Restaurant value used to be a much simpler calculation: Discount-driven customers would seek out dollar meals at quick-service restaurants, call for pizza delivery on Friday nights (sans delivery fees), and then splurge on full-service meals on rarer occasions. But in 2024, with dollar menus all but extinct, and newer variables like convenience pricing, service fees, shrinkflation, and dynamic pricing in the mix, the consumer value equation has never been more complex.

Or has it? Customers may have more options than ever before, from ordering almost any food they want from the comfort of their own home to choosing to dine out “the old-fashioned way” (and every “channel” in between), but spending habits have not changed as much as we might think they have. According to data from Technomic, customers are roughly as price-conscious now as they were just before the pandemic. In a survey, half of customers said that they picked restaurants with lower prices in Q1 2020, while 52% of customers said they do so in Q1 2024, and the exact same percentage of customers (68%) said they pay close attention to menu prices in both Q1 2020 and Q1 2024.