Dinner Is Taking Up More Room on the Itinerary, OpenTable Finds
Dining by travelers rose 17% on OpenTable in 2026, and 40% of Americans surveyed expect live events and other entertainment to send them out to eat more often in 2027.
Uppercut in Phoenix. Photo: Courtesy of Uppercut
A concert ticket, a reunion with friends, or simply a bit of good news is reason enough to book a table, according to OpenTable’s 2027 Dining Trends Report. And travelers are already helping fill those seats. Dining by travelers on the U.S. platform rose 17% year over year from January through August 2026, compared with an 11% increase overall. Solo dining climbed 24%, while dining in parties of six or more rose 14%.
The appetite looks likely to carry into 2027. In a September survey of 2,001 U.S. respondents conducted by Ripple Research, 76% said they expect to spend as much or more on dining out next year, and 68% expect to go out at least as often. Gen Z was particularly willing to spend more, with 58% expecting to increase their dining budgets, compared with 44% of respondents overall.
Some of those meals will mark occasions that rarely make it onto a calendar. Thirty-five percent of respondents expect to dine out more often to celebrate small or everyday moments in 2027, a figure that rises to 56% among Gen Z. Over the past year, 27% of Americans surveyed had gone out to eat to mark a reunion with friends or family, and 20% had done so after getting good news.
“Whether it’s celebrating a small win, making a night of a concert or becoming a regular at a neighborhood favorite, diners want experiences that feel worth it,” said Amy Wei, OpenTable’s chief operating officer.
For advisors building a trip around a game, concert or theater ticket, the report offers a practical detail. Restaurant quality near the venue was the top factor respondents weighed when deciding whether to eat out before or after an event. Forty percent expect live events and other entertainment to prompt them to dine out more often in 2027. The meal can also be the evening’s main event. Dining booked through OpenTable Experiences, which includes special menus and ticketed events, rose 51% year over year.
How much diners want to spend depends on the evening. Given the same budget, 34% would choose a more affordable restaurant and order more food and drinks, while 18% would choose a pricier restaurant and order fewer items. Another 26% said it would depend on the occasion. At the same time, half of respondents wanted to see more tasting menus in 2027, and 42% wanted more locally sourced items.
Among the cities tracked, Phoenix and Portland posted the largest year-over-year increases in OpenTable dining, both at 24%, followed by Honolulu at 21%. New Orleans and San Francisco each rose 19%. Philadelphia stood out on a different measure. Its reservation alerts rose 224%, the biggest increase in the report. Three Philadelphia restaurants, Mawn, Her Place Supper Club and Sao, were among the 10 generating the most alerts nationwide. With 52% of respondents saying they would rather go elsewhere than wait in line, a backup table can be worth having when dinner needs to fit around a show or another timed event.
All three Philadelphia restaurants also appear on OpenTable’s companion list of the Top 100 Restaurants in America for 2026, alongside Kasama in Chicago, Dakar NOLA in New Orleans and The Wolf’s Tailor in Denver. The list draws on more than 11 million reviews from verified OpenTable diners and a year of platform data, including advance bookings, reservation alerts and direct searches. It’s published alphabetically by state and restaurant, without numerical rankings.
