Out-Of-Home Dining in 2025: Performance & Consumer Trends

Key Takeaways From the Report: 

1. Overall dining traffic is mostly flat, but growth is concentrated in specific areas. While nationwide dining visits were nearly unchanged in early 2025, western states like Utah, Idaho, and Nevada showed moderate growth, while states in the Midwest and South, along with Washington D.C., saw declines.
2. Fine dining and coffee chains are growing through expansion, not just busier locations. These two segments were the only ones to see an increase in total visits, but their visits-per-location actually decreased, indicating that opening new stores is the primary driver of their growth.
   
3. Higher-income diners are driving the growth in resilient categories. The segments that saw visit growth—fine dining and coffee—also attracted customers with the highest median household incomes, suggesting that affluent consumers are still spending on dining despite economic headwinds.
4. Remote work continues to reshape dining habits. The share of suburban customers at fine dining establishments has increased since 2019, while it has decreased for coffee chains. This reflects a shift towards "destination" dining closer to home and away from commute-based coffee runs.
5. Limited-service restaurants own the weekdays; full-service restaurants win the weekend. QSR, fast casual, and coffee chains see the majority of their traffic from Monday to Friday, whereas casual and fine dining see a significant spike in visits on weekends.
6. Each dining segment dominates a specific time of day. Consumer visits are highly predictable by the hour: coffee leads in the early morning, fast casual peaks at lunch, casual dining takes the afternoon, fine dining owns the dinner slot, and QSR captures the late-night crowd.