A perfect combination of technology, economics, changing cultural tastes, and the lingering effects of the COVID-19 lockdowns have put America’s middle-class eateries on an inescapable decline, The New York Times reported.
Restaurants that are too pedestrian to be considered high-end yet take too long to be considered fast food are finding themselves losing customers and locations rapidly. Americans have shifted their priorities and have moved away from the giant portions, happy hours, and sitting down while eating a meal that mid-tier national food chains offer.
In 2024, the restaurant industry saw a massive decline in chains with Wendy’s closing 140 locations, Red Lobster shutting down over 100, Denny’s closing 150, and Outback and Applebee’s closing dozens of their own locations. TGI Friday’s and Red Lobster both filed for bankruptcy in 2024.
What was once a weekly routine, the number of American families dining out is down 24% from the previous year, according to market research firm Datassential.
During the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020-2021, millions of Americans embraced the peak combination of food and technology in Uber Eats and DoorDash.
Sitting down at a table with a waiter became abnormal. And when the world opened up again, restaurants struggled to adjust to the new consumer not willing to pay $100 and wait for mediocre food.
Brian Cox, a pollster who has analyzed the cultural loss of middle-class eateries, lamented the shift in habits.
“I think what a lot of families are doing is opting out. That’s a real loss,” he told the Times.
Jane and Michael Stern, who collaborated on the “Roadfood” guides, noticed how the large chain restaurants slowly devoured the unique locale family eateries in the 1980s.
“They are the ruination of American food,” Jane Stern said of the chains, noting local mom-and-pop restaurants defined their unique locations.
“They were places that did their own cooking, made their own menus, and had their own vision of what they should serve,” she said, adding that most of the chains offered the same version of chicken strips and fries with the notion of “mom’s meatloaf” being an antiquated thing of the past.
Cultural tastes have a played a role as well, with many consumers being swayed by the promise of grass-fed beef, organic produce, and free-range chicken.
Chipotle managed to survive pre- and post-COVID-19 with a business model that easily adapted to technology, never was burdened by dishwashers or servers, and already boasted a menu of high quality ingredients.
Nathan Wilmers, an associate professor at the Sloan School of Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology observed a less obvious loss about the decline of the middle-class restaurant: the middle-class part.
“It’s class-neutral ground to meet up with somebody you’re connected with through work or some other setting,” Wilmers told the Times. “If there’s only really fancy restaurants or fast food, you don’t have the social infrastructure for having comfortable meetups.”
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