Restaurants re-think stragety, go after Baby Boomers
Jul 17, 2013, 5:04 PM
If you thought the young and cool were the ones who kept restaurants in business, you’d be wrong.
NBC News reports that new market research showed that it has always been the Baby Boomers who like to dine out and spend money every night at restaurants and that younger populations have opted out to dine-in.
Pre-recession, young adults were the restaurant regulars. According to market research firm the NPD Group, adults under the age of 48 visited a restaurant, on average, 240 times in 2008.
And it might be the hipster thing to do, but it seems that young adults would rather cook at home than spend money they don’t have on places they can’t afford.
Today, young adults struggle to move out of the house, let alone eat out nearly five times a week. “It’s the economy. They’ve learned to do without; they’re cooking at home,” said Bonnie Riggs, restaurant industry analyst for the NPD Group.
The research also said that those who are between the ages of 55 to 64 regularly visited restaurants about 220 times last year.
The result of this new trend has restaurants trying to accommodate its older customers by adding or replacing menus so that they can be easily read and coming up with new recipes with natural spices and chemical-free dishes to take care of health concerns that might come with getting older.