Applebee’s CEO John Peyton says he’ll never be able to reduce portion sizes during inflation

The CEO of Applebee's and IHOP parent company Dine Brands says you're still likely to leave his restaurants feeling very full in a time where other restaurants are cutting portion sizes to shave off inflationary costs.

John Peyton, CEO of Dine Brands, said on Yahoo Finance Live that if shrinking food sizes, a practice undertaken by food companies during the inflationary periods, it would be raining down on his chains. One of our core values is that both of our brands have always been value-oriented brands. Great food, great service in a warm and welcoming environment. It will never be about reducing portion sizes, that's sacrosanct for us. For rivals of Dine Brands, it may not be sacrosanct.

According to Yelp, srinkflation has become one of the most common gripes from inflation-battered this year.

In Q 2 of 2022 consumers are talking about shrinkflation-related experiences most commonly in restaurants serving more affordable offerings like hot dogs, hamburgers, pizza, followed by seafood restaurants, Italian food and Chinese food, according to Yelp's new report.

Consumers are rewarding Dine Brands for keeping its menu large untouched.

Peyton said that the second quarter guest frequency fell by a couple of percentage points for households earning less than $50,000 a year. Those earning above $75,000 saw a significant increase in guest frequency.

In the quarter, Applebee's and IHOP's same-store sales rose by 1.8% and 3.6%.

Peyton told Yahoo Finance Live that gas prices have fallen over the last 50 days, and that is encouraging for the back half of the year and why we say that we are cautiously optimistic. We know gas prices do correlate, but we do believe that will encourage some of the lower income guests to return to IHOP more often and Applebee's more frequently than they have. Gasbuddy notes that the national average of gas has fallen below the $4 a gallon mark for the first time since early March. Since hitting a peak of $5.03 on average on June 14, gas prices have fallen over $1. Gasbuddy estimates Americans are spending nearly $400 million less on gas than they did in mid-June.

Now the 12 oz steak order at Applebee's is unlikely to come out of the oven at 8 oz.

Brian Sozzi is an anchor at Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter and LinkedIn.