Restaurant Trends

Restaurant Trends: How Gen Z & Other Generations Find New Restaurants

There are generational differences to finding new restaurants. In this blog, we explore the generational differences in restaurant discovery so you can attract the right guests for your restaurants.

restaurant-trends
Author
The Akira Team
3 min September 6, 2024

According to Keywords Everywhere, "Instagram worthy restaurants near me" currently has a monthly search volume of 880. And that's just one variation of the term out of hundreds.

Instagrammable food has been a restaurant trend for years, and has transformed the way millennials and gen z think about dining experiences. One quick Google search will populate an endless supply of "most instagrammable restaurants" in various cities around the globe.

But what does this mean for restaurants? Your online reputation matters — a lot. As does your social media presence and staying up on restaurant trends.

In this blog, we'll break down:

How baby boomers and generation x discover new restaurants

How millennials and generation z choose new restaurants

Why online reputation management—matters more than ever today

How to improve your restaurant's online reputation

Before we dive in, here's a quick overview of the generations and their age-ranges as of this year, courtesy of Mental Floss:

how-gen-z-finds-restaurants-stats
Image source: Mental Floss

Which online channels do baby boomers and generation x use to discover new restaurants?

Gen X and Baby Boomers are no strangers to online restaurant discovery. Both generations frequently use search engines to gauge where they should dine.

According to Marketing Charts, search engines the biggest factor in brand (including restaurant) discovery for generation X:

how-gen-z-finds-restaurants-stats

Which specific online channels do they frequent? In order of popularity it's:

  1. YouTube
  2. FaceBook
  3. WhatsApp

But don't sleep on the Baby Boomers. According to studies, they are also very active on social media, spending up to 2 hours a day online.

Their preferred social channels include FaceBook and X (formerly Twitter). And over 33% of them are active on Yelp among other review sites (Tripadvisor, Google, etc.).

This could be because Boomers, more than any other generation, love to let their opinions known online. MarketingProfs found that the Boomer generation was responsible for 45% of the total online reviews.

Which online channels do millennials and gen z use to discover new restaurants?

Millennials and gen z have gone all in when it comes to online restaurant discovery—with 99% of both generations more likely to rely on social media and online reviews than Gen X and Boomers.

google-places
Image source: Google

In addition, both millennials and gen z are heavily influenced by restaurant trends and marketing—relying on the restaurant's social media and UCG from influencers they follow for dining decisions:

where-consumers-find-restaurant-information-stats
Image source: PYMNTS

Social Media's "Restaurant Trend" Influence on Millennials and Gen Z

Over the past few years, Instagram and TikTok have taken the restaurant scene by storm. influencers can have a major impact on business, driving diners in swarms to try the food featured in a viral TikTok reel.

Just how impactful is social media for driving restaurant business? One study revealed that over 53% of Millennial TikTok users visited a restaurant after seeing it on TikTok, and 30% were willing to drive further than normal to dine there.

chipotle-taste-test-winner

Restaurant reviews on Instagram and TikTok have the ability to go viral. Infamous TikTok restaurant influencer Keith Lee has 16.5 million followers and has been known to drive hungry followers to the restaurants he reviews in droves—so much so that many restaurants can't handle the foot traffic.

TL;DR? Both Millennials and Gen Z are ok with being influenced into their restaurant choices, and rely on restaurant trends from social media to help them decide.

Why online reputation management—matters more than ever today

What does all of this mean for restaurants? It's simple—your online reputation matters more than ever. Gone are the days when you rely on steady foot traffic from consistent operations.

In fact, 92% of consumers claim they won't even visit a restaurant with less than 4 stars on Google.

In today's social-media driven society, you need to keep your online reputation as sparkling clean as your restaurant's kitchen to win. Which means having a robust online reputation management strategy to attract and retain customers.

How to improve your restaurant's online reputation

Here's the secret about online reputation management that so many restaurants get wrong: you can't improve what you don't measure.

You may think you have a decent grip on your social presence, but unless you're actively measuring, you'll never truly know. And you definitely won't know if things are starting to slip up until it's too late.

Imagine if you had a way to easily streamline and manage all of your restaurant feedback and online reviews in one place and also have a restaurant sentiment scorecard generated based on those reviews?

Now you can:

where-consumers-find-restaurant-information-stats
Image source: Akira

Akira is revolutionizing reputation management for restaurants in the following ways:

  1. Streamlined, timely responses: Respond to a higher volume of feedback and reviews efficiently and effectively—and always know the status of each one.
  2. Accurate online listings: Never worry about inaccurate listings with scheduled bulk updates.
  3. Easily visualize key trends: Easily understand the sentiment trends for each on of your restaurant locations.
  4. Stay ahead of problems: Identify and address problems proactively before they get out of hand.
  5. Overall efficiency with AI: Use AI to streamline feedback and reviews by priority level and even to effectively craft responses on your behalf.

Once you have a baseline, the sky's the limit

where-consumers-find-restaurant-information-stats
Image source: Akira

The insights gleaned from the above help you address and solve problems before they get out of hand and make key optimizations to operations, marketing, and guest experience that will drive business.

With a solid baseline to easily manage reviews and measure your restaurant's sentiment you can stop putting out little fires and start focusing on building out a solid social media strategy and capitalizing on key restaurant trends.

Improve your restaurant's short at going viral on TikTok today—let's set that baseline measurement for you.