Full-Service Restaurants NAICS 722511

May 14, 2025 - Reservation Scalping

• As demand for hard-to-get reservations has grown, the restaurant industry’s equivalent of ticket scalpers have been scooping up reservations and selling them online, the National Restaurant Association reports. Technology enables individuals and companies to scrape reservations from legitimate restaurant websites or partner reservation sites and then sell them on unauthorized online resale sites and social media, per the NRA. The practice is creating challenges for restaurants, like costly no-shows, staffing needs to manage the expectations of customers who purchase these third-party reservations, and potential damage to their brand. Amid rising frustration from diners and restaurant operators, state governments have begun working with the restaurant industry to create a regulatory framework to fix the system by returning control of reservations to restaurants. A recent survey of diners at full-service restaurants found nearly 2 in 5 were aware of third-party websites that charge for reservations and nearly 15% said they’d paid for a reservation.
• Restaurants added a net 16,600 jobs in April, according to preliminary data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The job gains came despite rising uncertainty that have kept consumers from visiting restaurants as frequently. April marked the second straight month for restaurant job gains, following about 30,000 new jobs added in March, and a rebound from a job loss of 28,300 in February and 27,000 in January — the weakest two-month period for the industry in more than four years, according to the National Restaurant Association. Despite the recent gains, eating and drinking place payrolls were down 19,000 jobs since the beginning of the year. As of April, employment stood at 61,400 jobs, or 0.5% above February 2020, with all segments of the industry posting job gains except for full-service restaurants, where jobs are down 4.5% compared to early 2020.

• Food inflation has ousted labor costs as the top concern among restaurant operators, FSR reported in April, citing restaurant scheduling software publisher 7shifts’ 2025 Restaurant Labor Cost & Profitability survey. The survey of more than 500 restaurant professionals across industry segments revealed that food price inflation dominates restaurant concerns, with 52% of respondents ranking it as their primary challenge and 86% including it in their top three. Labor costs closely follow as the second most pressing issue, ranked first by 31% of operators and in the top three for 83% of restaurants. That’s a switch from previous years, which saw labor as the top issue, and food inflation as the second. The combination of rising food and labor costs is squeezing already-thin restaurant profit margins. Meanwhile, tariffs on imported seafood and vegetables threaten to disrupt supply chains and raise food costs even more.
• Driving on-premise traffic will be a higher priority for restaurant operators than capturing off-premise visits this year, according to the National Restaurant Association’s State of the Industry Report 2025. During the pandemic and its aftermath, restaurants, by necessity, focused on their take-out and delivery services. Now, according to the report, 81% of consumers say they would eat at full-service restaurants more frequently if they had more money to spend. Across segments, restaurants are prioritizing on-premise service with 90% of fine dining operators saying on-premise visits would be more important in 2025 than off-premise. Major brands – notably Starbucks and Subway – are focusing their efforts on improving the dine-in experience and make their eateries more appealing places to linger. QSR customers identified store cleanliness as one of the most important factors determining their visit, per the NRA survey.