline.
- The Expectations Index fell 5.8 points to 68.2, even as the Present Situation Index rose 6.8 points to 121.2.
- The share of consumers calling a recession "very likely" within 12 months ticked higher.
US consumers are pulling back on discretionary dining plans even as they describe current conditions more favorably. The Kobeissi Letter reported that the share of consumers planning to spend more on restaurants, bars, and takeout over the next six months fell 2 percentage points in August to roughly 24.5%, the second-lowest level since September 2025. The pullback lines up with the Conference Board's August Consumer Confidence report, which showed the headline index falling for a second consecutive month.
A Split Reading Beneath the Headline Number
The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index slipped 0.8 points to 89.4 in August, down from 90.2 in July. The internals tell a more divided story than the headline suggests: the Present Situation Index, which measures how consumers view current business and labor conditions, actually rose 6.8 points to 121.2 after three straight months of decline, and the share calling jobs "plentiful" climbed to 27.0% from 24.4%. But the Expectations Index — the forward-looking gauge — fell 5.8 points to 68.2, with expected income gains cooling to 17.6% from 19.5% and the share anticipating fewer jobs six months out rising to 26.1%. Restaurants, bars, and takeout still ranked among the top three service categories consumers plan to spend on, alongside utilities and streaming, but the pullback within that category mirrors the broader retreat in expectations.
Why a Soft Dining Signal Matters for Risk Appetite
Restaurant and bar spending is one of the more sensitive discretionary categories in consumer surveys — it moves before big-ticket purchases like travel or durable goods because it's the easiest line item for a household to trim first. A second straight monthly slide in both headline confidence and forward dining plans suggests households are growing more cautious about discretionary outlays even as they feel comparatively fine about today's job market.
Dana Peterson, the Conference Board's chief economist, said consumer confidence "moderated slightly in August for a second consecutive month," adding that expectations "slipped further into negative territory."
For crypto and other risk assets, softening consumer expectations typically feed into the same debate driving bets on looser Fed policy: weaker households strengthen the case for rate cuts, which has historically been a tailwind for Bitcoin and broader risk appetite even when the underlying data point is soft.
Related: Corporate Profits Surge 22.8% as America's Earnings Boom Deepens
What to Watch Next
The next major data points arrive with the Fed's preferred inflation gauge and September's jobs report, both of which will show whether August's dip in expectations was a blip or the start of a trend. Jackson Hole, running August 27–29, adds another variable: any signal from Fed officials on the pace of rate cuts will land directly on top of this confidence data. If the Expectations Index keeps falling into the September Conference Board release, that would mark a third consecutive monthly decline — a pattern investors would start reading as a genuine slowdown signal rather than noise.
