Quick Service Restaurant Visits Almost Back To 2019 Levels
The increase in drive-thru and take-out orders since the start of the pandemic has provided a boost.
Quick service restaurant visits were almost back up to 2019 levels in October, Placer.ai reports.
All QSR brands surveyed had an increase in shorter visits with the average share rising from 50% in August through October 2019 to 60% for those months in 2021.
Placer.ai attributed the rise to the increase in drive-thru and take-out orders since the start of the pandemic as the social experience these establishments provide declining in importance.
For the chains trying to recover from a pandemic drop-off in business there was not a “one size fits all” solution, according to the firm.
McDonald’s appears to have closed its visit gap by consolidating its position as lunch and dinner provider, Placer.ai noted, while Wendy’s appears to have taken the pandemic as an opportunity to carve out a new niche for itself as a breakfast leader
McDonald’s relatively small drop in lunch visits from 31.9% of total visits in Q3 2019 to 29.1% of total visits in Q3 2021 indicates that the QSR king has remained the dominant QSR brand in the United States, the research firm said.
At the same time, Wendy’s had a dramatic jump in morning visits, from 3.6% in Q3 2019 to 5.3% in Q3 2021.
“This is all the more impressive given that the brand was essentially a non-player in the breakfast space pre-pandemic,” Pacer.ai pointed out.
The firm saw three categories of QSR recovery paths occurring.
In the first category brands that managed to thrive over the pandemic, such as In-N-Out, Shake Shack, White Castle, Portillo’s, and Popeyes, success came from expansion, or in the case of Popeyes, the long-term boost from the Chicken Wars in summer 2019.
A second category was of brands that saw a clear decrease in offline visits during the pandemic, but that have now succeeded in essentially closing the year-over-two-year visit gap, which included Wendy’s and McDonald’s.
The third category consisted of brands that are still feeling the impact of the COVID-induced drop in in-person dining. This includes brands such as Burger King, Chick-fil-A, and KFC, where October dining visits were still down by 10.1%, 15.3%, and 20.4%, respectively.