Dining visits remained relatively steady for the first five months of this year, with year-over-year traffic falling about half a percentage point between January and May, according to Placer.ai data. While most of the country experienced declines of less than 2% in dining visits, Washington, D.C., Kansas, and North Dakota logged larger visit decreases. In contrast, Western states, including Utah, Idaho, and Nevada, and Coastal states like California, Washington and Vermont, all logged dining visit increases, the report found.
Fine dining and coffee establishments saw the strongest overall visit trends, up 1.3% and 2.6% year-over-year, respectively, between January and May. However, visits per location were negative for both segments, suggesting that much of the visit strength can be attributed to expansion. Meanwhile, full-service casual dining saw overall traffic decrease by 1.5%, while it remained steady on a per-location basis, indicating rightsizing efforts have been effective, said Placer.ai. Furthermore, increased May visits suggest that the casual dining segment is well-positioned for growth in the second half of the year.
Quick service restaurants (QSR) and fast casual chains also saw minor dips in per-venue visits, but an increase in overall traffic at fast casual chains suggests the segment is expanding more aggressively than QSR, said Placer.ai.
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Fine dining drew the most visitors from the highest-income areas, while fast casual drew the highest share of visitors from suburban areas, followed by casual dining and coffee. QSR attracted the smallest share of suburban visitors. However, fine dining increased its share of suburban visitors, while coffee chain visits among suburbanites decreased and suburban visitors to QSR, fast casual and casual chains remained steady.
“This may suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent rise of remote and hybrid work models are still impacting consumer dining habits, benefiting destination-worthy experiences in suburban locales such as fine dining chains while reducing the necessity of daily coffee runs that were often tied to commuting and office work,” said the report.
Limited service segments, including QSR, fast casual, and coffee, tend to see higher shares of visits on weekdays, while full service segments – casual dining and fine dining – receive higher shares of weekend visits. On the full-service side, casual dining and fine dining chains have relatively similar shares of weekend visits, but fine dining sees an uptick of visits on Fridays.
Hourly visit patterns also show variability between the segments. Coffee is the unsurprising leader of early visits, with fast casual leading the lunch rush, casual dining chains receiving the largest share of afternoon visits and fine dining restaurants receiving the largest share of dinner visits. QSR leads the late-night visit share, followed by casual dining chains, likely due to the popularity of 24-hour diners, said Placer.ai.
Between January and May 2025, the average dwell time for nearly every dining segment was shorter than during the same period in 2019, suggesting a continued emphasis on speed and convenience. The one notable exception is upscale and fine dining, where the average visit duration increased compared to pre-COVID levels.
“This may suggest that, while visits to most segments have become more transactional, consumers are treating fine dining more as an extended, deliberate experience, reinforcing its position as a destination-worthy occasion,” said the report.
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Kristen Smithberg
Kristen Smithberg is a Colorado-based freelance writer who covers commercial real estate, insurance, benefits and retirement topics for BenefitsPRO and other industry publications.
