Diners cite inconvenience before price when cutting chain visits, William Blair finds

At more than 70 percent of the restaurant chains in William Blair's latest consumer survey, guests who are coming less gave the same top reason: the place is inconvenient. "Too expensive" came second. "Slow speed of service" was circled least of all.

That order matters right now. The findings come from William Blair's 16th quarterly survey on engagement, digital trends and brand affinity. For operators already watching their margins, that ranking deserves a hard look.

What guests say keeps them away

The traffic backdrop is soft. At every chain in the survey's coverage, more respondents said they were eating out less often than last year than said they were eating out more. Sequentially, the less-often share rose at every brand except Portillo's and sweetgreen.

The reason ranking is the useful part. "Inconvenient" is a broad label, and the published results don't break it down. Slow speed of service was the reason respondents circled least.

Value perception held steady overall, at 3.3 on a five-point scale, which is modestly above average. The Cheesecake Factory ranked first on absolute value perception for the third straight quarter, followed by Wingstop, Chipotle, CAVA and Portillo's. Half the brands improved quarter over quarter, led by CAVA, Portillo's and Wingstop.

Most restaurant visits never reach a table

Respondents averaged about 4 in-person visits a month, ahead of 3.9 drive-thru trips, 3 takeout orders and 2.6 deliveries. In-person is still the single biggest channel. Taken together, though, the three off-premises channels account for about 70 percent of interactions by William Blair's estimate.

Total interactions came to 13.6 a month, down from 15 in the prior survey and 15.5 in September 2025. That suggests the people who still eat out are doing it less often. Yet the share of people eating out at all bounced back: 91 percent said in September that they eat at restaurants at least a few times a month, up from 86 percent in June and just below the 92 percent of a year earlier.

Put those two numbers side by side and the picture is a guest who hasn't left but shows up less often. That is a frequency problem, and the survey's own explanation for off-premises demand bears on it directly. Asked why they order takeout or delivery, 65 percent cited convenience and time constraints, 24 percent said they'd rather not cook and 19 percent said restaurant food is cheaper than buying groceries and cooking.

Convenience is the top reason diners give for ordering takeout or delivery, at 65 percent, and inconvenience is the top reason they give for visiting a chain less. Frequency also tracks age and income. Some 61 percent of respondents under 60 order food a few times a week or daily, against 37 percent of those over 60. Among households earning more than $100,000 the figure is 64 percent, and below $50,000 it's 44 percent. Since the pandemic, about 40 percent say their takeout or delivery frequency has risen, 17 percent of them significantly, while 23 percent say it has fallen.

The phone line beats the app for takeout

The channel detail is where an off-premises or digital lead will find the survey most useful. Ordering in person or by phone was the most common way to place a takeout order last quarter, at 40 percent, up from 35 percent. That pushed the restaurant's own website or app, at 34 percent, out of first place. Among guests under 60 the race is close, 36 percent to 33 percent. Delivery runs the other way, with third-party marketplaces the most common route at 35 percent overall.

Those splits describe two different delivery customers. For chains whose guests skew older, that suggests staffing and order accuracy on the phone and at the counter could be as much a part of convenience as any app feature.

Matt St. George, vice president of client services at Bounteous, made a related case in a separate QSR Magazine column: a restaurant can sit on years of transaction history and still deliver a generic experience when ordering, loyalty and preference data live in separate systems. His example was a coffee brand that replaced its point-of-sale platform, payment processor, loyalty provider and marketing cloud at the same time. That project needed a ground-up POS integration and a menu translation layer to carry the in-store menu into digital ordering, which Bounteous has since turned into a reusable asset for other brands. His stated goal is fewer steps to a guest's usual order. It's a vendor's argument, but it aims at the same thing the survey ranks first.

Price still ranks a close second

None of this lets price off the hook. "Too expensive" was the second most-cited reason, and other recent data shows guests still watching the check. The National Restaurant Association's third-quarter Consumer Insights survey found nearly four in ten consumers spending less at restaurants than the quarter before, leaning on discounts, trading down to cheaper options and skipping add-ons. In the same survey, 65 percent rated their financial well-being positively, while nearly four in ten said it had worsened over the past year, with younger and lower-income consumers under the most strain. The association also noted that many operators are reluctant to pass higher costs through to menus while traffic stays soft.

Restaurant Dive's Julie Littman reported that Peter Saleh, restaurants analyst at U.S. Bancorp | BTIG, wrote in his October report that quick-service operators will keep offering value but the deep value war is over, with no chain coming out ahead. Saleh said messaging has started to shift toward product quality. For operators weighing their next value move, an answer that doesn't touch price at all may be worth testing.

Bank of America's State of the Restaurant Industry 2026 report puts dollars on the squeeze. Analysts project industry sales of $1.54 trillion this year, 4.3 percent growth, but only 0.8 percent after inflation, per a July National Restaurant Association estimate. Bank of America Institute card data shows restaurant spending up 3.3 percent year over year through July, and up 4.1 percent among lower-income households. Cristin O'Hara, head of the bank's commercial banking restaurant group, called sustained profitability the industry's defining challenge, with little room for error. The report points operators toward tighter labor scheduling, inventory controls and menu and footprint adjustments.

Read together, the numbers show guests who keep spending but make fewer trips and pick them more carefully. Price and convenience may also overlap in a guest's mind: a trip that feels like too much trouble can also feel like poor value. That is the strongest case for treating the two as one problem rather than ranking them.

Two signals to watch next

Earnings calls come first. If management teams talk about access, ordering steps and pickup alongside price points and food quality, the industry is reading the same thing this survey shows.

The next William Blair survey will test it. Two figures will tell whether this quarter was a blip or a turn: whether phone and in-person ordering holds its lead over apps for takeout, and whether monthly interactions climb back from 13.6.