Mall Portions

Times are tough for chain restaurants. But restaurants with a lot of locations in shopping malls are even more exposed to the sinking consumer economy.

The larger a chain's shopping-mall presence, the more exposed it is, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Nearly 90 percent of California Pizza Kitchen's 251 restaurants are in or near a mall or a retail center. Others with a big mall presence include Cheesecake Factory, Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, P.F. Chang's China Bistro, and Ruby Tuesday.

Obviously, restaurants located in malls rely heavily on retail traffic, especially during the holiday season. This year, retailers are expecting one of their worst seasons ever.

The International Council of Shopping Centers last month described the short-term outlook for retailers as "simply awful." October sales, it said, were the worst for that month that it had seen for 35 years.

Also in October, same-store sales for California Pizza Kitchen were down 7.3 percent. Rick Rosenfield, that chain's co-CEO and founder, has resorted to hoping that good weather during the holiday season will help. "If we're blessed with favorable weather, it'll make things a lot better," he told the Journal. "I'm hopeful for a reasonably good holiday season."