Several masked people this week entered a Taco Bell restaurant and left six 40-gallon trash bags filled with apparently stolen sauce packets, Marion police said.
The bags, which contained 25,000 sauce packets, were accompanied with an apologetic note that said the packets were stolen over a three-year period.The note's author wrote that the group felt guilty and decided to return the packets, police said.
Check out the following chart and accompanying graph displaying the popularity of AUV's of tomorrow’s leaders:
| AUV (in $millions) | Total # of units | % |
| 1-.5 | 74 | 10.8 |
| .6-1 | 245 | 36 |
| 1.1-1.5 | 88 | 12.9 |
| 1.51-2 | 81 | 11.9 |
| 2.1-2.5 | 57 | 8.4 |
| 2.51-3 | 69 | 10.2 |
| 3.1-3.5 | 31 | 4.5 |
| 3.51-4 | 15 | 2.2 |
| 4.1-4.5 | 7 | 1 |
| 4.51-5 | 11 | 1.6 |
| 5.1-5.5 | 2 | 0.3 |
The largest group with nearly 50% of locations have less than $1 million AUV per year. 23% of companies have between $2-3 million AUV. Less than 10% have an AUV of more than $3 million.
Conclusion: Large restaurants with big check averages have faded in popularity. Today’s latest breed of operators are choosing to open restaurants that offer fast service, smaller locations and with a lower per person check average.
* For purposes of the study we divided the companies by $.5 million AUV ranges.
The Krystal Co., the oldest fast-food chain in the South and the second oldest in the
