Dancing hot pot robots

Author

Andy Moore
March 21, 2026

Hello!

This week we’re talking:

  • Rising gas prices — do they actually hurt restaurant traffic?

  • Darden restaurants’ excellent quarter

  • And a service robot choosing art over commerce

Read on…

3 Numbers

1,000

Number of Raising Cane’s locations, with number 1,000 opening this week on Hollywood Blvd. The two-story, LED-lit flagship is located next to the TCL Chinese Theater and (naturally) features a 7-foot-tall golden statue of Cane III.

4.2%

Company-wide same-store sales growth for Darden Restaurants in its fiscal third quarter. Darden’s quarter was boosted by strong performance from Olive Garden — its same-store sales rose 3.2% — and LongHorn Steakhouse, which posted a 7.2% number (its highest in over a year).

50%

Of operators who say “third-party fees are the biggest obstacle to growing their off-premise business.” The number is in the news this week after Rave Restaurant Group, which owns Pie Five and Pizza Inn, publicly announced that it’s leaving Uber Eats after the delivery app instituted a price increase last week.

2 Big Stories

  1. Gas price spikes have a limited impact on restaurant traffic, according to an analysis of 20 years of data from the investment banking firm BTIG. Via Restaurant Dive:

Rising gas prices related to the war in Iran aren’t likely to directly impact restaurant traffic or same-store sales, BTIG analyst Peter Saleh said in a report emailed to Restaurant Dive. 

While there may be “short-term consumer retrenchment” when gas prices reach $4 or $5 per gallon in certain markets, the data over the past two decades doesn’t show a strong connection between gas price spikes and falling restaurant traffic, Saleh said. 

Saleh pointed out that while gas prices declined in 2025, restaurant traffic reported by Black Box Intelligence was down during 11 out of 12 months last year. 

“We would have expected the continued downward trend of gas prices to at least result in some positive (or improved) traffic trends in 2H25, but transaction counts actually got worse,” Saleh said. “In our view, gas prices are just one factor, but not a determining factor when assessing the health of the consumer and the willingness to dine out.” 

During Darden’s earnings call this week, CEO Rick Cardenas stroke a similar note, saying that — while demand could suffer if gas prices stay higher and begin to negatively affect GDP growth — "I've been through a number of these cycles, I don't know how many. When there's a sudden and significant price increase in gas, there can be a brief pullback, but that's usually only a few weeks."

Cardenas said that, in his experience, gas prices hurt durable goods purchases more than they do restaurants.

This felt counter to anecdotal evidence I’ve seen, so I dove a bit deeper into the subject with my new pal Claude, which found data from Revenue Management Solutions that paints a slightly more nuanced story. The data insights firm analyzed billions of transactions between 2022 to 2026 and found a negative link between gas prices and restaurant traffic: in their research, a $1 increase in gas prices eliminates roughly 6 drive-thru customers per day.

There’s also a William Blair analysis from the early 2010s which showed a modest inverse correlation between restaurant traffic and gas prices, with value-oriented concepts showing more sensitivity than brands that serve affluent customers. And Technomic research points to $4 per gallon as being a key psychological threshold when people begin to make behavioral changes, cutting their discretionary spending and sliding down the price scale from fine dining to casual (and on down). (National averages are now at $3.88 and climbing.)

What complicates any analysis, though, is that gas prices are never an isolated variable. They impact a whole bunch of things that can affect restaurant traffic, including consumer confidence — which a different Revenue Management Solutions study pointed to as being the real restaurant traffic killer, estimating a 10-point decline in consumer confidence as leading to a 0.5% to 2% traffic decline within two months.

So maybe it’s fair to say that while rising gas prices aren’t the main driver hurting traffic, they certainly don’t help. And that Landman probably said it best.

  1. Let’s all watch this beautiful service robot giving in to the power of dance, via CNET:

A humanoid robot couldn't stop feeling the beat at a California hot pot restaurant where it's employed, leading to a dance frenzy caught on camera that's gone viral. Unfortunately, the dance moves were too much for close proximity; dishes were broken by the dancing bot, and it took several employees to restrain the robot before it could cause further damage to property or the mood.

The incident took place at Haidilao Hot Pot in Cupertino. It was caused by a robot from the company AGiBot, which makes concierge humanoid robots, including an X2 model that can breakdance.

As shown in several videos posted across social media, laughing workers at the restaurant tried to hold the bot back as it waved its arms in the air like it just didn't care.

It doesn't appear that anyone got hurt, and the restaurant chain told NBC News that the robot was doing what it's programmed to do and "was not malfunctioning or out of control." The proximity to dishware and other customers appears to have been the issue. 

"In this case, the robot was brought closer to a dining table at a guest's request, which is not its typical operating setting," a representative for the restaurant told NBC News in a statement. "The limited space affected its movement during the performance."

It’s trying to communicate — it has a song in its heart that it needs to let out. And sure, its movements are a little wild. And, yeah, some hot pots got destroyed. But let it be free.

Other Headlines

  • The latest in the FAT Brands bankruptcy: CEO Andy Wiederhorn is taking a temporary leave of absence in a deal that will unlock debtor-in-possession financing for the company to fund its operations. Wiederhorn will still be allowed to bid on the company assets during the upcoming sale process.

  • Travis Kalanick’s company City Storage Solutions — the parent company of the ghost kitchen operator Cloud Kitchens — is rebranding as “Atoms,” a company that “makes gainfully employed robots” working to transform three industries: Food, Mining, and Transport. (You can’t knock the guy for lack of ambition).

  • Mama Mia! Maggiano’s is increasing its portion sizes by 20% without raising prices as it looks to boost its value proposition.

  • You’re (we’re?) getting old: Space Jam is 30 years old this year, and Pizza Hut launched a collaboration this week.

Name That Chain!

You’ve got three guesses to name this week’s mystery chain:

  • This chain’s founder developed its core recipes informally — testing flavors with friends — while simultaneously operating a completely different restaurant concept.

  • The original locations were only open from 4 p.m. to midnight, decorated with a pre-jet aviation theme using airplane parts sourced from junkyards.

  • It didn’t serve lunch until more than a decade after opening. Now it’s 3,000+ units strong and publicly traded.

Find the answer at the bottom of the email…

#Content Recs

Power Moves

Here are some notable C-suite moves from the past week:

Thanks for reading! I’ll see you next week.

NAME THAT CHAIN ANSWER: Wingstop

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