14 October 2020, Austin, Texas: An update on the recent on-premise changes throughout Texas.
The below analysis comes from review of our yDrink data (which currently tracks ~75% of the total Texas on-premise channel).
Since July, the on-premise has been making slow but incremental growth. Notably ever since the week before Labor-day weekend, these incremental changes in consumption grew larger in size. In particular the last three weeks have been very healthy for on-premise shipment and dollars. As of last week (#40, Oct 4-10) the channel was at 98% of the volume, 94% of the dollars, and 85% of the establishments that ordered the same week last year (Week #40, 2019). When compared to our preC19 26-weekly average, the channel was at 85% of the volume, 75% of the dollars, and 85% of the establishments ordering. In comparison, Week #39 (the week before last week) was at 78% of the preC19 average.
Although we’ve seen growth in dollars and volume, the number of accounts ordering week by week has nearly flatlined at 85% of preC19 levels for the past month or so.
The Governor’s announcement last week that allows counties to reopen bars, which has not yet gone into effect, is already had a markable increase on performance last week. We expect his announcement will bring more establishments and venues back online which should help increase spend and volume in the channel.
With state-wide volume last week at 98% of the same week last year, we decided to look more closely at areas throughout Texas performing above their historical trends. One notable trend was in suburban counties. The following counties have all been at, near, or above 100% preC19 levels for the past 2-3 weeks: Montgomery, Fort Bend, & Galveston (Houston-burbs); Hays, Comal, Williamson, & Bell (Austin-burbs); Collin, Denton, Ellis, Kaufman & Wise (DFW-burbs).
Comal, (100% Wk #40 vs. same week last year), Hays (113%), Williamson (99%), Bell (115%), and McLennan (100%) are all notable counties that have averaged at or above their preC19 levels for the past 2-3 weeks. All of which, happen to be on the I-35 corridor.
For those who may point out that those counties are full of students at this time of year, the counter-example would be Brazos county, home to College Station where the three week average is at 86% of their last year levels.
At 98%, Tarrant county (Fort Worth) performed closest to last year levels of the 6 largest urban counties in Texas (Houston, Dallas, Austin, Fort Worth, San Antonio, and El Paso. Harris (Houston) was at 84%, Bexar (San Antonio) at 77%, Dallas at (73%), Travis (Austin) at 75%, and El Paso at 76%.
Week #40 was the first week Travis county was not the worst performing of the large 6 urban counties, and it ranked in the middle of the pack.