Between increasingly busy family lifestyles and the rise of inflation, restauranteurs have been waiting with anticipation to see how customers might change decision-making around dining out. As our restaurant consultants have claimed since the beginning of this downturn, value will continue to top priority lists. The question that this recent article from Restaurant Business answers is: what are diners considering good value?
“Families face a new mental calculation: If they’re going to spend money and time eating out, the experience needs to be worth both,” writes Joanna Fontazzi.
“The opportunity is not to save the aging family restaurant,” adds Gary Stibel, CEO of New England Consulting Group. “It is to identify which occasions, which meal items, and which assets remain valuable to families, and then to rebuild the model around fewer hours, smaller menus, lower prices, and a more contemporary experience.”
According to Fontazzi’s article, this means a new wave of family dining—a dining experience that offers a high value, decent pricing, and an understanding of the modern American family schedule. With this in mind, brunch is having a resurgence; but unlike a traditional diner experience—think IHOP or Cracker Barrel, which have both experienced declines and even closures—diners are flocking to niche brunch spots with small, targeted offerings.
“Eggs Up Grill, Keke’s Breakfast Café, and Toasted Yolk Café are all mid-sized daytime concepts with limited menus, shorter operating hours, and something for every member of the family — including mimosa flights and Bloody Mary bars. All three of these brands saw double-digit unit growth and sales increases of at least 20% in 2025, according to Technomic data.”
Fontazzi breaks the success into a few categories that serve as good advice for any restaurant business navigating this current economy and market.
First, pick a lane, she writes, quoting Ricky Richardson, CEO of Eggs Up Grill, the top performing family-dining chain of 2025. “A narrower menu enables you to stay incredibly obsessed with quality and consistency of execution,” he says, a strategy made obvious at their 113-unit concept open for breakfast and brunch 6AM to 2PM every day of the week. “Eggs Up Grill’s menu is no-frills with mostly classic options like biscuits and gravy, benedicts, and omelets and is decidedly more traditional than some of the trendier regional brunch concepts,” Fontazzi writes, noting that Richardson doesn’t view the restaurant as brunch-only, and that the consistency in both offerings and schedule allows for more flexibility.
Next, Fontazzi empasized the importance of experience as part of value. As our restaurant consultants advise, experience encapsulates everything: from parking and seating to customer service to food quality to environment to how easy it is to pay for the meal. “It’s 100% about experience and understanding your audience and programming your menu to really address every menu of the family,” Toasted Yolk franchise developer Clay Carson said. “The customers’ mindset has changed, and I think they want that exciting experience and that community feel. Vibe is key. Families want to go out and have a good time.”
The article suggests that these restaurants—Eggs Up Grill, Keke’s Breakfast Café, and Toasted Yolk—aside from their timeliness and niche operations, have a sorted of “unidentified cool factor,” which can be translated to a sound understanding of people and tastes at this moment. Managing trends is as important as preaching a timeless hospitality practice: that customer service remains key.
Fontazzi sums it up, “But if you want to win over families looking for a dine-in experience, a good place to start is a narrowly focused menu, modern branding, a cocktail menu, and a promise to never rest on your laurels.”