The general view these days is that restaurant demand is on the increase as the economy slowly regains its footing. But some of the news has been negative lately, especially on the casual dining front. Some comp sales have come in weaker than expected. The Knapp Track same-store sales index fell in December. Bad weather is keeping customers at home. Grain prices are rising. So are gas prices. And restaurant stock growth has slowed to a crawl and is now underperforming the market. All of this caused Raymond James analyst Bryan Elliott to take a broad sword to his ratings on casual dining chains. This morning he downgraded Texas Roadhouse, PF Chang's, Morton's, Cheesecake and Ruby Tuesday. "Absent a reversal in macroeconomic trends," he said, "2011 still looks like a year of casual dining demand growth." He's simply coming down off his more bullish outlook of a few weeks ago and now believes that investors "should reduce their risk exposure to the small- and mid-cap restaurant space."