Traffic Trends: High Noon

Fast-food lunch customers are likely to eat in, but make sure you can accommodate a lot of singles.

By Mary Boltz Chapman, Editor-in-Chief -- Chain Leader, 9/1/2006

Quick-service customers are more apt to eat in at lunch than at other meals. Of all fast-food users having lunch on their last QSR occasion, 37.0 percent ate at the restaurant, while 30.0 percent of all users ate in, a 21-quarter average shows. According to Quick-Track, a quarterly survey by Villa Park, Calif.-based research firm Sandelman & Associates, 33.4 percent of those having lunch on their last visit used the drive-thru and 26.2 percent took their food to go. Of all QSR customers, 40.4 percent used the drive-thru; 23.1 percent, carryout.

• Fast-food users having lunch on their most recent visit were more likely than all users to be alone: 33.9 percent vs. 26.8 percent, according to a 21-quarter average.
• The midday meal comprises 42.0 percent of all fast-food occasions; dinner makes up 41.4 percent; breakfast, 11.0 percent; and snacks, 5.6 percent.
• Customers having lunch on their last occasion spent $4.65 per person, a 21-quarter average reveals. All QSR users paid an average of $4.81 per person.
• Sandwich chains garnered 13.3 percent of past-month lunch visits but only 9.7 percent of all past-month occasions. Pizza chains saw 10.0 percent of past-month lunch occasions but 17.6 percent of all occasions.
• 32.5 percent of QSR customers who had lunch on their most recent occasion ate a hamburger; 25.1 percent had a chicken, submarine or other sandwich; and 11.0 percent bought pizza.
• 15.7 percent of quick-service customers having lunch on their most recent occasion used a special deal or promotion; 21.5 percent of all users did.
• While 45.6 percent of all customers bought food from fast-food restaurants on Friday, Saturday or Sunday, on their last occasion only 38.9 percent of lunch users did. The most popular day for lunch users to go to QSRs is in the middle of the week: According to a 21-quarter average, 17.5 percent of fast-food customers having lunch on their most recent occasion did so on Wednesday.

Methodology
Customer trend data is based on the quarterly Quick-Track survey by Sandelman & Associates, a Villa Park, Calif.-based research firm. Quick-Track queries a nationally representative sample of 600 fast-food customers on a host of demographic and usage questions. The firm defines “QSR lunch users” as those who have purchased lunch from one of the tracked QSR chains at least once in the past month. Most-recent purchase data is based on all QSR users whose last QSR purchase was at lunch.