Whether you run a tiny ten-seat diner or a massive food hall, restaurants are often pillars of the community.
To keep patrons streaming into your dining room, it’s worth keeping up with restaurant trends as best you can. While some transformative ideas require an upfront investment, others only ask you to stretch your imagination.
From minor menu changes to strategic shifts, here are seven trends to consider incorporating into your restaurant business plan to help your business thrive in the coming year and beyond.
These past few years have seen a shift toward small shared plates in restaurants of all types. Instead of each person ordering a main course for themselves, diners can instead choose to sample a collection of appetizers and entrées and share them as a table.
There are several reasons to try swapping smaller, shareable plates with one-person entrées.
For one, the more dishes a new (or returning) customer can try, the more likely they are to find that wow bite that makes them want to come back for more. Additionally, the dining experience changes to a more community-oriented, family-style meal.
To take the small plate idea one step further, consider piecing together a tasting menu. Multi-course meals offer diners a memorable experience and allow your head chef to flex their creative muscles.
The saying “eat, drink, and be merry” includes food and beverage for a reason—the two go hand in hand. The current trend of curating a list of suggested wines, cocktails, or mocktails to complement each item on the menu caters to the crowd looking for a fine dining experience rather than just a tasty meal.
By recommending drink pairings for each dish—whether à la carte or as part of a multi-course menu—you may also encourage some diners to purchase a drink or two when they wouldn’t otherwise. Ultimately, this strategy can lead to an increase in average check size among guests.
Of course, coming up with drink pairings isn’t as easy as picking your favorite libation, and you may need to enlist the help of a sommelier or experienced bartender. But the extra expense and effort can be well worth it, providing a more reliable revenue stream long-term. Creating a more well-rounded dining experience can make your restaurant a destination.
With hundreds of dine-in restaurants to choose from—and even more options thanks to food delivery services—diners have more choices than ever. How do you convince them to come to your restaurant? Once again, it’s all about creating an experience that makes it worth leaving the house.
One trend that aims to bring guests back into restaurants involves setting up special events. Depending on your establishment, you may want to look into offering:
By making your restaurant a go-to spot for more than just food and drinks, you increase your chance of attracting diners that would otherwise have never set foot in your establishment.
With that said, part of successful event planning is promoting the occasion. Along with more conventional advertising methods like posters and email invites, you can also leverage Nextdoor to reach more local foodies.
As the food service industry continues to deal with staffing troubles, technology will play a pivotal role. By harnessing new and existing tech, you can develop a more efficient workflow for you and your team. Here are a few technological restaurant industry trends to look into:
These ideas—and many more like them—represent the beginning of the average restaurant’s shift to automation. Even if you’re not tech-savvy, you can likely find ways to leverage these easy-to-use solutions.
Take-out has long been a staple for restaurants looking to increase their revenue without moving to a larger space. But traditional take-out involves several compromises. By the time diners return home, dishes may have gone cold. What’s more, plating and presentation often take a backseat to convenience when food comes in styrofoam containers.
To-go meal kits—packages that provide all the ingredients and instructions a diner needs to make a restaurant-quality feast at home—offer an alternative experience. These DIY kits combine the excitement of a sit-down meal with the at-home comfort of take-out.
The “assemble it yourself” kit was all the rage during dining room closures or lockdowns when diners wanted to eat a fantastic meal but didn’t want to leave the house. However, these at-home kits cater to more than just the crowd-averse. They may also appeal to customers who:
If you think your restaurant may not be suited to this type of experience, think again. Every kind of restaurant can—and does—offer these at-home packages, from cozy mom-and-pop cafés to Michelin-starred restaurants like NYC’s Eleven Madison Park. All it takes is a little creativity.
As global supply chains continue to feel the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, sourcing varied ingredients remains a challenge. Obtaining more exotic foods or out-of-season produce can be time-consuming, costly, or both. As such, some restaurants have been paring back their menus to deal with these obstacles, resulting in a 10% drop in total menu items in recent times.
Reducing the number of dishes you offer—and simplifying the dishes themselves—allows you to save time on prep and money on ingredients.
Offering fewer options also allows you to focus on a few core dishes. As long as you continue to produce delicious, high-quality meals, your patrons are unlikely to miss the few side dishes you cut from the menu.
Today’s customers look for sustainability in everything they do—and that includes eating at restaurants. In fact, a 2022 poll by the National Restaurant Association revealed that 38% of diners are more likely to eat at a restaurant with locally-sourced healthy options.
Sourcing in-season food from local farms comes with numerous benefits, including:
When you can follow a trend and do your part in protecting the environment, it’s certainly worth switching to local suppliers.
As the food service industry continues to change, there will no doubt be new restaurant trends to watch and implement. It’s all part of the excitement of owning or managing a restaurant.
With that said, staying on top of local and national trends can be challenging. However, there’s one way to ensure you’re always up-to-date on what your customers want: Ask them.
Using a neighborhood platform like Nextdoor, you can connect with local diners and find out exactly what they’re looking for. When you claim your free Nextdoor Business Page, you gain access to a vibrant community of foodies, food service workers, and happy hour hunters that can help you keep your restaurant at the forefront of new trends.
Claim your page today to see how Nextdoor helps connect like-minded neighbors.