NEW YORK—Restaurants are struggling to wean customers from the steady diet of deals they have offered in recent years, underscoring the fragility of the industry's recovery at a time of high unemployment.
On Monday, California Pizza Kitchen Inc. said its second-quarter same-store sales would fall between 6% and 7%, much worse than its prior forecast of a 0.5% to 2.5% decline. The company, known for Jamaican jerk chicken and other gourmet pizzas, attributed a large part of the drop to not running its "Thank You Card" promotion, which offered discounts or cash prizes when customers came back for another meal, as it had in previous years.
"They're trying to lap a promotion with no promotion, and in this environment it's just not working," said Lynne Collier, a restaurant analyst at Sterne Agee.
But California Pizza said it plans to bring back the Thank You Card program in coming months.
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