What’s Up with Restaurants, Spring 2025

Big Chalk’s Perspective on Out-of-Home Dining Midway Through 2025

It has been a more challenging start for restaurant operators in 2025 than we had hoped at the beginning of the year. Some metrics are stabilizing – and a few key statistics offer signs of optimism – but things are still tough for the Out-of-Home Dining category. Big Chalk’s data suggests continued softness through the back half – with some hope that at least things won’t get worse.

From a same-store-sales perspective, we estimate 1H 2025 industry revenues are off 2-3% versus the same period last year.

Average visits-per-week has improved recently, based on responses to Big Chalk’s Trade-Off Consumer survey fielded in June. This suggests a turnaround from the dismal foot traffic numbers caused by bad weather and general economic uncertainty in 1Q 2025.

The Trade-Off Consumer – arguably the category’s most important consumer set (and one few restaurant marketers know much about) – is returning to dining out. This is welcome news.

That said, after a slight reprieve in Q4 2024, all consumers (“Trade-Off” or not) have increased their scrutiny on their Dining-Out budgets – with a rise in intent to cut spend on the category, as shown in Figure 1 on the next page.

Download our "three-pager" report on our outlook for restaurants here.