Smaller portions are a big restaurant trend as customers watch their budgets and waistlines
The biggest new restaurant trend is small.
Special menus with petite, less expensive portions are popping up all over, from large chains like Olive Garden and The Cheesecake Factory to trendy urban eateries and farm-to-fork dining rooms.
Restaurants hope that offering smaller servings beyond the children’s menu will meet many different diners’ needs. Some people want to spend less when they go out. Others are looking for healthier options or trying to lose weight. Younger consumers tend to snack more throughout the day and eat smaller meals, said Maeve Webster, the president of culinary consulting firm Menu Matters.
“These are really driven by, I think, changes in the way people are thinking about their relationship with food, the way they spend money on food, what is a good value and what’s not,” Webster said.
Looking for value
Beth Tipton, the co-owner of Daniel Girls Farmhouse Restaurant in Connersville, Indiana, introduced an eight-item Mini Meals menu last fall after several customers requested smaller portions. The menu, which includes daily specials like a half piece of meatloaf with green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy for $8, now accounts for about 20% of the restaurant’s orders, she said.
Older adults make up about half of the restaurant’s clientele, Tipston said, and some customers told her the regular menu was a stretch for their budgets. As someone who underwent weight-loss surgery, she also knew from experience that many restaurants won’t allow adults to order from their children’s menus.
“We wanted it to be available to all without the word ‘kids meals’ attached,” Tipton said. “With the rising costs all around us we wanted to help in any way we can, and this is a great option.”
Eating out and GLP-1s
Some restaurants are adding menus to court users of GLP-1 weight-loss and diabetes drugs like Zepbound, Wegovy, Ozempic and Mounjaro.
Last fall, restaurateur Barry Gutin ran into two different friends who told him they were taking GLP-1s and struggling to find restaurant meals that met their dietary needs and smaller appetites. GLP-1 users tend to eat less, so they need nutritionally dense foods that are low in fat and high in protein and fiber.
Gutin, the co-owner of Cuba Libre Restaurant and Rum Bar in Philadelphia, Washington, Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Orlando, Florida, reached out to a doctor who specializes in weight loss and to Cuba Libre’s culinary director, Angel Roque. Over the next month, they developed the chain’s GLP-Wonderful menu, which is available during dinner.
The menu has five classic Cuban options. Roque said the pollo asado on Cuba Libre’s regular menu has nearly 1,000 calories; on the GLP-1 menu, that’s slimmed down to 400 calories, but heavy on protein and fiber. He said it was also important to keep the GLP-1 meals flavorful and colorful, to stimulate appetites.
“Many times when people are on those kind of regimes, they feel that they can’t do the same as everybody else. So we wanted to show them, yes, at Cuba Libre, you can,” Roque said.
Gutin said the menu has increased business. He estimated that 10 to 20 groups at each location every week have at least one person who requests the GLP-Wonderful menu.
“People say, ‘Thank you for serving us’,” Gutin said.
Big chains go small
Olive Garden, whose seven-item “Lighter Portions” menu rolled out nationwide in January, said GLP-1 users were one consideration. The Italian-style restaurant chain also wanted to appeal to patrons pursuing healthier diets or more affordable meals, said Rick Cardenas, the president and CEO of Olive Garden’s parent company, Darden Restaurants.
“There is a consumer group out there that believes in abundance, but abundance is different for everybody,” Cardenas said in September during a conference call with investors. “So consumers can choose. We’re not changing our entire menu to make it a smaller portion.”
The Asian fusion chain P.F. Chang’s began offering medium-sized portions last fall. The Cheesecake Factory added smaller, lower-priced Bites and Bowls to its menu last summer, while TGI Fridays recently began testing an “Eat Like A Kid” menu with smaller portions.
A long-term change
Smaller portions aren’t a new concept. Twenty years ago, small-plate tapas restaurants were all the rage, for instance.
But to Webster, the menu consultant, the scaled-down dishes appearing now feel like a longer-term shift. For one thing, the trend is not tied to any particular cuisine. Webster also thinks consumers are thinking more about food waste than they used to, and smaller portions can alleviate some of their concerns.
“I think it is a core need that consumers have, and a demand that has been lingering under the surface for a long time because restaurant meals, particularly at chains, have become so large,” she said. “Sure, it sounds great to take leftovers home, but they never taste as good.”
During a recent visit to Shelburne, Vermont, from his home in North Carolina, Jack Pless was delighted to see the Teeny Tuesday menu at Barkeaters Restaurant, which specializes in locally sourced food. Pless, who’s in his 60s and used to own a restaurant, said he can’t eat as much as he used to at meals.
“So many times you go out to restaurants, especially me or my wife, and we’ll take home a box and it’ll sit in the refrigerator for two, three days and start to grow a beard,” he said.
Julie Finestone, the co-owner of Barkeaters, said she introduced the Teeny Tuesday menu last month to bring in more weekday business during the winter. She was concerned about the cost of offering lower-priced food options, like $12 reuben sliders, but said the decision has brought in more business than she expected.
Finestone said she’s pretty confident Teeny Tuesday will become a year-round fixture.
“Some people, it’s dietary. Some have smaller appetites. Some people don’t like to overindulge in the middle of the week,” Finestone said. “I think that it just spoke to people.”
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AP Video Journalists Mingson Lau in Philadelphia and Amanda Swinhart in Shelburne, Vermont, contributed.