Sales at restaurants and bars fell 1.5% from January to February, according to preliminary numbers out Monday from the Census Bureau. 

While it’s not a huge drop, the decline may be a sign that consumers are feeling a bit more cautious about their discretionary spending.

When you feel uncertain about the direction of the economy, dining out less is an easy way to cut back on spending, per Jonathan Parker, the Robert C. Merton professor of financial economics at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. 

“You might scale back and go to less nice restaurants. You might cook in a little more,” he said.

But customers pulling back could hit a restaurant industry that’s had a pretty tumultuous few years with COVID shutdowns, supply chain issues, rising prices and staff shortages.

Emily Williams Knight, president and CEO of the Texas Restaurant Association, said the places that have survived all that are now wondering, “‘If that consumer does retreat, am I going to make it?’ And I think we’ll see some restaurants close, for sure, if traffic doesn’t pick up again,” she said.

To attract customers, restaurants need to market the contrast between another night in “Versus, ‘hey, you can come out to our restaurant, be in a fun environment,'” said Rick Miller at the consumer analytics company Big Chalk. “There’s games on TVs, the beer is flowing.'”

It’d benefit restaurants to communicate that prices are reasonable too, Miller added. After all, consumers are responding well right now if they feel like they’re getting a deal.