15 Restaurant Dining Trends in 2023

Staying updated on the latest trends in hospitality is key for restaurant success, especially when it comes to how diners use the internet to find new places to eat. Between search engines, social media, and websites, there are a lot of ways that diners can discover restaurants using digital technology. 

In the 2023 Diner Journey Report, BentoBox talked to more than 2,000 U.S. diners about how the digital world leads to the dining room. Here are the top 15 dining trends from the study to support your strategic planning this year.

New Restaurant Discovery

• 89% of diners find new restaurants through recommendations from family or friends.

• 86% of diners find new restaurants by doing online research.

• 75% of diners find new restaurants by chance in-person.

Online Research

• Google Maps reigns supreme as the most-used restaurant-specific review site, with 40% of diners leveraging its insights. Runners-up are Yelp (26%), Facebook Reviews (19%), TripAdvisor (12%) and Zagat (3%).

• The most popular search categories for online research were by Location (61%), Rating (“best burger”) (38%), Cuisine Type (36%), Ambiance — Fine Dining (22%) and Casual (16%) — and Occasion (18%).

Restaurant Websites

• 75% of diners say they’re more likely to choose a restaurant with a high-quality website over one with poor quality.

• The most common channels for finding restaurant websites are through Search Engines (61%), followed by Online Map Search (45%), review platforms (35%), social media pages (33%), delivery platforms (27%), and reservation platforms (22%). 

• 61% of diners said that prices were very important to include on fine dining restaurant websites, compared to 69% of diners who said that prices were very important to include on casual dining restaurant websites. 

Social Media Use

• 70% of fine dining high spenders use social media for restaurant discovery.

• More than half of Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers use Facebook to find new restaurants while only 44% of Gen Z does — they’re more likely to head to Instagram.

• 30% of diners pay attention to recommendations from social media influencers when they appear in their feed.

• 24% of diners search social media with specific keywords to find new restaurants. 

Demographics

• 21% of parents rated “occasion” (e.g. “child-friendly outing” or “anniversary”) as a type of search they use to find new restaurants — the most of any demographic cohort.

• 50% of high earners say they search for restaurants based on “Rating, such as ‘best burger’ or ‘most popular restaurant.’”

• 52% of frequent diners strongly agreed that they “always look at a fine dining restaurant’s website before deciding to go”.