Skift Take
You don't need to paint your restaurant millennial pink to attract customers (I promise), but these four summer trends are worth your attention.
Whether summer's spent tied to a desk or lounging by the pool, we all still have to eat. Warmer weather will always be associated with al fresco dining and cool beverages. But some trends are passing (looking at you, frosé), while others have the potential to turn into honest-to-goodness innovation. Here are our picks for the top restaurant trends of the past few months.
Fast-Casual Explodes, But Its Lines Blur
The white hot fast-casual category continued to dominate headlines this summer, with high-profile openings and expansions across the country. Category lines blurred, though, as more restaurants hope to cash in on its success. On one end, fast food worked to, essentially, become more like fast-casual, with the likes of McDonald’s and KFC touting fresh-never-frozen and antibiotic-free ingredients — a hallmark of the fast-casual experience.
As fast casual continued its evolution, it borrowed from fine dining playbooks, introducing custom wine lists, formerly elevated food items like made-to-order sushi, and adapting actual dishes from high-concept restaurants into quicker service models.
In fact, fast-casual is so popular that restaurants have started to differentiate themselves within the category. Danny Meyer’s just-opened Martina in New York City calls itself “fine-casual” but operates under the fast-casual model of offering a limited menu, orderi
