Off-premise ordering, pickup and delivery combined, has been growing faster than dine-in for over a decade, and the gap has only widened since 2020. Industry tracking puts online ordering's growth at roughly three times the pace of dine-in since the mid-2010s, with off-premise now representing a large and growing share of total restaurant sales.
The Scale of the Shift
- Online ordering has grown roughly three times faster than dine-in since 2014, industry tracking shows.
- A majority of limited-service operators report off-premise now makes up a larger share of sales than it did in 2019.
- Digital order volume at full-service restaurants has climbed sharply since 2020.
- Guests placing digital orders tend to spend more per order than guests ordering in person.
Taken individually, none of these figures would necessarily signal a lasting shift rather than a temporary blip. Taken together, spanning limited-service and full-service formats alike and holding steady across multiple years of tracking, they describe a genuine, structural change in how guests prefer to order rather than a short-term trend likely to reverse.
Why This Trend Isn't Slowing Down
Once a guest builds the habit of ordering online, whether through a delivery app or a vendor's own website, that habit tends to persist rather than revert, which is part of why the gap between off-premise and dine-in keeps widening rather than leveling off.
Newer guests entering the market also skew even further toward digital ordering as a default expectation rather than an alternative to calling in an order, which means the underlying pressure behind this trend isn't just existing guests shifting habits, it's an entire newer segment of guests who never developed a dine-in-first habit in the first place.
What This Means for a Vendor in Practice
A vendor whose online ordering experience is an afterthought is competing for a shrinking share of a shifting market. The practical response isn't necessarily abandoning dine-in, it's making sure the online ordering side, hosted website, direct widget, and marketplace presence, gets the same attention dine-in traditionally has.
A vendor that hasn't reviewed its online ordering setup in a while, checkout flow, menu photos, pickup timing accuracy, is a reasonable candidate to audit against this exact trend, since a channel carrying a growing share of total revenue deserves proportional attention rather than whatever was left over from setting up dine-in.
The Higher Order Value Worth Understanding
The gap in average order value between digital and in-person orders isn't a minor footnote to this trend, it compounds directly with the volume shift. A vendor moving a larger share of its business off-premise isn't just capturing more orders, it's capturing orders that tend to run larger individually, since a guest browsing a digital menu at their own pace tends to add more to a cart than one placing a rushed order at a counter or over the phone. That combination, more orders and a higher average value per order, is a large part of why the revenue impact of this shift has been larger than the order-count numbers alone suggest.
How AUANI Handles This
AUANI's tiers are built around this exact shift, combining marketplace listing, a hosted website, a direct ordering widget, and Google visibility into one account rather than treating off-premise ordering as a secondary channel.
Treating all four pieces as one connected system, rather than bolting an online ordering afterthought onto an operation still built primarily around dine-in, tends to match where guest demand has actually been heading for the past decade rather than where it used to sit.
A vendor deciding where to focus limited attention this quarter can use this trend as a genuine tiebreaker, since a channel that's been consistently growing its share of total revenue for over a decade deserves proportional attention going forward.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does this trend apply equally to every restaurant category?
The general direction holds broadly, though the exact pace varies between limited-service and full-service formats.
Is dine-in becoming irrelevant?
No, dine-in remains a significant revenue source for many vendors; the trend describes off-premise growing faster, not dine-in disappearing.
Why do digital orders tend to have a higher average value?
Digital menus can present add-ons and combinations more consistently than a rushed in-person order, among other factors.
Does this trend predate third-party delivery apps?
The shift toward off-premise growth has been underway since well before delivery apps became widespread, though the apps accelerated it further.
What is the wider guide this fits into?
The Industry trends & data guide covers this alongside repeat guest value.
For more on building a strong direct ordering presence, see the Restaurant websites & direct ordering guide, and for the wider trend picture, see the Industry trends & data guide.