Applied Predictive Technologies (APT) announced that the APT Index of restaurant sales increased 1.6 percent nationwide in August compared to last year. The growth was driven by an increase in check size. Quick-service restaurants continued to outperform full-service restaurants at 3.7 percent and 0.4 percent, respectively.

“Month after month, we’re seeing a set of common trends in restaurant sales,” says Patrick O’Reilly, APT president and COO. “These trends include positive growth overall, with strong performance specifically on the West Coast. This growth continues to be driven by larger checks, which we think is partly a result of restaurants increasing prices to cover more expensive labor and commodity costs.”

The APT Index aggregates in-store sales data at over 100,000 chain stores and restaurants across the U.S. to show how year-over-year sales performance changes.

August restaurant sales by APT Index numbers:

Overall restaurants: Sales were up 1.6 percent, while checks fell 1 percent, and check size grew 2.6 percent.

Quic-service restaurants: Sales were up 3.7 percent, checks gained 1.1 percent, and check size rose 2.6 percent.

Full-service restaurants: Sales increased 0.4 percent, checks fell 2.2 percent, and check size gained 2.6 percent.

The top performing metro areas in August were: Riverside, California [4.8 percent], Seattle [4.7 percent], Los Angeles [3.3 percent], San Francisco [3.2 percent], San Diego [3.1 percent].

The bottom performing metro areas were: Detroit [2.1 percent decrease], Pittsburgh [2 percent decrease], Houston [1.1 percent decrease], and Philadelphia [0.8 percent decrease].