The macro picture really is ugly right now.
The Iran war is entering its seventh month, oil is back above $100 a barrel, diesel has broken $6 nationally, and the conflict is increasingly being discussed as a prolonged supply problem rather than a temporary shock. At the same time, August inflation came in at 3.4% year over year, and economists now overwhelmingly expect the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates again.
None of this is particularly welcome news for restaurant operators already dealing with elevated food, labor and operating costs. And customers are feeling the same pressure at home.
Which means waiting for things to simply “get back to normal” isn’t much of a business strategy.
Customers are going to keep making choices about which meals out are worth the money. Restaurants have traditionally answered that problem with discounts, value menus and lower-priced options.
Those can work.
But there may be another way to compete.
If customers are going to be more selective, the solution isn’t necessarily lowering prices—it’s becoming harder to replace.
Customers Haven’t Stopped Eating Out. They’re Getting Pickier.
Restaurant sales have remained surprisingly resilient.
In July, 47% of operators reported higher same-store sales than a year earlier. But underneath that relatively encouraging number is something much less comfortable: 49% reported declining customer traffic, while only 40% reported an increase.
July marked the 17th month out of the last 18 in which more restaurant operators reported traffic declines than gains.
Some of the apparent contradiction is inflation. Restaurants can collect more money without serving substantially more food – or making more profit – if menu prices are higher.
But the larger behavioral change may be more important.
Customers aren’t necessarily giving up restaurants. They’re deciding which visits are still worth making.
For operators, that creates an obvious temptation: discounts, coupons, cheaper entrées and value menus.
Those can all work.
But restaurants have another competitive advantage that is easy to overlook.
Staying Home Isn’t Exactly Cheap Anymore
So why haven’t higher prices pushed restaurant traffic down even further?
One possible answer is that the alternative has gotten expensive too.
The grocery picture is roughly:
Grocery dollars spent: +3.0%
Actual inflation-adjusted grocery consumption: +0.6%
And the latest August CPI says grocery prices themselves are 2.2% higher than a year ago.
That tells us Americans are not suddenly buying dramatically more groceries. They’re spending more money to buy almost the same amount of food.
And that matters, because the price advantage of cooking at home may feel less compelling than it once did.
A restaurant meal is still generally more expensive than preparing the equivalent meal yourself. But customers don’t experience that comparison as a clean spreadsheet exercise.
They experience the total at the bottom of the grocery receipt.
If somebody’s supermarket trip now feels like:
$85… $110… $135…
there’s potentially a psychological point where:
“Jesus Christ, we just spent $130 on groceries and still don’t know what we’re having for dinner.”
starts competing with:
“Fuck it. Want Thai?”
That doesn’t mean restaurants have somehow become cheaper than groceries.
It means staying home doesn’t necessarily feel like the enormous bargain it once did.
And that may help explain why consumers appear to be reducing restaurant visits rather than abandoning them altogether. They’re still eating out. They’re just becoming more selective about which visits feel worth the money.
For restaurants, that’s an important distinction.
If customers are already choosing more carefully, the answer isn’t necessarily to become the cheapest possible source of food.
There may be another way to compete:
Offer something the customer can’t easily, efficiently or economically reproduce at home.
Don’t Just Compete on Price. Compete With the Grocery Store on Practicality.
A grocery shopper may technically be able to make nearly anything on your menu.
That doesn’t mean it’s practical.
A complicated sauce might require six ingredients they’ll barely use again. A specialty flour could cost $9 for a bag they need two tablespoons from. A dish might take three hours to prepare. A particular cooking technique may require equipment they don’t own.
Restaurants can spread those costs across dozens or hundreds of meals.
That’s an advantage the home kitchen can’t easily match.
Instead of asking only:
“How can we make this entrée cheaper?”
restaurants might also ask:
“What can our kitchen make efficiently that our customers can’t?”
That could mean smaller Spanish-style plates built around inexpensive ingredients. It could mean an interesting mocktail made with syrups, teas, citrus and herbs instead of another expensive alcoholic drink. It could mean bowls or plates with optional proteins and upgrades that allow customers to choose their own check size.
And it can mean designing food around something many restaurant customers deal with every day:
They can’t eat everything.
The “Difficult” Customer Might Be Your MVP
At first glance, food allergies can sound like a relatively small market.
About 6% to 7% of American adults have a diagnosed food allergy.
But that number dramatically understates how many restaurant decisions are affected by dietary restrictions.
Food allergies are only one piece of the picture. Celiac disease, lactose intolerance, food sensitivities and other restrictions add millions more customers who have to think carefully about what they eat.
In a 2025 consumer survey, 24% of Americans said they or someone in their household had a food allergy, intolerance or sensitivity – but the really interesting number for restaurants is 44%.
In a recent study, 44% of people without food allergies said allergies still influenced which restaurant they chose when dining with someone outside their household who had one.
Think about what that means.
Five friends decide to go to dinner.
Four can eat anywhere.
One can’t.
Who effectively has veto power over the restaurant?
That customer may represent one seat, but winning them can mean winning the entire table.
And once you earn their trust, they may have a stronger reason to come back than anyone else at it.
“Free From One Thing” Doesn’t Mean “Something I Can Eat”
Serving this customer well also requires understanding why dietary restrictions get complicated so quickly.
A vegan meat substitute may contain wheat or soy.
A gluten-free product may contain eggs.
A dairy-free sauce might use nuts.
So a product being free from one ingredient doesn’t necessarily make it useful to someone managing several restrictions.
That is one reason simply stocking a freezer full of expensive specialty substitutes isn’t necessarily the answer.
It’s also where restaurants can have an advantage.
Someone without dietary restrictions can choose among hundreds of restaurants with relatively little risk. Someone who finally finds a restaurant where the staff understands what’s actually in the food – and can consistently make something good they can eat – has a very strong reason not to start experimenting on new restaurants.
Research suggests food-allergic diners use loyalty to trusted restaurants as a way to reduce risk.
And this brings us back to the advantage restaurants have over the home kitchen: they can spread the cost of specialty ingredients, preparation and even potential waste across dozens or hundreds of meals instead of one. In even more cases, this group might find it more economical to eat out.
That’s why this customer can look very different once you stop thinking of them as a collection of modifications.
- They can influence where the whole group eats.
- They have fewer viable alternatives.
- Many more restaurant meals are particularly difficult for them to reproduce economically at home.
- And once you’ve earned their trust, switching restaurants carries a cost that has nothing to do with a loyalty program.
Yesterday’s “special request” may be tomorrow’s most valuable regular.
One Can of Chickpeas, Two Menu Items
Take aquafaba.
At home, it can be a pretty inconvenient egg-white substitute.
Maybe you want hummus tonight but have no use for the liquid. Maybe you want a foamy Whiskey Sour next weekend but have absolutely no interest in eating another can of chickpeas.
Households buy ingredients for individual meals.
Restaurants already know how to make one ingredient work across several dishes.
Aquafaba just shows how that same discipline can create allergy-friendly options without adding much cost: the chickpeas become hummus, while the liquid becomes an egg-free cocktail foam, binder, sauce component or dessert ingredient.
One purchase produces two useful ingredients—and potentially two different revenue streams.
What can feel wasteful or impractical at home can make perfect sense at restaurant scale.
And aquafaba is only the easiest example.
- Fruit used for desserts or garnishes can become syrups, shrubs or high-margin nonalcoholic drinks.
- White beans can appear whole in a salad or small plate, then be puréed to add body and creaminess to another dish without relying on dairy.
- Apples can become compote, dessert or cocktail syrup—and applesauce can also supply moisture in some egg-free baked goods.
- Rice can anchor bowls and sides, while rice flour can become a wheat-free dredge or coating.
- Corn can move across tortillas, polenta, grits, arepas and crunchy coatings without requiring wheat in the first place.
- Potatoes can become a side, a fritter or a thickener for soups and sauces.
- Flax or chia can appear in breakfast dishes or baked goods and also serve as a binder where egg would normally do the job.
- Sunflower seeds can become a garnish, sauce or spread while offering another option in dishes where peanuts or tree nuts would otherwise be used.
- And the logic extends beyond allergens.
- Bread becomes croutons, breadcrumbs or bread pudding.
- Vegetable trim becomes stocks, soups, purées, garnishes or ferments.
- Citrus peel becomes syrup, seasoning or part of a zero-proof drink instead of heading straight for the trash.
Good chefs already know how to make one ingredient work harder.
The opportunity is to apply that same discipline to dishes that more customers can actually eat.
What looks like a difficult dietary accommodation at home can become ordinary menu engineering at restaurant scale.
Don’t Replace Expensive Ingredients With Expensive Imitations
There’s an important trap here.
Restaurants shouldn’t respond by filling their walk-in with expensive specialty products.
Plant-based eggs, premium vegan cheese, meat replacements, specialty gluten-free products and bottled zero-proof spirits can cost as much – or substantially more – than what they’re replacing. And as we’ve already seen, every manufactured substitute can introduce a longer ingredient list and another potential restriction to navigate.
Instead, chefs can think about what job the ingredient is performing.
Does the dish need egg – or does it need a binder?
Does the sauce need cream – or does it need richness and body?
Does the cocktail need egg white – or does it need foam?
Don’t replace an expensive ingredient with an expensive imitation. Replace the function.
Sometimes the cheaper answer can also create something more distinctive.
And that brings us back to becoming harder to replace.
A Safe Restaurant Can Win the Whole Table
For a food-sensitive diner, finding a restaurant that is safe, transparent and actually enjoyable solves a problem—not just a craving.
That trust brings back the customer, influences where their group dines, and makes experimenting with other venues feel unnecessarily risky.
Which brings us back to where we started:
If customers are becoming more selective, you don’t always have to become cheaper. You can become harder to replace.
For some diners, that might mean value, convenience or something they can’t practically cook at home.
For others, it might simply mean being one of the few restaurants where they know they can eat well.
That’s a powerful reason to come back.