Diners often craved quick meals over sitting down at full-service restaurants in 2014, data released Monday showed.
Visits to quick-service restaurants rose 1 percent while visits to full-service restaurants, which include casual, family and fine dining establishments, fell 2 percent, according to NPD Group. Visits to U.S. restaurants were flat in 2014, it said.
Independent restaurants continued to lose ground to chains when it comes to the number of locations across the country, NPD Group’s data showed. The number of independent restaurants declined more than 2 percent within a year, dragging down the total number of U.S. restaurants even as chains added more locations, according to NPD Group.
Examples of quick-service chains include McDonald’s and Taco Bell while fast-casual chains include Chipotle and Panera Bread. Full-service chain restaurants include Olive Garden and Applebee’s.
The total number of U.S. restaurants as of Sept. 30 fell to 630,964 last fall from 635,033 a year earlier, NPD Group said. That decline of 0.6 percent followed a 0.7 percent increase in the number of restaurants from the fall of 2012 to the fall of 2013.
The 2014 decline largely stemmed from closings of independent full-service restaurants, NPD Group said. The number of full-service independent restaurants dropped 3 percent while the number of quick-service independent restaurants was stable, NPD said.
Overall, the number of independent restaurants fell 2.2 percent to 343,652 while the number of chain restaurant locations rose 1.3 percent to 283,600 units, according to NPD’s most recent data.
Quick-service restaurants represent 79 percent of industry traffic, and full-service locations account for 21 percent of total visits, it said.
The number of quick-service restaurants, including independent and chain locations, rose 1 percent, led by the growth of fast-casual restaurant chains, NPD said.
“Without the increase in fast casual chain units, we would be seeing greater declines in restaurant counts,” Greg Starzynski, director of product management at NPD Foodservice, said in a statement.
