Dive Brief:
- A small minority of regular diners can drive as much as half of a restaurant’s total order volume, according to a joint Toast and Resy report released last week. Toast’s Q1 2026 point-of-sale transactions show that guests who visited a restaurant multiple times accounted for just 7% of the total guest base but drove up to 50% of total order volume.
- Regulars tend to spend more, too. One-third of those surveyed spend more simply because they’re more comfortable ordering, and regulars are 80% more likely to experiment with a new item because they trust the kitchen.
- “The vast majority of the revenue for most restaurants actually comes from maybe not quite regulars, but visitors that have been there multiple times,” said Olga Lopategui, founder and principal consultant of Restaurant Loyalty Specialists.
Dive Insight:
Loyal regular restaurant goers provide stable and long-term value for businesses, but that relationship must be nurtured and maintained.
“It’s absolutely mission critical, both in terms of the revenue stream that they generate for the brand and the advocacy for the brand,” Lopategui said. “Keeping the same guest is so much, so much easier to retain the guests and to acquire a new guest.”
Regulars usually have two or three restaurants where they feel at home, according to an April Toast survey of 1,500. Among consumers who dine in or order out at least twice a month, most develop a curated list to avoid the fatigue of too many choices.
Regulars are clear about what keeps them coming back: food quality and feeling recognized by staff. Dining out is an experience, and diners appreciate the human element. One-third of diners surveyed by Toast said that feeling recognized by staff is a main reason they return.
Lopategui, who has been in the restaurant space for over two decades, firmly believes that restaurant experience is key. “So it's the quality of the experience, it's the quality of the food, it's just overall flow of your interaction with a guest, it's brand marketing, so all of that together builds up the capital L loyalty,” she said.
Loyalty programs can boost conversions, but they aren’t enough on their own. Guests want to feel valued.
Diners said human recognition — staff remembering a name or a usual order — was the No. 1 factor that made them feel valued, selected by about half of respondents. Points-based loyalty reward came in at a distant second, selected only by 22% of respondents.
The report also found room for improvement: Less than one-third of diners always feel recognized at the places they visit most.
“For restaurant operators and staff, this suggests that consistency matters: remembering names, usual orders, and preferences is a simple practice that can strengthen relationships and make regulars feel genuinely seen,” Brian Koerber, director of brand journalism and news at Toast, said. These small human moments can make the difference between a loyal regular and someone who stops coming back.”
Restaurants that can get a guest to sign up for loyalty programs shift that customer’s return rate from a baseline 7% to nearly 30%. Loyalty programs are more effective at casual restaurants, like pizzerias and cafes, and less effective in fine-dining where such rewards can appear transactional, according to Toast.
Discounts and points can encourage the next visit and drive incremental value, but Koerber urges restaurants not to rely on it alone. “Operators should consider treating loyalty as a tool rather than the strategy itself,” Koerber said.
