Top Dining Out Holidays According To Foot Traffic Data

Everyone loves a night out on the town, and holidays are a no-brainer for consumers to trade washing the dishes for a great dish out. Zenreach, the nation’s premier source of consumer foot traffic data to brick-and-mortar businesses, took a look at the top holidays from 2019 (pre-COVID), 2020 (peak COVID restrictions), and 2021 (present day) and found some interesting results.

Here’s the surprising things Zenreach learned:

• From 2020 to 2021, Memorial Day saw a 100% increase in foot traffic and jumped from number 13 to number 2 in rankings.
• Valentine’s Day was number 1 in 2020, likely due to it being the last major holiday before the COVID-19 pandemic really hit home. It dropped to sixth place in 2021 — down 54% from 2020.
• Fourth of July is ranked number one in 2021 so far, up 68% from 2020 where it ranked twelfth.
• The top holiday for 2019 was Cinco De Mayo, 2020 was Valentine’s Day, and in 2021 is Fourth of July.
• The least popular holidays to eat out on were New Year’s 2019, Memorial Day 2020, and New Year’s Day 2021.

Rank in Holidays by Year

“Within this data, you can see the ebbs and flows of foot traffic and how pandemic restrictions really impacted consumers’ ability to dine out. Given that 2019 is the last sense of “normalcy” we can point to, it will be interesting to see how dining out continues to unfold in 2021 and return in 2022.” says Megan Wintersteen, VP of Marketing for Zenreach. “Overall, we’ve seen a 52% increase in foot traffic to restaurants since January of this year, but new concerns related to the Delta variant may stall some of that momentum.”