Top trends among Americans who dine out: Lightspeed CEO

Lightspeed CEO Dax Dasilva joins Asking For A Trend to give insight into its research regarding Americans' dining preferences. A recent Lightspeed survey found that 51% of respondents plan to dine out at the same rate or more frequently in the next six months.

Dasilva argues that Americans love dining out, pointing to the 81% who dine out once a month or more and 39% who eat out once a week or more.

"One of the things that we surveyed was the QR code menu, and that is not popular. 89% prefer a physical menu; you can probably relate to that. I personally don't love it, but 34%, a good third, actually hate it. This was a COVID measure that kept us all safe during COVID," Dasilva adds.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Asking for a Trend.

This post was written by Nicholas Jacobino

Video transcript

Dining out is here to stay.

It's according to new research from Commerce platform, light speed, more than half of survey respondents said they plan to dine out at the same pace or more frequently over the next six months.

But value is now top of mind speeds.

Ceo Dax de Silva joins me.

Now, Dax, it is always good to see you.

Um So you guys did a it was an interesting sounding survey.

You're trying to get a read here on dining trends.

So let's start there, Dax, what did you learn how dining trends been evolving?

So Americans love dining out, you know, our, our restaurant software is installed in restaurants across Europe, Asia and North America and Americans are, are still dining out as you saw from that stat, 51% plan to increase their dining out in the next six months, but 81% are are dining out once a month or more right now and 39% once a week or more.

And so, uh you know, you just mentioned something about mcdonald's fast food has gotten more expensive.

Uh and so casual dining is becoming more popular because it's um it's competitive with, uh with what fast food has become in terms of, in terms of price.

So, uh the consumers are really looking for that value, uh, you know, value for the dollar.

And how does this sort of, I was interested reading through the survey dax how some of the knock on effects, for example, if people they still wanna eat out, but bottom line, they're looking to stretch that dollar, right?

Um How does that affect other things that might go on inside a restaurant?

For example, does that impact um how people think about tipping?

Oh, tipping, you know, I think consumers are reaching the tipping point a little bit on tipping.

There's a lot of pressure as you see, as you see from these stats here.

Um you know, there's a lot of pressure to tip, 58% are feeling that pressure, 44% say that um that inflation has affected their ability to tip.

But Americans are the most generous uh you know, across our survey compared to Europeans or, or um you know, folks in Asia uh Americans still tip uh close to 20% and a good percentage tip above 20%.

So even though Americans are feeling, you know, the pinch of, of inflation, uh the generosity is still there uh on the tipping side.

Now we, we've spoken another trend.

I wanna get your take on DAX.

You know, we have different restaurant CEO S come on Yahoo Finance.

And often they'll talk about how enthusiastic they are about integrating technology into their restaurants in your survey.

What did you pick up there?

How do consumers actually feel about tech when they dine out?

Do they react positively to maybe this kind of innovation?

Well, of course, the one of the things that we surveyed uh was the QR code menu.

Uh and that is not popular, 89% prefer a physical menu.

Uh You could probably relate to that.

I I per personally don't love it, but 34% a good third actually hate it.

Um So, you know, this was a COVID measure that kept us all safe during COVID.

But uh but folks prefer the physical menu when they go out.

Uh I think that, you know, restaurant tech is really helping the back end uh the back office of the restaurant, you know, be more efficient on food costs uh helping also to facilitate, facilitate other things like delivery or pick up.

Uh So they consume can have the choice they want and how they get, how, how they receive their food.

Uh So, but the QR Code menu is uh is, is, is not the most popular.

II, I do get that.

I mean, believe me that when I go out, I, I do pre prefer that that kind of physical menu.

I am kinda curious though when sort of the reactions to the tech to the QR Codes did that, did that differ depending on the demographic?

Yeah.

8, 18 to 34 55% of 18 to 34 were affected.

Oh, sorry.

Yeah.

No, II, I think definitely the older folks, uh, you know, um, don't love the QR code menu.

Um, those that are younger that are a little bit more adept to the tech are, um, ok with it.

Uh, so I think it is a generational thing.

Uh I think everybody had to get used to it during the, during the pandemic.

But now that, that has subsided, you know, everyone is looking uh to enjoy the physical menu as a part of their, uh uh you know, restaurant, dining out experience.

And you got, you all dax, you got, you got a ton of data over there.

I'm just curious, um, besides restaurants, any other big trends you're kind of picking up right now and in other sectors, other industries that you'd highlight.

Yeah, we're seeing in retail.

Um We're definitely seeing some of the outdoor uh verticals and retail start to pick up.

Uh, you know, we, in our last quarter, we reported that, you know, home and garden, sporting goods.

Uh We're probably going to trend up, uh and uh other, other um other verticals like clothing and so on would probably trend down uh as we approach summer.

So this is, uh these are some of the things that we're seeing in retail verticals.

But when we report our export in August.

We'll have more data on uh what we actually saw in the summer.

Uh And we, and how those verticals sort of fared uh as the weather and, and the, the seasons have changed.

All right, Dax, it'll be a great time to get you right back on the show.

Thank you, sir.

Always good seeing you.

Good to see you.