Posted by Tim on May 29, 2012
We've seen rumblings of this in a few places across the media - as the economy crawls out of recession, diners are shifting back to the casual dining segment. Nation's Restaurant News cited this in an online article in late May.
According to the article: "Respondents devoted 37.7% of their restaurant spending to limited-service restaurants during the quarter, a decline from 41% - 42.1% during the previous year. Meanwhile, consumers said they spent about 41.1% of their dining-out dollars on casual dining restaurants, up from 38% - 39.4% seen in 2011."
The market for casual dining is coming back and casual dining is a huge user of online ordering services like NetWaiter.
Also, according to Restaurant Hospitality, 84% of those restaurants that have a stand-alone mobile website see an increase in new business activity.
"We're starting to see the beginnings of a perfect storm for online ordering," said Jared Shimoff, a Sr. Director at NetWaiter. "The market is shifting more towards the casual dining sector, and at the same time, we are seeing an explosion in the popularity of smartphones."
"All the data we've seen tells us that mobile websites, with the ability to place orders, continue to increase as a major influence on the restaurant market. Thankfully, we’re able to keep our clients on the forefront of this growing trend."
