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The Decline of Casual Dining: Have Family Meals at Restaurants Become a Luxury?
For many Americans, dining out at sit-down restaurants was once a routine and affordable pleasure. Casual dining chains like Pizza Hut, Applebee’s, and TGI Fridays were mainstays for middle-class families seeking a convenient and communal meal. However, shifting economic landscapes and evolving consumer preferences are leading to a noticeable decline in the popularity of these establishments, raising questions about the future of family meals outside the home and the social connections fostered by restaurant dining.
Daniel Cox, recalling his childhood in Rochester, N.Y., fondly remembers Saturday nights at Pizza Hut. It was a weekly ritual with his father and brothers, so consistent that their server knew their order upon seeing their car arrive: two cheese pan pizzas and two pitchers of Pepsi.
For Mr. Cox, whose parents were divorced, Pizza Hut was more than just a meal; it was a stabilizing force. “It was a dedicated time for us to be together, enjoying a shared experience,” he said. “After all, who doesn’t enjoy pizza?”
Today, as a parent himself, Mr. Cox finds family restaurant outings rare. His children’s busy schedules with travel soccer and the escalating cost of dining out, exceeding $100 at their local pizzeria, make affordable sit-down family meals a distant memory.
Once symbols of rapid growth and commercial success, casual dining chains—restaurants offering table service without reservations for middle-class families—have experienced a downturn throughout the 21st century. Recent bankruptcy filings by TGI Fridays and Red Lobster, coupled with numerous closures of Outback and Applebee’s locations, illustrate this shrinking sector. Pizza Hut, too, has seen a significant reduction in locations with dining rooms since 2019.
A February survey conducted by Datassential, a market research firm, revealed that 24 percent of Americans are frequenting casual restaurants less often. Furthermore, 29 percent reported a decrease in dining out with friends and family.
Mr. Cox, a pollster and the director of the Survey Center on American Life, recognized this trend and its potential societal impact. Intrigued by the implications of these chain restaurant struggles, his latest survey on social trust and cohesion included questions about the frequency of sit-down dining experiences.
Anticipating the May publication of his findings, he commented, “I believe many families are simply opting out of dining out. This represents a significant societal loss.”
The diminution of these social spaces, alongside the growing prevalence of individualized eating habits facilitated by delivery apps and drive-throughs, points to a decline in the cherished American tradition of dining out with loved ones and the human connection it fosters.
The Shifting Landscape: From Mom-and-Pops to Chains
It may seem ironic to consider these large chains as vital components of our social structure. For years, they were often viewed as dominant forces in the American dining scene, overshadowing smaller, independent restaurants.
Jane Stern, a food writer who has spent decades documenting American food culture, remarked, “They are the downfall of American cuisine.” With her former husband, Michael Stern, she authored the influential “Roadfood” guides, exploring eateries across the nation.
In the mid-1970s, when the Sterns began their travels, many American towns had limited restaurant options. Ms. Stern recalled, “These were places that crafted their own menus, developed their own recipes, and presented their unique culinary visions,” often showcasing regional specialties like fried clams or fry bread.
As chain restaurants emerged on the outskirts of smaller towns, near highways, local cafes frequently struggled to survive. Instead of dining rooms featuring time-honored family recipes, standardized picture menus offered what Ms. Stern derisively termed “‘Mom’s meatloaf.’ But which Mom are they referring to?”
Chain restaurants experienced substantial expansion in the 1980s. The rise of suburban living, fueled by baby boomers starting families and often featuring dual-income households, created ideal economic conditions for restaurant growth. Sit-down chains opened numerous domestic and international locations. During this decade, nearly 1.8 million service sector jobs—one in ten newly created positions—were within the restaurant industry.
American highway intersections became hubs for mass-produced dining experiences. Charles Bernstein and Ron Paul, in their 1994 book, “Winning the Chain Restaurant Game,” expressed astonishment at the sheer volume of restaurants, citing 180 eateries along a single mile of Belt Line Road outside Dallas.
“We once believed the restaurant business was an entrepreneurial field where independent establishments would flourish,” they wrote. “However, in the United States, for better or worse, chain-dominated restaurant strips and clusters are now ubiquitous, from Newport Beach, Calif., to suburban Maryland near Washington, D.C.”
Sit-down chains entered the 21st century seemingly at the apex of economic prosperity.
The Start of a Protracted Decline
However, the very conditions that facilitated their growth also marked the onset of a new economic era characterized by increasing wealth concentration. By the 2000s, the middle class that these restaurants were designed to serve was contracting due to wage stagnation and growing income-based residential segregation. Consequently, the chains began to struggle.
By 2017, many major chains publicly acknowledged their challenges with declining growth.
David Henkes, a principal at Technomic, a foodservice market research firm, recalls conducting a study in the early 2000s on a novel restaurant type. Distinct from casual dining due to counter service, yet offering higher quality and prices than fast food, this segment eventually became known as fast casual.
“Since gaining recognition as a separate segment from fast food, fast casual has experienced consistent growth,” Mr. Henkes noted.
Fast-casual brands like Chipotle succeeded not only through labor cost savings by minimizing server and dishwasher staff, but also by appealing to consumers’ desire for healthier and more ethically sourced options. Chipotle’s prominent advertising campaign, featuring a poignant film criticizing factory farming, and another spot simply showcasing vegetable preparation, contrasted sharply with the earlier emphasis on the dining experience, as exemplified by Olive Garden’s “When You’re Here, You’re Family” slogan. The new message emphasized responsibly sourced ingredients and convenient takeout.
This messaging resonated particularly well with millennials, a demographic highly valued by marketers. Food became a significant aspect of their identity and values. Daphne Demetry, an associate professor at McGill University, specializing in gourmet food truck trends of the 2010s, believes millennials primarily seek authenticity.
“It’s hard to imagine anything less authentic than TGI Fridays or Olive Garden,” she stated.
Even Chip Wade, CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group and a former executive at Darden and Red Lobster, mentioned that his sons, aged 25 and 27, “refuse to enter a casual dining establishment,” preferring Chipotle and Shake Shack.
S. Margot Finn, a lecturer at the University of Michigan, offers another perspective on the cultural focus on “good” food, often portrayed in media as widespread culinary enlightenment. Her 2017 book, “Discriminating Taste,” argues that this shift was driven by status anxiety. As upper-middle-class economic gains stagnated relative to the top 1 percent in the 1980s and 90s, they turned to food as a symbol of distinction and refinement.
“Olive Garden, Applebee’s, and TGI Fridays fulfill a need for a dependable meal that pleases a broad range of palates,” she explained. “These are practical needs, but not status-enhancing.”
Dr. Finn admitted to this tendency herself. As payment for a lecture, she received a $250 gift certificate for any Darden restaurant, the closest being an Olive Garden.
“It became a running joke,” she recounted. “My husband and I would arrange childcare and then, in the car, ask each other, ‘Is tonight the Olive Garden night?’” But they never went, opting instead for “a more ambitious restaurant that was likely inferior to Olive Garden.”
The Solitary Diner: Eating Alone in a Changing World
Dismissing casual dining chains as inauthentic may overlook a valuable social function they serve. Beyond providing affordable venues for group meals, recent research indicates that restaurants like Applebee’s and Olive Garden may be among the last places that unite diverse segments of American society.
In a study utilizing cellphone location data, Nathan Wilmers and Maxim Massenkoff analyzed locations with the least income-based segregation, revealing the starkness of societal divisions.
“It emerged unexpectedly from our project data; we weren’t initially studying these restaurants,” explained Mr. Wilmers, an associate professor at M.I.T. Sloan School of Management.
Fast-food locations are so ubiquitous they don’t consistently draw people from different neighborhoods. Civic institutions like libraries and post offices primarily serve their immediate vicinity. Even independent, locally owned restaurants, often romanticized as underdogs, tend to attract a more affluent clientele.
However, chain restaurants like Chili’s, situated by highways, are uniquely positioned to attract visitors from a wider socioeconomic spectrum due to their strategic, yet not overly common, locations. Data from social media, such as Facebook, also suggests that frequent patrons of these restaurants tend to have more cross-class friendships.
“They offer neutral ground for meetings with colleagues or acquaintances from various contexts,” Mr. Wilmers noted. “If the only options are upscale restaurants or fast food, the social infrastructure for comfortable meet-ups diminishes.”
Restaurant dining-room closures during the early pandemic stages and subsequent shifts in diner behavior accelerated the challenges faced by sit-down chains. Runaway restaurant inflation in the early 2020s, which increased prices by 30 to 35 percent across the board, according to Mr. Henkes of Technomic, further undermined the value proposition of these chains.
By 2024, the lasting repercussions of the pandemic and earlier management transitions brought numerous long-standing casual dining chains to a critical juncture. Red Lobster declared bankruptcy and closed 140 locations. While Chili’s demonstrates resilience, the broader outlook remains uncertain.
Americans still spend significantly on restaurant food, but increasingly, they are consuming restaurant-prepared food elsewhere. Takeout and delivery services are now firmly ingrained habits. Drive-throughs remain popular. Analysts suggest that snacking and smaller indulgences are displacing traditional breakfast, lunch, and dinner routines.
This shift suggests that Americans are eating alone more than ever, a trend some believe contributes to diminished well-being. While solo dining can be enjoyable, it’s less so when confined to a car.
A recent Datassential survey highlights this sentiment. When asked about the “most luxurious” aspect of dining out, respondents ranked “dining at a sit-down restaurant in general” above premium ingredients like lobster or caviar.
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