The economy needs to add at least 150,000 jobs a month to put it on sounder footing, but even that's not enough to quickly reduce the nation's jobless rate.

Federal Chairman Ben Bernanke released data that showed outstanding loans to small businesses have declined to less than $670 billion in the first quarter of 2010 from about $710 billion in the second quarter of 2008, despite federal small business loan increases. As a result, more small and mid-size restaurants have continued to close up shop. Southern California saw a loss of nearly 1,000 restaurants last Spring, a two percent drop and twice the national average, according to the NPD Group. Nationwide, the number of restaurants dropped in 2010 for the first time in more than a decade, from 5,202 to 579,416, and almost all of these losses were felt by independent restaurants, said NPD.

Consumer spending was down about 7 percent compared to last year, according to Technomic, another foodservice research firm. Consumers are expensed to spend just 0.5 percentage point more on restaurant food this year than last year, the firm added. Most restaurants have held off on opening new locations until the economy improves, NPD analysts have said.