Restaurant apps now influence how guests discover restaurants, book tables, place orders, pay, and return. The available figures range from 2021 survey snapshots to 2025 performance data and 2026 expectations, so each statistic below keeps its source period and geography visible.
Contents
- Restaurant demand and dining frequency
- How diners discover restaurants
- Delivery, pickup, and third-party ordering
- Restaurant app loyalty and personalization
- Reservations, cancellations, and table demand
- Mobile ordering and restaurant technology
Restaurant demand and dining frequency
OpenTable’s 2026 Dining Trends Report describes a stronger dining-out environment in the United States. Dining out was up 8% year over year in 2025, according to the report. For 2026, Americans are expected to dine out 10 times per month on average, while 55% say they will spend even more on restaurants.
The same report suggests that restaurant visits may feel more intentional. Sixty-one percent of Americans say dining out in 2026 will feel more like a special occasion than an everyday occurrence. At the same time, 49% would like to see more spontaneity in 2026. For operators, those figures point to an app experience that can support both advance planning and last-minute availability.
Timing also matters. Happy-hour dining between 4:00 and 4:59 p.m. was up 13% year over year in the OpenTable report. OpenTable’s Notify Me tool usage in the United States was up 84% year over year, showing strong interest in alerts when a preferred time becomes available.
Millennials reported an even higher planned frequency: 14 restaurant visits per month on average in 2026. Their digital expectations are also notable. Seventy-nine percent of millennials agree that a restaurant’s Instagram or TikTok-worthiness is important when choosing where to dine. That makes visual discovery, social proof, and reservation access closely connected parts of the customer journey.
How diners discover restaurants
Restaurant apps compete with websites, search engines, social platforms, recommendations, and email for attention. In OpenTable’s Q1 2021 diner survey, 52% said they find the latest restaurant information online. Forty-seven percent used a restaurant’s website, 42% relied on word of mouth, 38% used reservation platforms such as OpenTable, 35% used social media, and 24% used email.
The operator view in that same survey was different. Restaurants said social media was their number-one way of keeping diners up to date, at 94%. Only 19% said reservation platforms were their way of keeping diners informed. The gap suggests that restaurant information is distributed across several channels, even when a reservation or ordering app is the final conversion point.
DoorDash’s blog on delivery and pickup reports that 90% of customers research a restaurant online before choosing delivery. Yet 20% of restaurants do not have a website. That combination makes accurate app listings, menus, hours, photos, and ordering links especially important for restaurants that lack a strong owned web presence.
DoorDash’s 2026 Restaurant Industry Trends Report says 22% of diners already use AI to choose a restaurant. The report also says 39% of restaurant owners have optimized their listings to appear in AI searches, review sites, and related discovery channels. Discovery is therefore expanding beyond a restaurant’s own app or website into recommendation systems that depend on structured, current information.
Holiday planning data from OpenTable’s Q4 2021 survey illustrates how many routes diners use. Seventy-seven percent relied on friends and family recommendations, 72% looked at favorite restaurant websites, 62% searched on OpenTable, 44% used Google, 26% used email, and 11% used other reservation sites. The figures describe that survey’s holiday-planning behavior, not a current universal market share, but they show why operators need consistent information across channels.
Delivery, pickup, and third-party ordering
DoorDash’s 2024 Restaurant & Alcohol Online Ordering Trends reported that 70% of consumers ordered delivery in the past month and 70% ordered pickup in the past month. Sixty-eight percent dined at a restaurant during the same period. Among consumers who preferred delivery, 51% said their preferred way to order was through third-party apps or websites.
Ordering habits also vary by generation and context. Twenty-one percent of Gen Z consumers most often eat delivery from bed. About two-thirds of consumers eat delivery food directly from the takeout container, while 55% of Baby Boomers most often use their own dishes and utensils for delivery meals. These details are useful for thinking about packaging, portion presentation, and the practical experience after an order leaves the restaurant.
DoorDash’s 2025 consumer trends post says consumers order food delivery from third-party apps 4.6 times per month on average. Gen Z consumers order this way 5.1 times per month on average. The same source says 80% of people who order alcohol for delivery had ordered low- or non-alcoholic beverages in the previous six months, and DoorDash saw an 82% increase in orders with non-alcoholic beer from 2023 to 2024.
| Ordering or dining measure | Reported figure | Source period |
|---|---|---|
| Consumers ordering delivery in the past month | 70% | DoorDash, 2024 |
| Consumers ordering pickup in the past month | 70% | DoorDash, 2024 |
| Consumers dining at a restaurant in the past month | 68% | DoorDash, 2024 |
| Average third-party delivery orders per month | 4.6 | DoorDash, 2025 |
| Gen Z average third-party delivery orders per month | 5.1 | DoorDash, 2025 |
| Preferred delivery ordering through third-party apps or websites | 51% | DoorDash, 2024 |
DoorDash’s blog on delivery and pickup also reports that 67% of restaurants said they were able to increase profits during COVID-19 because of DoorDash delivery, pickup, and online ordering services. That is a historical operator-reported result from the source’s COVID-19 context, not a forecast or a claim about every restaurant today.
Restaurant app loyalty and personalization
Loyalty is one of the clearest links between app activity and repeat ordering. DoorDash’s 2026 Restaurant Industry Trends Report says 66% of consumers order more often from restaurants where they are active loyalty members. For operators, the statistic supports treating loyalty as an operating channel rather than only a promotional feature.
Scale is also visible in DoorDash’s company results. DoorDash exited 2025 with more than 56 million monthly active users and more than 35 million DashPass, Wolt+, and Deliveroo Plus members. Marketplace gross order volume grew 27% year over year in 2025, or 23% year over year excluding Deliveroo.
DoorDash reported double-digit year-over-year growth in the number of new consumers in its U.S. restaurant category in Q4 2025. It also reported continued strong growth in order rates among every mature cohort in that category. These are DoorDash platform results, not a measurement of the entire restaurant-app market.
The 2026 DoorDash report is based on 3,001 U.S. consumers, 509 U.S. restaurant operators, more than 50 million monthly DoorDash users, and reservations data from more than 13,000 SevenRooms venues globally. Those samples and platform datasets cover different populations and geographies, so their figures should not be combined as if they measured one survey group.
Reservations, cancellations, and table demand
Toast’s Q3 2025 Restaurant Trends Report provides a recent view of reservation behavior on its platform. Reservations for one spiked 22% year over year, while seated reservations increased 8% year over year. Cancellations rose 7% year over year, but no-show reservations decreased by 1%.
The figures describe different operational pressures. More single-person reservations can affect table assignment and pacing. More seated reservations indicate demand reaching the dining room, while rising cancellations increase the value of timely reminders, waitlist tools, and accurate availability. The 1% decrease in no-shows is a separate movement from the 7% increase in cancellations and should not be treated as an offsetting percentage-point calculation.
OpenTable’s Q2 2021 diner survey found that 56% wanted restaurants to keep offering contactless pay, ordering, or menus. Eighty-six percent wanted restaurants to keep offering delivery and/or takeout. Thirty-eight percent said they ordered takeout once a week or more for dinner. In that survey, 67% wanted restaurants to stop requiring deposits or prepayments for a meal.
The same OpenTable survey found that 69% were most likely to book a reservation at restaurants offering happy hours and specials, while 41% were most likely to book at restaurants offering wine or beer tastings. These are survey preferences from Q2 2021, not current booking conversion rates.
Mobile ordering and restaurant technology
Toast says restaurants using Toast Mobile Order & Pay typically see an average 10% increase in revenue. Toast also says the product lets guests pay in less than 10 seconds with Apple Pay. The revenue figure is a typical platform-reported average, so it should be treated as an estimate for the described users rather than a guaranteed result.
Toast’s 2023 Operator Insights Report found that 46% of restaurant operators planned to adopt handhelds in the next year. Forty-five percent planned to adopt mobile payments, and 45% planned to adopt mobile ordering. Those adoption intentions show demand for tools that connect front-of-house service with payment and ordering workflows.
The older Toast Restaurant Technology in 2017 report found that 95% of restaurateurs agreed technology improves business efficiency. In that report, 81% of diners used a restaurant’s website to place an online order, and 78% of restaurateurs said they looked at metrics and finances every day. These legacy figures remain tied to the 2017 report and should not be read as independently verified current benchmarks.
System fragmentation remains a practical concern. DoorDash’s 2026 Restaurant Industry Trends Report says 40% of operators run across four to five separate systems. A restaurant app strategy therefore has to account for integration, menu synchronization, order routing, reservation updates, loyalty data, and reporting—not just the customer-facing interface.
Toast’s platform served approximately 156,000 restaurant locations as of September 30, 2025. For comparison, Toast reported approximately 127,000 restaurant locations as of September 30, 2024, and approximately 120,000 as of June 30, 2024. These are platform coverage figures at specific dates, not counts of all restaurants using apps.
For restaurant operations teams, the statistics point to a connected set of priorities: keep listings current for online and AI discovery, make delivery and pickup easy to access, use loyalty to encourage repeat orders, manage reservations and cancellations precisely, and reduce friction across the multiple systems staff use every day.