With the cost of dining out rising roughly 30% over the past five years or so according to a variety of sources, consumers are feeling the pinch. This has forced operators to dig deep into their toolboxes to generate customer traffic.
Some of those tools are menu specific, like value meals, which are projected to become key traffic drivers in 2025. Per data from Technomic, 72% of consumers say they wish restaurants would offer more value meals. Further, 71% feel they save money when ordering a value meal, 66% are more likely to visit a restaurant that offers value meal items compared with those that do not and 57% are ordering value meals more than they were two years ago.
Limited time offers represent another potent tool in operators’ toolboxes. In fact, operators were planning to offer 943 new and returning limited time offers this winter, per Datassential. This is being done in the name of providing value on the customers’ terms as well as adding an incentive to keep people patronizing their favorite restaurants.
Customer-facing technology represents another important tool operators are using. In fact, 60% of operators plan to invest in technology to enhance the guest experience, per the National Restaurant Association’s 2024 Technology Landscape Report, and 63% would like to implement technology to facilitate location-based marketing.
Operators continue to prioritize customer-facing technology for several reasons, but primarily because it helps ring the cash register. In February 2020, digital channels accounted for just 5% of all foodservice orders, per Circana data shared by the NRA. By August 2024, that percentage had grown to 16%. And if you think that kind of growth applies only to quick-service restaurants, think again. The same study shows that full-service restaurants saw digital ordering rise from 3% to 10% in the same time period.
An often-overlooked tool to drive sales and contain costs, though, is smart design and equipment choices. On average, it takes a restaurant 12.1 employees to generate $1 million in sales, per data from the NRA. That’s a lot compared with other business segments, like general merchandise stores and hardware stores, which need 3.7 and 2.8 employees to reach the same revenue levels, respectively.
That’s why operators will need to innovate not only on the menu but also at the store level. In some instances, this is already happening. Some moves are big, while others represent the continuation of a well-crafted plan. Take, for example, casual-dining stalwart Pizza Hut, which just opened its new prototype that features self-service kiosks, a drive-thru and other features that were once implausible for the chain.
The bottom line is this: Sustained success is not about only the menu, nor is it solely about the design. Rather, it’s about how the menu and the design work together to create great experiences for employees and customers alike. The operators who embrace that — and embrace the expertise of their supply chain partners — will be able to deal with any economic headwinds and changes in customer behavior, thus ensuring success for years to come.
