by Kristen Wile

2024 will bring changes to tipping, styles of service, and more.

In 2023, some stability returned to the restaurant industry. While labor costs continue to be higher than ever, food costs have evened out, allowing restaurants to begin adapting with more certainty to the post-pandemic business model. Here are some of the trends we anticipate seeing over the next year.

Smaller menus

Though food costs have stabilized, they didn’t return to pre-pandemic pricing. Combined with the higher cost of labor, restaurants are looking to efficiency to cut costs — both in terms of ingredients and staff hours. Smaller menus help manage both, with fewer dishes resulting in more consolidated prep work and the ability to use more of a single ingredient.

More non-alcoholic options

With so many new zero-proof liquor alternatives, restaurants and bars have a lot more flexibility with non-alcoholic cocktails. With many customers willing to pay the same amount for a zero-proof option as most cocktails with alcohol, this is an easy step of inclusivity that restaurants won’t be overlooking much longer — especially considering it’s an added revenue stream.

Fine dining or fast casual

The independent, casual sit-down restaurant is becoming a rarity. Without volume, the business model is becoming harder to achieve. As a result, independent restaurants are falling increasingly into two brackets: higher-end, higher-dollar dining, or fast casual, the latter helping to remove a significant amount of labor costs from the bottom line.

Tip fatigue

Between takeout orders, service fees, and kitchen tips, diners are no longer sure what’s right to tip, and when. The result is a turn in consumer sentiment against tipping, and a decrease in takeout tips. However, takeout tipping hit a high during the pandemic when dining rooms were empty, and the decrease in takeout tips should correlate with an increase in dine-in tips for full-service restaurants.

Reservation fees

A no-show can be crippling to a small restaurant that has staffed and prepped for a full dining room. As a result, we expect to see more reservations require credit card numbers to allow restaurants to charge a no-show fee or a reservation fee.

Chef’s choice menus

Tasting menu restaurants may still be rare in Charlotte, but there are more of them these days as places like L’Ostrica open their doors. Restaurants are also finding ways to incorporate special dining experiences into their restaurants on a smaller scale. Concepts like Kappo En, which offers an omakase experience in the back of Menya in Elizabeth, and the chef’s counter at upcoming concept Maneki bring the creativity and excitement of a chef’s choice menu without dedicating an entire concept to it.

Food trucks vs. food stalls

As food halls continue to open around the city, diners seeking a quick meal are deflecting from the food trucks they used to hunt down. We expect food halls to become more appealing to chefs looking to go out on their own, especially as their quantity increases food stall availability and affordability.

Chain concepts that appear local

Charlotte’s market is becoming even more appealing to out-of-state concepts. As higher prices make opening a restaurant difficult for local entrepreneurs, prime spaces will be taken by boutique out-of-state concepts that Charlotteans assume are local, like Barcelona Wine Bar and Culinary Dropout.