Myth Busters: National Trends in the Restaurant Industry

Myth: Top ten trend lists are real trends, in real restaurants

One of the most common restaurant articles floating around the internet is a seemingly constant evaluation and ranking of the newest trends in food and beverage.  This usually comes in the format of top five newest trends of whatever year we are in, or are going into.  There are some significant problems with these trending items though.

What exactly constitutes a trend?

Many of the trends that "occur" are a very small subset of sales, menus, and guest preferences.  As an outdated but familiar example, gluten free items in restaurants was/has been a "trend".  For most restaurants this constitutes one specific menu item, and maybe a gluten free bun alternative that provides an up charge opportunity.  These items will account for an almost unnoticeable amount of sales volume.  Certainly there are specialty shops, but specialty shops are by default not on trend - that's why they are specialty.

Every region is different. 

What is going on in in the restaurant scenes of  L.A., vs Houston, vs Chicago, vs NYC could all be vastly different, let alone the small to mid sized cities that don't make headlines.  Any legitimate trend in these regions can't be attributed to the entire country.  Consumer preferences are as different as consumers, and consumers are vastly different across the country. 

Real trends are tracked through data, and restaurants don't give up a lot of data. 

There are sources of data, for example Fintech may provide data on beer sales, but this information is always lagging behind real consumer preference changes. Also, often time food data is not specific to restaurants.  The beer trends in the grocery store, where most beer is sold, may not match the beer trends in a restaurant. 

Conclusion

Why is this important? For the average consumer looking for new dinner ideas, its not.  For restaurant operators looking for sales growth opportunities in the next trend, these articles are misleading at best.  Truly capturing trends requires experimenting, testing, and following the money.  Operators that participate in this process fail at trend testing a lot, and that is why they are successful at staying on trend.  All of the relevant consumer trends exist within your own p-mix. Only through trial and error can you discover something new for your menu.

Your menu is an important point.  Not every trend was made for your concept.  Sometimes its best to watch trends come and go because they are not consistent with your branding.