Every figure on this page links to the organization that produced it, and each was re-checked against that source before publishing. How many restaurants there are and what Americans spend eating out, how diners say they find restaurants, what the TikTok surveys actually asked, what restaurant chains report to the SEC about advertising and digital sales, how many restaurants use social media, and which popular restaurant video statistics don't hold up.
The Census Bureau counted 714,532 food service and drinking place establishments with paid staff in 2023, plus 603,577 food service businesses with no employees in 2024. (U.S. Census Bureau)See details
Americans spent $1.41 trillion on food away from home in 2025, about 56.2% of all food spending. (USDA ERS; our calculation)See details
87% of U.S. consumers say friends and family would influence their choice of a new restaurant, against 67% who name social media. (National Restaurant Association, 2026)See details
In DoorDash's 2025 survey, 22% of U.S. consumers used Instagram to discover new restaurants, 18% TikTok and 16% YouTube. (DoorDash survey, fielded by Dynata)See details
58% of U.S. adults who watch TikTok told a restaurant marketing agency they had visited a restaurant after seeing it there; across all U.S. adults that is at most about 21%. (MGH; Pew Research Center; our calculation)See details
TikTok's own sponsored article turned a Starbucks Mexico case study's 14% rise in transactions into a 14% rise in store visits. (TikTok)See details
Five public restaurant chains spent between 0.6% and 3.1% of revenue on advertising in fiscal 2025, by our calculation from their SEC filings; the '3% to 6% of sales' rule has no study behind it. (SEC filings; our calculation)See details
More than 85% of Domino's U.S. retail sales in 2025, and 73.2% of Wingstop's fourth-quarter sales, came through digital channels. (Domino's and Wingstop 10-Ks)See details
78.25% of EU accommodation and food service businesses with 10 or more employees used social media in 2025, against 63.57% of all businesses that size. (Eurostat)See details
99% of U.S. independent full-service restaurants in TouchBistro's survey had a social media profile, but only 69% had a website; in its late-2025 survey, 81% did. (TouchBistro, vendor surveys, 2024 and 2025)See details
The widely repeated '80% of consumers watch restaurant video content' has no survey behind it; it traces to an unsourced 2023 menu-vendor blog. (Our trace)See details
How many restaurants are there in the United States?
About 714,500 with paid staff. The U.S. Census Bureau's County Business Patterns counted 714,532 employer establishments in food services and drinking places in 2023, the latest year published (U.S. Census Bureau). They employed 12,644,827 people in the pay period that included March 12, 2023 (U.S. Census Bureau). A further 603,577 food service businesses had no paid employees at all in 2024 (Census Nonemployer Statistics). Most of those are owner-operators or tax filers rather than staffed locations, so the two counts should not simply be added.
Counter-service restaurants outnumber sit-down ones. Limited-service restaurants were about 43.7% of restaurant establishments in 2023 and full-service restaurants about 41.8% (our calculation from the Census counts below). The rest are cafeterias, buffets, snack bars and coffee or juice bars.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts the same industry from unemployment-insurance records and gets a similar size. Its Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages found an annual average of 721,796 private food services and drinking places establishments in 2025, employing 12,200,765 people (BLS QCEW). Average annual pay was $28,503, an average across part-time and full-time jobs (BLS QCEW). The industry employed 11,972,247 people in 2019 (BLS QCEW), so 2025 employment was only about 1.9% above its pre-pandemic level (our calculation).
By occupation, BLS estimated 2,270,910 waiters and waitresses, 1,409,890 restaurant cooks, 238,430 food service managers and 200,040 chefs and head cooks in May 2025, across all industries (BLS OEWS, waiters; cooks; managers; chefs). The median annual wage was $69,390 for food service managers and $62,470 for chefs and head cooks (BLS OEWS; BLS OEWS). The employer survey leaves out self-employed owners, who run many small restaurants.
How much do Americans spend eating out?
$1.41 trillion in 2025. The USDA Economic Research Service puts U.S. food-away-from-home spending at $1.41 trillion in 2025, against $1.10 trillion spent on food at home (USDA ERS). Total food spending was $2.51 trillion (USDA ERS), so eating out took about 56.2% of it (our calculation). ERS counts spending by consumers, businesses and government, so the total includes school meals and business meals as well as family dinners.
Eating out took 4.9% of U.S. disposable personal income in 2025, up from 4.3% in 1997, and now slightly more than the 4.8% spent on food at home (USDA ERS). Limited-service restaurants took in $516.1 billion in food sales in 2025 and full-service restaurants $488.4 billion, including taxes and tips (USDA ERS Food Expenditure Series; same series). Limited-service restaurants therefore took about 51.4% of the two combined (our calculation).
The Census Bureau's revised monthly estimates put 2025 sales at food services and drinking places at $1.03 trillion, up 4.9% from 2024, not adjusted for prices (U.S. Census Bureau, monthly retail sales, annual revision of September 2026). Much of that growth was prices. Food-away-from-home prices rose 3.8% on average in 2025, faster than their 3.5% historical average (USDA ERS), and 3.5% in the 12 months to September 2026 (BLS Consumer Price Index).
These are the denominators. A statistic about "restaurants" or "diners" describes some part of roughly 715,000 establishments and a $1.41 trillion market. Almost none of the social media statistics below say which part.
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Mostly through other people and search, with social media behind them. In the National Restaurant Association's 2026 summer travel and dining survey of more than 1,000 U.S. consumers, 87% said recommendations from friends and family would influence their decision to try a new restaurant; asked about digital tools, 80% said they would rely on online review platforms and 67% would use social media (National Restaurant Association). The Association does not publish the exact sample, field dates or question wording, and the question was about channels people "would" use.
Search engines lead in a vendor survey too. 85% of 1,000 U.S. consumers aged 21 and over told Popmenu in February 2026 that they use Google and other search engines to find restaurants, and 20% said they use AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity (Popmenu). Popmenu sells marketing and ordering software to restaurants.
When a survey names the platforms, each one reaches a minority. In DoorDash's 2025 survey of 1,504 U.S. adults, fielded by Dynata from February 25 to March 3, 2025, the top social channels people use to discover new restaurants were Instagram at 22%, Facebook at 19%, TikTok at 18% and YouTube at 16% (DoorDash; TikTok figure; YouTube figure). DoorDash sells delivery, marketing and ads to restaurants.
AI chat tools are starting to appear as a channel. 22% of 3,001 U.S. consumers in DoorDash's March 2026 survey said they had used an AI tool such as ChatGPT or Google Gemini to help choose a restaurant (DoorDash). In OpenTable's September 2025 survey of 1,527 Americans, 44% said they planned to use AI more to discover restaurants and book reservations in 2026 (OpenTable); OpenTable announced its own AI assistant in the same release.
Some older figures still circulate. Google's Think with Google page says 89% of dining research is done on mobile before visiting a restaurant, citing a 2019 Google and Numerator study with no published sample or definition of "dining research" (Think with Google, Internet Archive capture). It does not say that 89% of diners research on their phones.
A trade association survey from 2022 ranked social media last. Among U.S. adults planning to eat out over the holidays, 58% said social media marketing would be a determining factor in their choice of restaurant, and 65% of those planning takeout or delivery said so (National Restaurant Association; same release). The Association's own release introduced those numbers with "even fewer are being swayed by social media", because a restaurant's location, deals and other factors all scored higher. Roundups quote the 58% as proof of social media's pull.
How many people visit a restaurant after seeing it on TikTok?
Between 36% and 58% of TikTok viewers, in one marketing agency's surveys. MGH, a U.S. marketing agency that sells TikTok and social media services to restaurant franchises, found in November 2024 that 58% of 1,142 U.S. adults who watch TikTok had visited a restaurant after seeing it on TikTok (MGH). In the same one-day survey, 64% said they had learned about a restaurant on TikTok and 50% said TikTok is the key influence on their restaurant choices, ahead of Instagram, Facebook and Yelp (MGH).
How U.S. TikTok viewers say TikTok shapes where they eatShare of U.S. adults who watch TikTok, from a one-day survey by MGH, Inc., a marketing agency that sells TikTok services to restaurants (November 13, 2024). The base is TikTok viewers, not all adults, and the panel was opt-in.Use this chart on your site
MGH presents that as a rise from 38% in 2022. It is not a like-for-like trend: the 2022 question asked whether people had "visited or ordered food", the 2024 question whether they had "visited", and the populations differ. Every figure in the table comes from a company that sells to restaurants or from TikTok itself, and each asks a different question of a different group.
Survey (publisher, what it sells)
Who was asked
Sample
Fieldwork
Question, as published
Figure
MGH 2021 (restaurant marketing agency)
U.S. residents who watch TikTok
701
Aug 25, 2021
Visited or ordered food from a restaurant after seeing it on TikTok
36%
MGH 2022
U.S. TikTok users
1,139
July 16-18, 2022
Visited or ordered food after seeing a TikTok video about the restaurant
MGH's 2021 survey also found 35% of TikTok viewers said they had already visited a restaurant in another state because of a TikTok video (MGH). OpenTable's 58% measures how much people care that a restaurant looks good on Instagram or TikTok, not whether a video sent them there.
Scale the TikTok figures to the whole population before using them. The Pew Research Center's 2026 survey of U.S. adults found that 37% use TikTok, the same as in 2025 and up from 21% in 2021, and 84% use YouTube (Pew Research Center). Applied to MGH's 58%, that is at most about 21% of U.S. adults who have visited a restaurant after seeing it on TikTok (our calculation, an upper bound: the populations differ, and an opt-in panel of TikTok viewers probably overstates the share). MGH itself turns its percentages into headcounts of "diners" by multiplying them by TikTok's own user claims; those are projections, not counts.
What do TikTok, Snapchat, Yelp and the delivery apps report about restaurants?
Mostly their own reach and features, and few measured effects on restaurants. TikTok says more than 200 million Americans use the app, in its May 2026 TikTok GO announcement, without saying over what period (TikTok Newsroom). Its Nearby feed, launched in December 2025 in France, Germany, Italy and the UK, excludes posts older than 90 days, so a restaurant video stops being eligible for local discovery there after three months (TikTok Newsroom). TikTok's U.S. Local Feed announcement gives no age limit.
TikTok's case study for Starbucks Mexico's 2024 Frappuccino Birthday campaign reports a 14% increase in transactions against the same period in 2023, from the client's own data (TikTok for Business). The campaign ran alongside a price promotion, and the case study has no control group. In a sponsored article for restaurants in April 2026, TikTok described the same result as "a 14% increase in store visits" (TikTok sponsored article, Internet Archive capture). Transactions became visits between TikTok's own two pages.
Snap says Snapchat users recorded over 896 million visits and over 75 million check-ins to U.S. restaurants in 2024, a count of visits, not of people; Snap does not define a visit, and its post went up on December 9, 2024, before the year was over (Snap Newsroom). Snap Map had more than 435 million monthly active users worldwide in April 2026 (Snap Newsroom).
Yelp's filings point the other way. Yelp told the SEC that advertising revenue from its Restaurants, Retail & Other categories fell 6% to $443.7 million in 2025, and that its app's monthly unique devices fell 2% to about 28.0 million because "consumers visited restaurants less frequently" (Yelp Form 10-K). Yelp does see viral video in its search logs: searches for "swedish candy" rose 13,665% from April 2023 to April 2024, which Yelp puts down to taste-test videos on social media (Yelp). That is a percentage change from a small base.
The delivery apps publish figures from their own order data, mostly about photos rather than video. DoorDash says over 55% of first-time orders at new restaurants on DoorDash come from customers browsing the app rather than searching for a specific restaurant (DoorDash). It says merchants with header photos on their store pages saw over 5x more sales in their first 28 days than merchants without them (DoorDash). That compares different merchants, not the same merchant before and after, so it is a correlation. Its 2026 report gives a 13% average sales lift from adding photos to more than half of menu items, but captions the figure with a consumer survey, which cannot measure sales (DoorDash).
Video length limits vary by platform. Google Business Profile accepts videos up to 30 seconds long and 75 MB, at 720p or higher (Google Business Profile Help). When Yelp added video to reviews in April 2023, review videos were capped at 12 seconds (Yelp).
How much do restaurant chains spend on advertising?
Between about 0.6% and 3.1% of revenue at the five public chains we checked that report both figures. Those are audited figures from their fiscal 2025 annual reports to the SEC, set against revenue in our calculation. Texas Roadhouse spent about 0.6% and Chipotle about 3.1%, and Darden reports its own marketing at 1.4% of sales in fiscal 2026 (Darden Form 10-K).
Sources: Form 10-K filings on SEC EDGAR: Chipotle, Shake Shack, Starbucks, CAVA, Darden, Texas Roadhouse. Each company defines its advertising line differently; Chipotle's includes promotional costs, Texas Roadhouse's leaves out franchisee-funded advertising. Digital shares count app, web and third-party delivery orders, on each company's own base.
Franchised chains pool advertising money from their franchisees instead. Wingstop's domestic franchisees contribute 5.5% of gross sales to a national advertising fund that buys search, digital video and social media advertising (Wingstop 2025 Form 10-K). Domino's U.S. stores generally contribute 6.0% of their sales to national marketing (Domino's 2025 Form 10-K). Those rates are paid out of store sales, a different base from a company's revenue.
At the delivery-heavy chains, most sales are already digital. More than 85% of Domino's U.S. retail sales in 2025 came through digital channels (Domino's Form 10-K), Wingstop's digital share was 73.2% of system-wide sales in the fourth quarter of 2025 (Wingstop Form 10-K), Sweetgreen's was 61.8% of revenue (Sweetgreen Form 10-K), and Yum! Brands says digital sales were approaching 60% of its system sales (Yum! Brands Form 10-K). McDonald's sold nearly $37 billion to loyalty members across 70 markets in 2025 (McDonald's earnings release, Form 8-K), out of $139.4 billion in global systemwide sales (McDonald's Form 10-K). Toast, which sells point-of-sale systems, had about 164,000 locations on its platform at the end of 2025, including some food retailers (Toast Form 10-K).
The chains that grew up on social media are now paying for reach. Shake Shack says 2025 was the year it invested in paid media at scale for the first time, after years built on public relations, social media and in-store marketing (Shake Shack Form 10-K), and its advertising costs in 2025 were about 2.7 times their 2023 level (our calculation from the same filing). CAVA lists TikTok, Instagram and "influencer and creator partnerships" among its paid media (CAVA Form 10-K). Starbucks' advertising expense rose about 45.6% in fiscal 2025 (our calculation from its filing). Texas Roadhouse says its restaurants do not rely on national television or print advertising (Texas Roadhouse Form 10-K).
The risk factors treat social video as a hazard as well. Chipotle warns that social media and video-sharing platforms can spread negative publicity faster than the company can respond (Chipotle Form 10-K). Domino's adds artificial intelligence-generated content to the same warning (Domino's Form 10-K), and Dutch Bros notes that it works with social media influencers and that those relationships may be perceived negatively (Dutch Bros Form 10-K).
How many restaurants use social media and video?
About three in four larger hospitality and food businesses in the EU and Canada, more than the average business. Eurostat found that 78.25% of EU accommodation and food service enterprises with 10 or more employees used social media in 2025, against 63.57% of all enterprises (Eurostat; Eurostat). Hotels and similar businesses alone were at 86.89% (Eurostat), so restaurants on their own, which Eurostat does not publish separately, are probably below the combined figure.
In Canada, 74.0% of accommodation and food services enterprises with five or more employees had social media accounts in 2023, against 63.1% of the private sector (Statistics Canada). Statistics Canada does publish restaurants separately for 2021: 68.2% of food services and drinking places enterprises had social media accounts (Statistics Canada). The UK's last sector breakdown, for 2018, found that 86% of accommodation and food services businesses with social media used it to develop their image or market products, and 75% used it to get and answer customer feedback, against a UK average of 41% (Office for National Statistics; same bulletin).
Hospitality businesses are less likely than average to have a website but far more likely to take bookings through one. Paid online advertising is less settled: Canadian accommodation and food services enterprises used it less than the private sector in 2023, 16.1% against 21.5% (Statistics Canada).
No U.S. government survey publishes restaurants' social media use. Operator surveys by vendors fill the gap. In TouchBistro's survey of more than 600 U.S. independent full-service restaurant operators, fielded by Maru/Matchbox from June 27 to July 15, 2024, 99% had at least one social media profile but only 69% had a website, and 48% used TikTok to promote the restaurant, up from 26% in its 2023 survey (TouchBistro; TouchBistro report; TouchBistro). Its next survey, of more than 600 U.S. full-service operators fielded October 2 to 25, 2025, found 81% with a website and 70% using Instagram, up from 59%, while TikTok held at 48% (TouchBistro, 2026). TouchBistro sells point-of-sale software to restaurants.
Posting is frequent but not daily for most. 28% of 300 U.S. restaurant owners and operators surveyed by Popmenu in August and September 2025 post on social media every day, and 51% a few times a week (Popmenu, Internet Archive capture; same survey). In Popmenu's January 2026 survey of 328 operators, 81% said they were increasing marketing across digital channels in 2026 (Popmenu). The National Restaurant Association reports that 63% of operators planned to devote resources to digital or location-based marketing in 2024 and 65% in 2025, the top item among 15 technology areas both years (National Restaurant Association; State of the Restaurant Industry 2025). Its 2026 report dropped the item; 60% of operators planned to invest in technology that enhances the customer experience (National Restaurant Association, 2026). The Association does not publish its operator sample size.
What the popular restaurant video statistics really say
Most restaurant video statistics in circulation come from marketing blogs quoting each other. We traced nine of the most repeated to the earliest document we could date. Pages that repeat a claim are linked below only as dated evidence of how it changed, never as a source for the number.
"80% of consumers watch restaurant video content"
We found no survey behind it. The earliest version we could read is an unsourced line on a QR-code menu vendor's blog, published in February 2023. Its only link goes to a general video statistics page from a video-editing app, and that page carried no restaurant or food figure in any version we checked from 2021 to today. No population, sample, date or question has ever been attached to the 80%.
It then spread through restaurant marketing sellers. Restaurant365, which sells restaurant back-office software, bolded "Approximately 80% of consumers say they watch restaurant-related video content" in July 2023 and used it to tell operators to go live on Facebook every day (Restaurant365). WebFX, which sells marketing to restaurants, dropped "approximately" and added "online": "80% of consumers say they watch restaurant-related video content online" (WebFX, 2024). That is the version most roundups now quote. What to use instead: DoorDash's measured channel shares, with 18% of U.S. consumers naming TikTok and 16% YouTube as ways they discover restaurants.
"#FoodTok views grew 57%"
No TikTok publication gives this figure that we could find. The earliest version we read, an April 2022 post by a food-marketing agency, quotes an editor at the menu-research firm Datassential, who in turn quotes "a recent report by the platform" without naming it. We checked TikTok's newsroom posts on food from 2021 and 2022, archived copies of its business library and its trend reports, and none gives a 57% growth figure, a base year or a definition of "#FoodTok views".
TikTok has published dated view counts. Its UK newsroom said in April 2022 that the #fetapasta and #pastachips trends went viral in 2021 with over 2.2 billion views between them (TikTok Newsroom). Hashtag views are cumulative plays, not people, and TikTok does not say whether the count is UK-only or global.
"55% of TikTok users visit a restaurant after seeing its menu"
This is a misreading of a real survey. In MGH's August 2021 survey of 701 U.S. TikTok viewers, the visit-or-order figure was 36%. The same survey found that 55% wanted to visit a restaurant because the food in the video looked appetizing, and 51% because the video showed a unique food item (MGH). Those are reasons for interest, not visit rates.
MGH's own blog post, since taken offline, worded it more loosely: "The study found 55% visited a restaurant from TikTok simply because the food looked appetizing" (MGH blog, Internet Archive copy of October 5, 2021). That still says why people were drawn in, not how many went: 36% of the 701 had visited or ordered. A March 2025 ad-software blog then dropped the "because" and turned the food into a menu, so a reason became a visit rate: "55% of TikTok users visit a restaurant after seeing its menu" (Cropink). What to use instead: the survey table above, with each study's population and question.
"45% of diners tried a restaurant because of a social media post"
This one is real but narrower than it sounds. MGH surveyed 1,069 U.S. adults who eat at or order from restaurants at least monthly in February 2019; 45% said they had tried a restaurant for the first time because of a social media post made by the establishment itself (MGH). The post could be on any platform, at any time, and need not be a video.
DoorDash's merchant blog dropped the qualifier in September 2020: "45% of diners have tried a restaurant for the first time because of a social media post" (DoorDash). Without "made by the establishment itself", the figure reads as if it covered influencer and customer posts too.
"30% of millennials avoid restaurants with a weak Instagram presence"
This came from a UK restaurant chain's publicity survey, and no method was ever published. The earliest report we found is The Independent's of April 11, 2017, which credits research by Zizzi, an Italian restaurant chain in the UK, and says 30 per cent of UK 18-to-35-year-olds would avoid a restaurant if its Instagram presence was weak. It gives no sample size, pollster, dates or question, and we found none on Zizzi's archived site or in the UK trade press.
By 2020, a UK finding about 18-to-35s had become a fact about all millennial diners: "30% of millennial diners actively avoid restaurants with a weak Instagram presence" (DoorDash merchant blog, 2020). What to use instead: OpenTable's published question on "Instagram/TikTok-worthiness", which 79% of U.S. millennials in its 2025 survey called important, with its sample and dates stated.
"69% of millennials post photos of their food"
The original says take, not post. A February 2017 release by the market research firm Maru/Matchbox said "69% of millennials take a photo or video of their meal before eating" (Maru/Matchbox, Internet Archive capture). It published no sample size, field dates, age range or question, and did not say whether that meant ever or usually. A page from the agriculture company BASF now reads "69% of millennials post photos of their food on social media" (BASF).
"Restaurants spend 3% to 6% of sales on marketing"
This began as advice, not a measurement. The earliest version we found, a January 2012 post by a restaurant marketing agency, already calls it "a general rule" that "some mention those figures as gospel", and cites nothing. We found no National Restaurant Association figure behind it; the Association collects marketing costs in its operations report but publishes no percentage publicly.
By December 2024 the advice had become a description: "On average, restaurants spend 3-6% of their revenue on marketing" (WebFX). What to use instead: audited filings. Among the public chains above, advertising ran from 0.6% to 3.1% of revenue in 2025, while franchise advertising funds take 5.5% to 6.0% of store sales. Neither covers independent restaurants.
"90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual"
No study behind it has been found. The figure is usually credited to Eric Jensen's 1996 book Brain-Based Learning, which we could not read. The earliest version we could read is David Hyerle's 2000 book for the education association ASCD, which says only that "research approximates" 80 to 90 percent of the information the brain receives comes through vision, with no citation. In 2001 Jensen wrote that "estimates are that we receive over 90 percent of our information visually", again with no source (Jensen, ASCD, 2001, Internet Archive).
A 2016 marketing infographic post turned the estimate into a flat fact, "90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual", and paired it with "the brain processes visual information 60,000 times faster than text" (Thomson Reuters, 2016). That wording is the one now repeated on restaurant and food photography pages. The 60,000 figure has no study behind it either; we traced it on our video thumbnail statistics page to a June 1982 Business Week advertising section, where a computer-graphics company’s president stated it with no source.
"Menu photos get 70% more orders"
The delivery apps' own photo figures are ceilings, not averages, and they have shrunk. Grubhub's merchant blog said in 2021 that food photography gets restaurants "70% more online orders" and 65% higher delivery and takeout sales (Grubhub). Its help center words it more carefully: restaurants that follow menu best practices "such as adding pictures and descriptions" receive "as much as 70% more orders", "in our experience" (Grubhub Help Center). Neither gives a sample, period or method.
DoorDash said a Q2 2022 study of over 15,000 small-business merchants found menus with item photos get up to 44% more monthly sales (DoorDash). In June 2026, citing its 2023-2025 data, it said photos can increase sales by up to 13% on average once at least half the menu has photos (DoorDash). The "20-35% more orders, per Uber Eats data" line on AI food-photo vendors' pages has no Uber Eats source that we could find. All of these are about still photos. No delivery platform publishes a comparable figure for video.
Platform claims with no visible source
Some figures come from the platforms and still cannot be checked. TikTok's 3 in 4 comes from a study it paid for and has not published. Treat it as advertising copy.
We started from the questions people search for about food & restaurant video statistics and looked for the organization that actually produced each answer. Every figure on this page sits in an evidence ledger with its source, the exact table or paragraph it came from, the measurement period, the population measured, and the date we checked it. This edition holds 156 figures from 40 publishers.
On October 1, 2026, each of the 140 sourced figures on this page was re-fetched from its source with the fetch cache cleared and matched against the recorded wording, and the BLS occupational estimates were checked against their series in the BLS public data API. Pages that block automated requests, including Restaurant Dive, Popmenu, Meta, Think with Google and bls.gov, were checked against dated Internet Archive copies. We left out what we could not re-check: Toast's diner and operator surveys, whose pages refuse automated requests and are excluded from the Internet Archive; TouchBistro's all-diner social media figure, which appears only in its gated report; the UK Food Standards Agency's eating-out results, which are no longer online; Uber Eats' menu photo figure, whose page refuses automated requests; and a 2014 Google figure on YouTube food channels, which is too old to describe the platform today.
We only cite the producer: government agencies, regulators, company filings and official posts, and the survey owner's own report. We do not cite statistics roundups, Statista-style aggregators, or salary sites without a public method. We did not bypass paywalls or sign-up forms; where a full report was gated, we used only the figures its publisher states publicly.
Figures marked "our calculation" are arithmetic on the cited numbers, and anyone can reproduce them:
This edition contains no Mark Studios customer data.
Limitations
Almost every figure about diners and social media comes from a company that sells to restaurants. MGH, TouchBistro, Popmenu, OpenTable, DoorDash and Deloitte Digital sell marketing, software or delivery to restaurants, and TikTok sells advertising. None of their samples is random, and several publish no field dates or question wording.
The TikTok surveys ask TikTok viewers, not all diners. Pew Research Center's 37% of U.S. adults who use TikTok is the scale to apply before quoting them as a share of consumers.
No U.S. government survey measures how diners find restaurants or how restaurants use social media. Government counts cover businesses, jobs, sales and prices. The EU and Canadian business figures combine restaurants with hotels (Canada publishes restaurants alone for 2021) and cover businesses with 10 or more (EU) or 5 or more (Canada) employees.
Company filings cover large public chains only, and each defines advertising its own way. Independent restaurants, most of the 714,532 establishments, report nothing comparable.
Platform and delivery-app figures come from internal data no one outside can check. Several compare different merchants rather than the same merchant before and after, so they show correlation, not effect, and most are about photos rather than video.
Some figures are snapshots. TikTok's and Snap's user counts, prices and employment change; each is given with its date.
Several sources are read through Internet Archive copies because the live pages refuse automated requests. Each such link says so.
How to cite this page
For a single figure, cite the original publisher named next to it, and link here if the verification trail is useful to your readers. Each figure has its own anchor, so you can link straight to it, for example https://www.markstudios.com/research/food-video-marketing-statistics#PLT-010. To cite the page as a whole:
Mark Studios. "Food & Restaurant Video Statistics." Last verified Oct 1, 2026. https://www.markstudios.com/research/food-video-marketing-statistics
APA
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MLA
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Chicago
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BibTeX
@misc{markstudios_food_video_marketing_statistics_2026,
author = {{Mark Studios}},
title = {{Food & Restaurant Video Statistics}},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
url = {https://www.markstudios.com/research/food-video-marketing-statistics},
note = {Last verified 2026-10-01}
}
Our calculations and the evidence table are free to reuse with attribution and a link to this page. Each underlying figure remains the claim of its original publisher, and some publishers ask for a link when their figures are reused.
We re-verify every figure quarterly and when a major source publishes a new edition. The next scheduled review is December 2026. Corrections go to contact@markstudios.com.
Sep 28, 2026: First published with 153 figures from 40 publishers, each checked against its original source.
Oct 1, 2026: Re-checked all 140 sourced figures against their sources in our scheduled re-verification; none had changed.
Oct 26, 2026: The 60,000-times-faster pointer now names the earliest version traced on our thumbnail statistics page, a June 1982 Business Week advertising section, instead of a 1999 3M tip sheet.
Oct 28, 2026: Moved the count of food service businesses with no paid employees to the 2024 Nonemployer Statistics (released March 13, 2026): 603,577, up 8.0% from 558,917 in 2023.
Oct 28, 2026: The 2024 and 2025 food-away-from-home price changes (4.1% and 3.8%) now cite ERS's Food Price Outlook release of September 25, 2026 through its Internet Archive capture: the October 23 release replaced that paragraph with the 2026 and 2027 forecasts. The figures, settled BLS annual averages, are unchanged.
Oct 31, 2026: Added dates and scope some sentences were missing: the Wingstop and Domino's advertising-fund rates are from their 2025 Form 10-K filings, and McDonald's nearly $37 billion in loyalty-member sales covers its 70 loyalty markets.
Nov 4, 2026: Moved the food-away-from-home price change to the September 2026 CPI (released October 14): 3.5% over 12 months.
Nov 5, 2026: Added TouchBistro's 2026 report (600+ U.S. full-service operators, fielded October 2025): 81% have a website, up from 69%; 70% use Instagram; TikTok held at 48%. Noted that the National Restaurant Association's 2026 report dropped its digital or location-based marketing item.
Nov 6, 2026: 2025 restaurant and bar sales now use the Census Bureau's annual revision of September 28, 2026: $1.03 trillion, up 4.9% from 2024, replacing the February advance estimate ($1.18 trillion, up 5.3%).
Nov 9, 2026: Removed Meta's '84% of consumers decide where to eat less than an hour before a meal', which the page already flagged as unverifiable: we had read it on Meta's restaurants page through the Internet Archive although facebook.com bars automated agents.
Nov 10, 2026: Pew's U.S. adult TikTok and YouTube use moved to its 2026 survey: 37% and 84%, both unchanged from 2025, so the 21% upper bound (our calculation) is unchanged.
Frequently asked questions
How many restaurants are there in the US?
The U.S. Census Bureau counted 714,532 food service and drinking place establishments with paid employees in 2023, including 270,088 limited-service and 258,626 full-service restaurants. In 2024 another 603,577 food service businesses had no paid employees.
How do most people find new restaurants?
Through friends, family and search more than social media. In the National Restaurant Association's 2026 survey, 87% of consumers said recommendations from friends and family would influence their choice of a new restaurant, against 67% for social media. In a 2026 Popmenu survey, 85% said they use search engines to find restaurants.
What percentage of people find restaurants on TikTok?
Fewer than the headlines suggest. In DoorDash's 2025 survey of 1,504 U.S. adults, 18% named TikTok as a channel they use to discover new restaurants, behind Instagram at 22%. Surveys of TikTok viewers by the agency MGH find that 58% have visited a restaurant after seeing it on TikTok, but only 37% of U.S. adults use TikTok, according to Pew Research Center.
Do restaurants use TikTok?
Many do. 48% of U.S. independent full-service restaurant operators in TouchBistro's 2024 survey used TikTok to promote their restaurant, up from 26% in its 2023 survey, and the share held at 48% in its late-2025 survey. CAVA's 2025 annual report lists TikTok, Instagram and influencer partnerships among its paid media.
How much do restaurants spend on marketing?
Five public chains we checked reported advertising costs of about 0.6% to 3.1% of revenue in fiscal 2025: Texas Roadhouse about 0.6%, CAVA 1.2%, Starbucks 2.3%, Shake Shack 2.4% and Chipotle 3.1%, by our calculation from their SEC filings. Darden reports marketing at 1.4% of sales. The often-quoted 3% to 6% of sales is a rule of thumb with no study behind it.
How much do Americans spend eating out?
USDA's Economic Research Service puts 2025 food-away-from-home spending at $1.41 trillion, or 4.9% of disposable income. Limited-service restaurants took $516.1 billion in food sales and full-service restaurants $488.4 billion.
Is it true that 80% of consumers watch restaurant videos?
We found no survey behind it. The line traces to an unsourced February 2023 blog post by a QR-code menu vendor, whose only link points to a page with no restaurant data. Restaurant365 and WebFX then repeated it as 80% of consumers.
How often is this page updated?
Every figure is re-checked against its original source each quarter, and sooner when a major source publishes a new edition, such as the National Restaurant Association's State of the Restaurant Industry each February, the chains' annual reports, or new Census and USDA data. The Last verified date changes only after that check, and each change is recorded in the change log.
