From local neighborhood diners and fast-food restaurant chains to fine-dining restaurants in big cities like New York and San Francisco, restaurants worldwide faced unprecedented challenges during the pandemic.
With problems such as labor shortages, supply chain issues, inflated food costs, and new diner habits, the restaurant industry has been at the mercy of a constantly changing economy. But with change comes opportunity — and as the hospitality industry starts to recover, new restaurant trends are emerging.
Restaurateurs looking to keep their diners engaged with their brands can follow restaurant trends. They can also choose not to follow specific food trends that customers aren’t responding well to. This can help them stand out from their peers in a crowded market.
Check out our guide to the best restaurant trends in 2023 and find out which you might want to avoid.
Whether running a full-service or quick-service restaurant (QSR), these six restaurant trends could help boost your restaurant business’s profit margins.
Food-service profit margins are usually slim — they typically range from 3% to 9% — so anything you can do to boost revenue is a win from a business perspective. That’s where merchandising can help.
Branded products range from small knickknacks like stickers and keychains to clothing and accessories — t-shirts, socks, and tote bags are particularly popular.
Following the restaurant trend of merchandising can give you an additional stream of revenue and boost your restaurant marketing profile. Brand-loyal customers and people who like the design you’ve chosen for your t-shirt or tote bag will act as a walking advertisement for your restaurant. Work with a graphic designer to create fantastic designs that customers want to wear.
You can even run a promotion offering free merchandise with a specific order. This is a great way to get your restaurant’s branding out into the world and encourage customers to buy low-popularity menu items. It’s win-win.
According to a 2023 report by the National Restaurant Association, more than 40% of restaurant operators plan to invest in technology to boost front-of-house and back-of-house productivity. If you’re considering bringing automation into your restaurant, a self-service kiosk is a fantastic place to start.
Self-service ordering empowers diners to choose what they want, pay for their order, and go about their day. They’re an excellent way to reduce wait times, alleviate staffing issues, and boost revenue.
You’ll find them in QSRs like McDonald’s and Taco Bell, but they’re easy to set up even if you run a smaller operation. You can implement this restaurant trend with minimal investment or effort. You just need a tablet, Square payment hardware like the Square Kiosk mount, and KioskBuddy to get started.
Another exciting restaurant trend that’s worth considering is running a restaurant pop-up.
Pop-ups are a fantastic way for restaurateurs to market their restaurants and invite new customers to a fun event. You can test potential new menu items on attendants and charge a set price for a three-course meal.
Pop-ups are popular because they’re not usually held in a restaurant’s dining room but in an event space. It’s a different kind of night out for foodies and a fantastic way to spread the word about what your restaurant does.
Food delivery apps like DoorDash and UberEats are popular around the world — and they provided incredible service during the pandemic, allowing businesses that didn’t usually offer delivery to keep their kitchens open. Many fast-casual restaurants like Chipotle and Panda Express use this type of app to facilitate delivery.
But restaurant trends can change instantly, and it’s becoming more common for restaurant owners to offer their own delivery service again. With in-house delivery, restaurants can respond to diners’ demands with fewer fees and without the headaches that come with third-party apps.
Create an online ordering portal on your website to implement this restaurant trend. If you have the resources, you can even create a custom app for your restaurant that allows diners to order delivery. Just make sure everything integrates with your POS system to give customers a seamless dining experience.
Ghost kitchens are small restaurants that operate on a delivery-only basis. There are no dine-in options or, in many cases, a storefront. Diners submit their order online, which arrives at their front door via your delivery team.
This low-overhead model is perfect for delivery-loving diners. It also eliminates the need to maintain a storefront and hire front-of-house staff. This model is becoming more popular thanks to its low costs; by 2030, ghost kitchens are expected to account for 50% of the drive-thru and takeout market.
If you want to reduce your footprint while increasing your food output, consider setting up a ghost kitchen. Many restaurants will create satellite kitchens across town, preparing and delivering orders from these locations so diners get a great meal delivered to their door every time.
Meal kits were a fantastic innovation from the COVID-19 era that’s still playing out in 2023. With this restaurant trend, you can give diners the option to order a meal kit they prepare at home, similar to services like Blue Apron or HelloFresh.
For example, Chick-fil-A rolled out a meal kit that walked diners through how to cook chicken parmesan at home, complete with all the ingredients and instructions.
The meal kit market was worth an estimated $20.5 billion in 2022, with this number forecasted to rise to an enormous $64.3 billion by 2030. There’s clearly a demand for these products among busy diners. So, if you want to boost revenue while reducing the load on your kitchen staff, prepared meal kits might just be the answer.
Following popular restaurant trends could help improve your restaurant’s bottom line and marketing efforts — but restaurant operators should also know which trends to avoid.
During the pandemic, QR code menus became popular in casual-dining settings, as they were an easy, contactless way to provide customers with restaurant menus. But as menu trends go, this one looks set to disappear in the coming years.
Customer feedback suggests that most diners prefer physical menus to those they view online. Eating out is meant to allow people to engage with each other, and requiring diners to look at their cellphones as soon as they arrive is taking away from that.
They were a helpful stopgap during the pandemic, but it’s now time to say goodbye to this restaurant trend for good.
Diners are becoming more conscious about where they eat, frequenting establishments that care about the environment. In fact, two-thirds of consumers would pay more for their meal if it came from a “green” restaurant.
But sustainability isn’t just a passing restaurant trend. It should be here to stay, and passing yourself off as an eco-friendly restaurant without the actions to back it up is not the right way to go.
Using less packaging and replacing plastic straws with paper ones might be an effective way to portray yourself as an eco-friendly restaurant. But increasingly, engaged consumers are turning away from brands that represent themselves as green without actually making any meaningful changes. Even large brands like McDonald’s have been the subject of greenwashing controversies.
Instead of setting up a couple of half-hearted green initiatives, it’s better to be fully transparent with your consumers about your emissions and the ways you’re working to reduce your impact. Start by finding local suppliers and producers to improve the sustainability of your supply chain.
Embracing new restaurant industry trends can play an essential role in a restaurant’s success, and keeping an eye on what’s popular could help you attract a broader range of diners and process more orders.
Self-service kiosk technology like KioskBuddy can help you process those orders and keep customer lines moving. We help you transform a tablet into an easy-to-use self-service device.
Download the KioskBuddy app now and see how it can help your restaurant business thrive.