American bistros sit within a large U.S. foodservice economy shaped by full-service dining, visitor traffic, takeout, labor demand, and household food spending. The figures below show the scale of that market and the operating patterns most relevant to bistro-style restaurants.
Contents
- The size of the American restaurant market
- What diners value in full-service restaurants
- On-premises dining, takeout, and tourism
- Restaurant employment and annual job openings
- Bistro kitchen wages and occupations
- Food-away-from-home spending and supply economics
The size of the American restaurant market
The National Restaurant Association forecast U.S. foodservice sales of $1.5 trillion in 2025. The same forecast projected 15.9 million restaurant and foodservice jobs by the end of that year, including 200,000 jobs added during 2025. These are industry-wide figures, so they include bistros alongside other restaurant formats.
Spending at eating and drinking places was running at an annual rate of $1,223.3 billion in the first quarter of 2025, according to NRA restaurant sales commentary. In the second quarter, the annual rate reached $1,249.3 billion. The two quarterly annual-rate figures indicate a $26.0 billion difference in reported run rates, although they are not a measure of cumulative quarterly sales.
The Census MARTS estimate put April 2026 U.S. retail and food services sales at $757.1 billion. April sales were up 4.9% from April 2025, while the February-through-April 2026 period was up 4.4% from the comparable period a year earlier. Restaurant sales themselves were estimated to have increased 0.5% month over month in April 2026. These Census figures cover retail and food services together; they should not be treated as a bistro-only total.
The National Restaurant Association reported cautious operator expectations for 2025: more than 80% of operators believed their sales would be higher than or comparable to 2024. That outlook sits alongside a more difficult traffic picture. Customer traffic declined for nearly two-thirds of restaurants in 2025, according to the NRA tourism analysis for that year.
What diners value in full-service restaurants
For bistro-style businesses, the distinction between the meal and the overall occasion is important. In the NRA 2025 State of the Restaurant Industry, 64% of full-service customers said the dining experience mattered more than meal price. Among limited-service customers, the corresponding figure was 47%.
The figures describe customer responses, not a recommended pricing strategy. They do show that full-service dining customers placed relatively greater weight on experience than limited-service customers in this measurement. Service, atmosphere, pacing, hospitality, and the meal itself can all be part of that experience, but the supplied statistic does not separate those elements.
Value still mattered to operators. Forty-seven percent of restaurant operators planned to add discounts, deals, or value promotions in 2025, according to the same NRA industry report. That creates a measurable tension for bistros: full-service customers may emphasize the experience, while operators still use promotions to respond to competitive and traffic pressures.
On-premises dining, takeout, and tourism
On-premises business remained especially important to full-service restaurants. Ninety percent of fine dining operators said on-premises business was more important than off-premises business, and 87% of casual dining operators said the same, according to the NRA 2025 State of the Restaurant Industry. American bistros are not a separately reported category in these figures, but the full-service and casual-dining results provide relevant context for a bistro dining room.
Off-premises sales nevertheless represented a larger share of total sales in 2024 than in 2019 for one-half of restaurant operators. The share was 58% among limited-service operators and 41% among full-service operators. Only 20% of full-service operators said off-premises sales were lower in 2024 than in 2019, while 30% said they were about the same.
Restaurant operators also altered physical space to handle off-premises orders. Forty percent of limited-service operators changed inside space or parking lots for that purpose, compared with 30% of full-service operators. These percentages measure operators reporting a change; they do not quantify the amount of space changed or the resulting sales.
Visitors are another meaningful source of restaurant revenue. The NRA tourism analysis for 2025 found that 3 in 10 dollars spent at U.S. restaurants typically came from travelers and visitors. Fine dining received an average of 41% of sales from travelers and visitors, and one in four fine dining operators said visitors accounted for at least 60% of annual sales.
The same analysis estimated that roughly one-third of sales in family dining, casual dining, and coffee-and-snack restaurants came from travelers and visitors. Travelers and visitors accounted for one in four dollars spent in quickservice restaurants and one in four dollars spent in fast-casual restaurants.
Tourism performance in 2025 was uneven. Forty-seven percent of operators said tourism-related sales were lower than in a typical year, 45% said they were about the same as normal, and 8% said they were higher than normal. Because these are operator responses, they describe reported business conditions rather than a single national sales estimate.
Restaurant employment and annual job openings
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 13.2 million people employed in food preparation and serving occupations in May 2023. Those occupations represented 8.7% of total U.S. employment at that time. Restaurant cooks accounted for 1.4 million workers, first-line supervisors of food preparation and serving workers accounted for 1.2 million, and food preparation workers accounted for 879,610.
The employment base is broad, but it also turns over through continuing replacement demand. The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook projects about 2.6 million openings per year for food preparation and serving occupations from 2024 through 2034. This is an annual openings figure across the occupational group, not a forecast of new restaurants or net employment growth.
The BLS separately projects food preparation worker employment to decline 3% from 2024 to 2034. Even with that projected decline, about 148,000 openings for food preparation workers are projected each year over the decade. Openings can result from people leaving an occupation as well as from employment growth, so the two measures describe different aspects of labor demand.
| Employment measure | Figure | Measurement period |
|---|---|---|
| Food preparation and serving occupations | 13.2 million employed | May 2023 |
| Share of total U.S. employment | 8.7% | May 2023 |
| Restaurant cooks | 1.4 million employed | May 2023 |
| Annual openings, food preparation and serving occupations | About 2.6 million | 2024–2034 projection |
| Annual openings, food preparation workers | About 148,000 | 2024–2034 projection |
Bistro kitchen wages and occupations
The BLS reported a May 2024 median annual wage of $34,130 for food preparation and serving occupations, compared with $49,500 for all occupations. Within the restaurant workforce, chefs and head cooks had a median annual wage of $60,990, cooks had a median of $35,760, and food preparation workers had a median of $34,220.
Other customer-facing and beverage roles had different medians. The 2024 median annual wage was $33,530 for bartenders, $31,040 for food and beverage serving and related workers, and $33,760 for waiters and waitresses. These figures are occupation-wide BLS medians rather than pay scales for a particular bistro, city, experience level, or employer.
Hourly cook data gives a more detailed view of the kitchen workforce. The BLS reported a May 2024 median hourly wage of $17.19 for cooks overall and $17.71 specifically for restaurant cooks. Cooks in fast food had a median hourly wage of $14.50. The lowest-paid 10% of cooks earned less than $12.00 per hour, while the highest-paid 10% earned more than $22.45 per hour.
The comparison below keeps annual and hourly measures separate because they are different BLS presentations.
| Occupation or group | Median pay | BLS period |
|---|---|---|
| All occupations | $49,500 annually | 2024 |
| Food preparation and serving occupations | $34,130 annually | 2024 |
| Chefs and head cooks | $60,990 annually | 2024 |
| Cooks | $35,760 annually; $17.19 hourly | 2024 / May 2024 |
| Restaurant cooks | $17.71 hourly | May 2024 |
| Fast-food cooks | $14.50 hourly | May 2024 |
| Waiters and waitresses | $33,760 annually | 2024 |
Food-away-from-home spending and supply economics
USDA Economic Research Service food-dollar data puts restaurant spending in the context of household food budgets. Food-away-from-home spending rose 4.2% to $1.27 trillion in 2024. Food-at-home spending rose 1.4% to $901 billion. The food-away-from-home share of disposable income was 5.6% in 2024.
The USDA ERS food dollar chart also separates the farm and marketing portions of each food-away-from-home dollar. Farm establishments received 7.1 cents of every dollar spent on food away from home in 2024. The marketing share was 92.9 cents. The marketing share covers the non-farm portion represented in the food-dollar framework; it is not the same as a restaurant’s profit margin.
Taken together, the figures show why a bistro’s menu price cannot be read as a direct measure of farm receipts or operator earnings. A meal sold to a customer passes through a broader foodservice and marketing system, while the restaurant must also support labor, premises, service, preparation, and other operating functions. The USDA figures quantify the farm and marketing shares, but they do not provide a bistro-level cost breakdown.
The broader spending trend also explains the scale of the opportunity. A $1.27 trillion food-away-from-home market in 2024, a $1.5 trillion U.S. foodservice sales forecast for 2025, and an annualized $1,249.3 billion eating-and-drinking-place rate in the second quarter of 2025 all describe a large national market. They use different definitions and periods, so they should be read as related indicators rather than added together.
For American bistros, the most specific operating signals are the full-service experience figure, the continuing importance of on-premises business, the sizable visitor contribution to restaurant sales, and the labor-market data for cooks and serving staff. Those measures place bistro cooking inside a market where hospitality, tourism, off-premises capability, and workforce availability all affect the business environment.