Restaurant Industry Trends for 2025: What’s Hot and What’s Not
Digital menus have evolved to be an integral part of the modern dining experience, where advanced technology has changed customer preferences. In 2025, two key trends stand out… these are real-time updates, and upselling opportunities. Let’s dig deeper into how these features are revolutionising how restaurants engage with their customers:
What’s Hot: Real-Time Updates
Keep your dining and delivery experience smooth for your customers by informing them with real-time updates, a key feature for boosting satisfaction.
Live Menu Tracking
Stay dynamic, set meal quantities in advance to show availability on your digital menu. By eliminating the chance of selling a product you don’t have, you avoid disappointment and ensure customer fulfilment.
Example: You have a set number of desserts to sell each evening.
Dynamic Pricing
Adjust meal prices based on supply, demand, or the time of day. This approach maximises revenue by leveraging “surge pricing” to get the most out of your peak hours.
Example: You want to introduce a “happy hour”, and prices revert back to normal afterwards.
Seasonal and Daily Specials
Adaptable menus based on customer requirement, dietary restrictions, or previous favourites offer an immersive experience and make your customers feel valued.
Example: Recommendations of their previous orders, and loyalty schemes to acquire repeat sales.
Personalised Menus
Adaptable menus based on customer requirement, dietary restrictions, or previous favourites offer an immersive experience and make your customers feel valued.
Example: Recommendations of their previous orders, and loyalty schemes to acquire repeat sales.
Benefits
Eradicates customer frustration when trying to order an unavailable dish.
Reduces human interaction and boosts your operational efficiency.
Makes your customers feel valued, and builds trust through transparency and accurate information.
What’s Hot: Upselling Opportunities
Digital menus are leveraging advanced designs and technology to entice customers to spend more money. This is achieved by recommending upgrades, side-dishes, or more premium alternatives.
Smart Recommendations:
Artificial intelligence-backed menus propose “on-the-house” items by harnessing data from previous orders to get the most appreciation from your customers.
Examples: Imagine one of your favourite diners often gets the same burger, fries, and milkshakes… but this time they only get a burger and fries. AI will suggest the milkshake to entice sales.
Highlighting Promotions and Combos
Strategic placement of deals and promotions will encourage customers to spend more… boosting your revenue.
Example: “20% Off” or “Buy-1 Get-1 Free!”
Interactive Personalised Meals
Strengthen your customer base, by allowing them to build their own meals, give them options for add-ons and clearly display the costs.
Examples: Keep it easy with options like pizzas, salads, or pasta.
Interactive Personalised Meals
Strengthen your customer base, by allowing them to build their own meals, give them options for add-ons and clearly display the costs.
Examples: Keep it easy with options like pizzas, salads, or pasta.
Benefits
Increases your average spend per customer.
Offers opportunities to upsell in a smooth, non-intrusive way.
Emphasises customer satisfaction with value-adding recommendations.
What’s Not Hot: Unfashionable and Defunct Practices
In this fast-paced industry that is evolving and integrating with technology even more, some outdated strategies are costing business owners money.
Static Menus
Displaying a digital menu, that is simply just a static paper menu lacks immersiveness, and prevents opportunities to interact with your customers.
We recommend: Take advantage of technology, because your competitors will be. Customers value key features that are dynamic and engaging.
Too Many Options
Pelting your customers with options, and/or upselling attempts can cause decision fatigue which you want to avoid, as this will lead to customers going elsewhere.
We recommend: Focus on building personalised recommendations. Achieve this with a clean platform and website that has advanced features (e.g Vantifood), offering best-sellers to attract repeat sales.
Ignoring Accessibility
Menus that do not include foreign nationals, visually impaired, or technophobes will alienate a good portion of valuable customers.
We recommend: Ensure menus can be understood with voice options, translations, and easy navigation.
Overall,
2025 is going to be a huge year for restaurants… Digitalisation is becoming more popular for both restaurants and customers as it fosters a dynamic, customer-centric experience. Real-time updates break down barriers between you and your customers, offering full transparency to build trust and loyalty.
Restaurants need to embrace and maximise this opportunity to stay competitive, as this is not a trend, digital is staying for good. With solutions like Vantifoods QR code menus, cutting edge features like quantity control and loyalty programs. Restaurants can stay competitive in this fast-paced industry.
FAQ's
Why should i use Vantifood for my restaurant?
Our diverse toolbox solution covers a spectrum of your restaurants operational needs. We modernise the dining experience by enabling your customers to browse menus, order, and pay directly from their own devices. Reduce wait times, increase table turnover, value customer satisfaction.
Will using a QR code ordering system improve my restaurant’s revenue?
Definitely! Integrating a QR code system allows for orders to be processed faster, provide more opportunities to upsell other items, and ensures your customer enjoy their meals with less time waiting to be served.
How does Vantifood improve customer experience?
No physical menus and self-ordering will reduce the number of order errors. Customers will experience seamless dining, where they can order at their own convenience. Coupling this with sustainable strategies, customers will be compelled to dine with you.
Is Vantifood environmentally friendly?
We are committed to making a more sustainable future for everyone! Our digital solutions are eco-friendly, and are designed to complement green practices. We also help businesses implement these strategies into operations.
