COVID-19 Working Paper: Food-Away-From-Home Acquisition Trends Throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and the ensuing policy responses disrupted how consumers in the United States acquired food away from home, and little is known about how they continued to access these goods. This report summarizes national-level trends in dollars U.S. consumers spent from December 2019–February 2020 through April–June 2022 at quick- and full-service restaurants by service mode (on-premise, drive-thru, delivery, and carry-out) and acquisition and ordering method. Results show that while on-premises (eating inside a restaurant) spending fell at quick- and full-service restaurants, spending at full-service restaurants remained much lower than pre-pandemic spending levels. USDA, Economic Research Service researchers found that consumers quickly adapted to other service modes, like delivery or drive-thru, and this offset many of the losses observed in spending at quick-service restaurants. The authors also observed that consumers increased spending via cell phone apps for carry-out and delivery orders at both types of restaurants relative to pre-pandemic spending. In short, while consumers’ restaurant spending largely returned to pre-pandemic levels, many of the ways that consumers interacted with quick- and full-service restaurants immediately following the onset of the pandemic remained.