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Fast food and casual dining are currently seeing higher traffic. With dining out becoming more of an occasional treat, it's very important that guests have a great experience – whether that's at an upmarket restaurant or a fast food outlet. Menu consolidation will be important if these trends continue.
You can have a crowd-pleasing menu, loyal regulars, and a packed dining roomand still watch your margins disappear. Too many restaurant menus are built on intuition and aesthetics, not real numbers. What Is Menu Engineering and Why Should You Care? Because not every dish thats popular is profitable.
The hospitality industry has always been about delivering great service—but today, that means more than just good food and friendly staff. For years, restaurant technology has been about speed and efficiency—faster orders, better scheduling, streamlined payments.
These features include tableside mobile ordering, NFC contactless payments, and direct online ordering. They also have the choice of using the MarketConnect app to order and pick up from a designated shelf onsite, avoiding interactions and maintaining necessary social distancing.
Although dynamic pricing is a staple in industries like travel and hospitality, its application in fast food is uncharted territory. Recent experiments with pricing strategies, such as summer value promotions, yielded lukewarm results, leaving operators questioning the best approach to menu pricing.
From salted egg yolks and chili crunch fusions to mushroom-infused teas and freeze-dried fruit powder garnishes, Kimpton’s in-house experts share the standout ingredients, menu items and techniques that will come to the table in 2025. That’s where the NEXT Flavor Report comes in.
When youre updating your online menu or online ordering system, its tempting to just copy over the dish names from your restaurant menu and call it a day. Well-written menu descriptions dont just tell guests whats in a dish; they entice customers, set the tone for your brand, and can increase sales.
A third of diners said their favorite restaurant changed in the past 12 months, with “better food” (46 percent) and “better value” (40 percent) cited as the leading reasons, according to Tillster’s 2025 Phygital Index Report. The survey of 1,500 U.S.-based For the third year in a row, consumers want more kiosks.
While there was a brief dip in consumer awareness of menu price increases in late 2024, the spring of 2025 has seen a moderate rise, affecting dining habits and consumer perceptions of value. Millennials and parents also over-index in restaurant visits, with a strong inclination toward nightlife activities and premium dining experiences.
Menu pricing isnt just about covering costsits about finding that sweet spot where profitability, customer perception, and operational reality meet. Somewhere in between is the number that makes sense for your food costs, your market, and your restaurants unique position. Set prices too low, and youre leaving money on the table.
Food that naturally travels well—chicken wings, burritos, Chinese food—was bound to have a leg-up. Smart QSR and fast casual chains like Chipotle and Shake Shack reconfigured their strategies to lean heavily into delivery apps, digital ordering, and loyalty programs. Not a great user experience.
This represents a larger increase than those increasing visits to fast-casual (14 percent) or full-service (11 percent) restaurants and is on par with those visiting QSRs more frequently (24 percent) ( RMS Q1 2025 Dining report ). The 2,000 U.S. Grocery and c-store competitors recognized the opportunity.
So much data is generated at every point within a restaurant, whether fast casual or fine dining. Foot traffic or heat mapping, menu item engagement, or consumer demographics by time of day. I think smart, AI-enabled platforms will turn data into intelligence around visit frequency, ordering, traffic patterns and more.
To reduce menu confusion and minimize price sensitivity, Ori’Zaba’s Scratch Mexican Grill recently rolled-out a rengineered and easier-to-read menu. " The new menu, which showcases enticing high-margin labeled photos and a new call-out feature “Be Extra! percent and 2.3
White-centered food narratives appear most often at major chains. I’d eaten my fair share of “barbacoa” at Chipotle, where its shredded-beef burrito was my splurge order. This is not to say food can’t, or shouldn’t, evolve. It’s time to hold them accountable. I thought I did. Where have you been eating barbacoa?”.
After successfully opening a second location in Kernersville, NC, and planning for a third one, the fast-casual gourmet slider brand has started franchising and plans to grow strategically in the Southeast region. First, consumers are demanding more convenience and customization, pushing brands to rethink their menus and service models.
As consumer options and demand shifted, businesses were forced to adapt and prioritize new technologies and alternate ordering experiences that would allow them to deliver on customer expectations. One of the key functionalities within many QSR and fast casual mobile apps these days is the ability to order ahead and select curbside pickup.
As a step further, offering a flexible menu catered to solo diners – with smaller portions to reduce food waste and allow the diner to taste more dishes – provides waiters with an additional opportunity to make personalized recommendations specific to these menu offerings. Cuisine type?
A spike in food costs, a drop in sales volume, or one slow season can wipe out months of hard work. They tell you how much money your restaurant keeps after paying for everything from food costs to labor expenses to utilities and rent. This gives you a sense of how effective your menu pricing is.
The last time I was in Madrid, a friend and I perused English menus at a popular tapas joint. I requested the Spanish menu, too. As a food translator, I know that seeing the original is often the best way to decipher what’s on offer. The English menu lacked context that we gleaned only by looking at the Spanish.
In recent years, the food service industry has undergone a rapid transformation of automation and increased technology usage. This has led to many perks for consumers, such as reduced wait times, contactless ordering, and more personalized offers and rewards. Perkins American Food Co. percent from 2025 to 2033 and reach US$ 345.6
. | Lille Allen Restaurant menus are increasingly making full use of the dictionary to describe their offerings. A menu is both a statement and an invitation. And at Artis in Lakewood, Ohio, the menu is designated by time, with Now, Soon, In a While, and Worth the Wait. As Kim notes, no one actually reads the menu.
Todays diners scroll before they order, and your restaurants social media presence can make or break their decision to visit. Look for creators who already engage with your local food scene. A trendy, fast-casual spot will likely need very different content than a fine dining experience. But not all creators are the right fit.
The food service industry is forecast to reach $1 trillion in sales this year. We’re seeing younger buyers investing in dining experiences that blend food, convenience, and atmosphere with their values as shoppers. Take fast casual and drive-thru for example. For drive-thrus or call ins, can you accurately hear the order?
Understanding your target market is the foundation of making smart decisions for your menu, pricing, and overall guest experience. Without a well-defined target market, restaurants risk wasting resources on strategies that dont connect and menu offerings that dont selltrying to appeal to everyone, but standing out to no one.
If you’re in the food industry, you’re no stranger to the huge food photography trend that’s been dominating news feeds everywhere for years. As a restaurant owner, your menu photos are a powerful marketing tool to attract new customers, increase ticket sizes, and retain guests. ” Read the eBook. ” Read the eBook.
Here are a few examples of tech-centered solutions to ease the ongoing labor crisis in restaurants by putting more functionality directly in the hands of customers: Digital Tableside Ordering to Support Service Staff. Enter digital tableside ordering. For fast-casual or QSR brands, digital tableside ordering is equally beneficial.
“We are seeing sign-on bonuses at fast food and fast casual locations, something never seen before in the industry. Some operators are willing to have you work today, get paid tomorrow in order to get people in place to handle their minimum requirements. 200 online orders a month with one to two people.
Everything from food to labor is getting more expensive, which means restaurant margins are tighter than ever. The right marketing strategy helps you get the most out of every dollar by increasing customer retention , boosting order volume, and encouraging repeat visits. Even if your food is incredible, youre not operating in a vacuum.
The restaurant needs cohesion, from signage to menu design to uniforms. We were entering the saturated fast-casual burger space and knew we needed to make an impact. We created a simple menu focused on a brand experience that merged nostalgia with modern efficiency. Next, the brand identity is leveraged into guest experience.
From full service to fast-casual to legacy fast-food brands, the one constant was disruption. Many brands were able to turn a profit from the lockdowns and social distancing orders by shifting operations toward drive-thru, delivery, pick-up, and curbside models. Just as one issue seemed fixed, another presents itself.
Have you ever walked into a restaurant, excited for a great meal, but the server can’t answer your questions about the menu? Without the right training, even the best menu or ambiance can fall short due to poor service, leading to dissatisfied customers and lost revenue. Let’s say you run a fast-casual restaurant.
While consumers might seek culinary experiences they can’t have at home, they have vastly different expectations for how they engage – whether via phone, app ordering, third-party take-out, or dining in, they want the same seamless interactions they’ve come to expect in all areas of their lives. ” It gets better.
As a result, quick-service and fast-casual restaurants are increasingly harnessing big data and automation to give their customers what they want before an order comes out of their mouth – or their brand’s app. But what if you aren’t the fast-food giants of the world? Supersize it – every time.
Its significantly more cost-effective to keep your regulars walking through the door than it is to get a new customer every time you take an order. Think about it: your regulars already know what you offer, love your food, and trust your service. All you have to do is keep them happy. And when you do?
As consumers have come to rely on their cell phones in virtually every aspect of their lives, restaurants should consider letting guests order via mobile rather than at a counter. This can be done by making interactive menus available online or in an app. Contactless Ordering. Contactless Payments.
Over the next decade, a generation passionate about health and wellness will demand restaurants be transparent about food from farm to table. Guests will expect to know every aspect of sourcing and meal preparation, which will disrupt traditional back-of-house systems with technology that connects the farm to the food.
While there are clear benefits to an all-digital menu system, to get the most out them, you must first take a step back to re-examine what your menu means to you. Your menu: Part love letter, part manifesto, instructions for use and a bill of goods, all rolled into one. Should your menu move to the cloud?
Theyd been serving hot dogs, fried chicken sandwiches, and other Southern-inflected bar foods for 15 years. Enter the hot dog tower, a two-tiered assortment of five hot dogs, fries, and sauce that joined the menu in January. What began as an easy way to breathe new life into the haunt has become a popular order.
Looking ahead, we predict a day when cultivated meat will find its place as a default choice -on menus, because it delivers on taste, nutrition, and food safety, in addition to environmental sustainability and animal welfare. Beyond the realm of food, a similar shift has occurred with electric cars.
The food delivery company said Wednesday that it has acquired Symbiosys, an ad tech company, in a deal valued at $175 million. These ads will direct back to a restaurants’ DoorDash ordering page. In the future, they could also link to a restaurants’ own website if they use DoorDash’s Storefront online ordering system, Samolis said.
The NCR Voyix 2024 Digital Commerce Index revealed nearly half (48 percent) of consumers dine out less than they used to because inflation is top of the menu. Some brands’ apps even track mobile-order customers’ location to help ensure their food is fresh, whether it’s a burger or a salad. The top reasons?
Of course, delivery also spiked, but the underlying thread between each of these dining preferences is the use of mobile for ordering and pick-up. In fact, according to a report by Bluedot , 86 percent of respondents surveyed said they have ordered directly from a restaurant app since the start of the pandemic. million new downloads.
For example, if you run a social media campaign or pay for online ordering integrations, all of these contribute to your overall marketing expenses. Imagine you own a café, and you’ve just run a campaign to boost your online ordering. You spent $800 on Facebook ads and in-store promotions over a month.
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