January 22, 2013 — Restaurant customers traded down in 2012 — from entrées down to appetizers, from bottles of wine down to glasses, and from expensive entrées down to cheaper ones — according to point-of-sale data analyzed by research firm GuestMetrics LLC.
GuestMetrics analyzed more than 250 million checks at full-service restaurants. During the course of 2012, the number of entrées ordered declined by 1.5 percent, while orders of appetizers and sides grew by 2.8 percent.
The average price of an entrée was $11.56 in 2012, compared with $5.57 for appetizers and sides, indicating downward pressure on average checks, GuestMetrics said.
The fastest-growing appetizers were chicken wings, oysters, ribs and empanadas, according to the data.
Among entrées, the largest categories — steaks, burgers and pizza — “actually held up fine,” GuestMetrics president Brian Barrett said. He added that the decline was driven by less prevalent items, which he said suggests "an underlying shift taking place in consumer preference to more mainstream entrées."
Items containing protein did particularly well, growing overall by 2.1 percent, while non-protein dishes grew by just 0.3 percent. Among protein, beef did the best, particularly burgers, rib-eye steaks and filets. Seafood dishes grew most slowly, particularly shrimp, bass, clams and tuna, “though their sluggish performance was partially offset by strength among oysters, salmon, grouper and trout dishes,” Barrett said.