Restaurant spending varies significantly by food category, and those differences influence how menus perform in practice. While guests may order across similar categories each visit, the share of the check attributed to mains, beverages, starters, desserts, and add-ons does not remain constant.
Understanding how consumers allocate spend across these categories helps operators assess pricing tolerance, identify revenue-driving sections of the menu, and evaluate where incremental growth is most achievable. Category-level spending data also offers clearer guidance than item sales alone when refining menu structure or prioritizing updates.
This article explores restaurant spending statistics by food category to highlight current consumer trends and translate them into practical menu and pricing insights for restaurant operators.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- U.S. consumers now spend more on restaurants than groceries, making category-level spend analysis increasingly important.
- Food typically contributes 70-75% of restaurant revenue, with beverages accounting for the remaining share.
- Americans dine out 4-5 times per month, with 55% preferring dine-in over delivery or takeout.
- Core categories like chicken, pizza, and burgers dominate order frequency, while sides and beverages drive incremental value.
- Pizza alone generates $46.8 billion annually, highlighting the revenue weight of dominant food categories.
- French fries rank among the most ordered items overall, highlighting the revenue importance of sides beyond main dishes.
Overview of Consumer Spending at Restaurants
In the U.S., consumers now spend more on food away from home than on groceries, with restaurant and foodservice sales projected to reach $1.5 trillion in 2025, according to the National Restaurant Association.
With U.S. consumers now spending more on food away from home than at grocery stores, understanding how the restaurant dollar is distributed across categories provides a more accurate lens into revenue stability and upsell potential than topline averages alone.
A. Food vs Beverage Spend
- Monthly sales at eating and drinking places reached $100.7 billion recently, reflecting the consistently high level of restaurant consumer spend.
- Within the overall consumer spend, revenue is not evenly spread across menus. Industry cost and sales benchmarks consistently show that food accounts for roughly 70-75% of total restaurant revenue, while beverages contribute around 25-30%, depending on format and service style.
B. Average Restaurant Consumer Spend
The average U.S. diner spends roughly $191 per month when dining out, up from $166 the year before, reflecting stronger spend per occasion.
C. Dine-in Patterns
- In recent consumer surveys, Americans reported dining out about 4-5 times per month in 2024, up from about 3 times per month in 2023. This indicates a growing frequency of dine-in occasions.
- In 2024, 55% of Americans preferred dining out at restaurants rather than ordering takeout or delivery, up from 43% in 2023 — a measurable increase in dine-in preference year-over-year.
D. Delivery/Takeout Patterns
- Nearly three out of four restaurant orders now happen off-premises (takeout, delivery, drive-thru), meaning around 75% of total restaurant traffic is not dine-in, highlighting how dine-in may represent a minority of total orders but remains important for certain categories of spend (e.g., beverages, desserts).
- Off-premise dining now accounts for a larger share of sales for 41% of full-service restaurants compared with pre-pandemic levels, underscoring how much broader spend patterns are shifting across formats even for dine-in-centric concepts.
- Online food delivery and takeout have become dominant, with 77% of U.S. consumers ordering delivery and 76% picking up takeout in a typical month, often prioritizing core food items over drinks or desserts.
EXPERT OPINION
Kirk Bachmann, President, Escoffier Boulder Campus, states, “It’s been striking to track these shifts in food spending over the years, to see how we’re now spending more than ever on dining out while our spending on groceries continues to fall. Your budget reveals your priorities, and this trend seems to reflect a fundamental cultural shift toward convenience over cooking at home.”
How Consumer Spending Varies Across Food Categories?
Examining how consumer spending varies across food categories is essential for restaurant owners to adjust their menu offerings and operations to meet the unique needs of diners.
1. Chicken and Poultry
- Chicken is one of the core quick-service food categories alongside burgers and pizza, emphasized by top brands and consumer ordering patterns.
- 76% of chicken orders in large cities like NYC and Chicago include chicken nuggets, highlighting nugget demand.
- Menu demand for chicken-driven items has risen steadily, with categories like wings, tenders, and chicken sandwiches posting 6.4% growth over five years, ahead of beef items at 4.7%.
- “Chicken sandwiches” saw a 125% increase in searches on Yelp from June 2019 to June 2025, highlighting growing consumer interest.
2. Pizza
- Pizza is one of the top revenue-generating food categories in the U.S., with pizza restaurants making $46.8 billion annually.
- Americans eat over 3 billion pizzas every year, equating to roughly 350 slices per second consumed nationwide.
- 93% of U.S. consumers eat pizza monthly, consuming approximately 46 slices per person, annually.
- Pizza contributes about 27% of total energy intake on days when it’s consumed, reflecting its prominence as a meal choice.
- Pizza is consumed more frequently at lunch and dinner occasions among restaurant consumers.
3. Burgers
- Burgers and sandwiches represent the largest share (~38.1%) of the global fast food market by product type in 2024.
- Roughly 79% of Americans eat burgers at least weekly, underscoring their popularity as a go-to restaurant item.
- U.S. consumers eat an estimated 50 billion burgers annually.
- Nearly three-quarters of burger lovers add cheese to their burgers, indicating a strong attachment to cheeseburgers.
- Chicken burgers are now the most popular burger type in 17 U.S. states, reflecting diversification in the burger category.
4. French Fries and Sides
- In 2024, the global market for French fries was estimated at around $17.45 billion, and forecast to reach $18.44 billion in 2025.
- French fries hold the top spot as the most popular food item ordered online in the U.S., according to aggregated delivery data.
- In DoorDash delivery data, French fries are listed above burgers, tacos, salads, and pizza among popular orders.
5. Beverages
- Per capita expenditure data shows U.S. consumers spent about $390 on non-alcoholic beverages in 2022, growing at a ~6.4% CAGR from 2017.
- Per capita spending on alcoholic beverages was about $590 in 2022, the largest among beverage categories.
- Within cold non-alcoholic beverages on Grubhub, cold foam beverage orders increased 75% and matcha orders increased 34% among consumers, indicating rising beverage experimentation.
- Beverage categories routinely appear near the top of online delivery order lists alongside key food items (fries, burgers, tacos).
6. Salads and Healthy Bowls
- As of February 2024, an average American consumed 39 salads in a year, which is a 4% increase from the previous year.
- Over 52% of U.S. restaurants feature salads on their menus, showing that salads are a very common category across food service operators.
- According to national dietary data, 1 in 5 Americans (about 20%) consumed a salad on a given day — evidence that salads are a frequent choice among U.S. adults.
- Most salads (about 56%) are consumed at dinner, with lunch accounting for about 39%.
7. Desserts
- About 14.59% of U.S. restaurants offer dessert dishes on their menus, indicating that dessert remains a notable category across restaurant businesses.
- Vegan and other specialty dessert formats are among the fastest-growing adaptations on restaurant menus in recent trend data, reflecting diversification within the dessert category.
- Dessert category coverage and interest remain significant enough that operators actively track flavors and seasonal spikes to inform menus and promotions.
Conclusion
Restaurant spending patterns show that guests don’t allocate their food budgets evenly. Some categories attract frequent orders, others rely on specific occasions, and a few quietly add meaningful value when paired with the right meal.
Looking at spending by food category gives restaurants clearer signals on what to prioritize, where to refine menus, and how to align offerings with real customer behavior instead of assumptions.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What do restaurants spend the most money on?
Restaurants spend the largest share of operating costs on food and labor, which together typically account for 55-65% of total expenses. Food costs cover ingredients and supplies, while labor includes wages, benefits, and payroll-related expenses.
2. How much does the average restaurant spend on food?
The average restaurant spends 28-35% of its revenue on food costs, depending on the concept. Quick-service restaurants tend to fall on the lower end, while full-service and fine-dining restaurants usually operate at higher food cost percentages.
3. How much of the average food dollar is spent in restaurants?
As of 2024, about 59% of the U.S. food dollar is now spent on food away from home, including restaurants, cafes, and takeout, reflecting a long-term shift toward dining out and convenience-led consumption.
4. Where are Americans spending more money, on groceries or restaurants?
Americans now spend slightly more on restaurants than on groceries, with food-away-from-home expenditures consistently exceeding grocery spending in recent years, driven by convenience, lifestyle changes, and higher restaurant prices.
