Nov. 14, 2025 "The fast-food industry is trying to lure in Gen Z diners. Is the meal deal helping?": Today I found this article by Jenna Benchetrit on CBC:
As fast food gets more expensive, young adults are pulling back on their spending, forcing restaurant chains to compete for their dollars through meal deals and promotions.
“It’s really the price that has stopped me,
and just the fact that it has become more of an inconvenience than it used to be,”
said Fatima Abdul Razzaq, a second-year electrical engineering student at Toronto Metropolitan University.
“You’re spending $15 at least if you want to get a proper meal.
And that’s just not sustainable,”
said Marwan Al Kharrat, a second-year computer engineering student at TMU.
“It’s too expensive. Can’t afford it."
Three-quarters of Canadians surveyed said they were dining out less frequently thanks to the rising cost of living,
with that figure increasing to 81 per cent of people aged 18 to 34,
according to an Angus Reid survey conducted on behalf of Restaurants Canada in June.
That spells trouble for big chains trying to lock in the next generation of their core consumer base — and some are already seeing an impact on sales.
While Chipotle once boasted that more than half of its customers were young people, the Mexican fast-casual brand is now having a harder time getting Gen Z through the door.
“What we’ve noticed is a category slowdown for the 25-to-34-year-olds that are under the most financial pressure,”
said Stephanie Perdue, vice-president of brand marketing at Chipotle in Newport Beach, Calif., in an interview with CBC News.
Chipotle, McDonald’s expect lower sales
During Chipotle’s third-quarter earnings call last month, its chief executive, Scott Boatwright, suggested that — at least in the U.S. — the slowdown could be attributed to higher unemployment rates, slower wage growth and more debt.
The company lowered its sales forecast for the third time this year, with the expectation that its customers (particularly those earning less than $100,000 US a year) will keep pulling back on dining out into the beginning of 2026.
Chipotle isn’t the only chain noticing a pullback from a key part of its consumer base.
McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski recently told investors that the brand is also expecting fewer sales from low-income diners next year.
Fast food customers might be noticing a pricier burger and fries for a few reasons, said Robert Carter, a restaurant industry analyst and managing partner at The StratonHunter Group in Toronto.
“We are seeing
higher labour costs,
higher food costs,
and therefore the average eater cheque when you go out is higher than it has been in years past,”
he said.
The price of ground beef, for example, has skyrocketed
— the cost of one kilogram soared past $15 in August,
compared with five years earlier, when it was closer to $9,
according to Statistics Canada.
Fast-food sales can act as a kind of economic bellwether,
reflecting a consumer’s ability to spend money on purchases beyond the necessities.
Even the Bank of Canada warned in its most recent Monetary Policy Report that fast-food prices are seeing strong growth.
“The whole tariff conversation and the economic turmoil associated with that is making people feel concerned about their spending," Carter said, referring to the ongoing U.S. trade war.
"They'll often say the first cutback is the out-of-home going to a restaurant."
Are meal deals the answer?
While Chipotle’s Perdue said the company is sticking with its rewards program to lure wayward customers back,
other brands are competing for cost-conscious customers by aggressively promoting specials — and for some, it’s working.
Taco Bell, which is owned by Yum Brands, is trying to target Gen Z with
trendy drinks
and sauces.
Restaurant Brands International, which owns Tim Hortons and Burger King, said both brands had a stronger-than-expected third quarter.
While Timmy's — being a mostly Canadian-based chain — was less exposed to U.S.-related economic pressures,
Burger King held onto steady traffic thanks to an aggressive push into meal deals —
especially its “two for $5” and “three for $7” specials.
“We know that younger people, they're looking for value meals, they're looking for deals, they're looking for discounts where they can get them.
So this is one strategy that a lot of restaurants are using to remain competitive,”
said Milena Stanoeva, senior director of communications and public affairs at Restaurants Canada, a trade group for the foodservice industry.
When they do dine out, young people between the ages of 18 and 28 are generally placing more importance on promotions when picking a restaurant than older consumers do, according to the June 2025 survey from Angus Reid.
Another competitor: the grocery store
Chipotle, meanwhile, said its biggest competitor for young adults is the grocery store.
“We’re not losing them to the competition.
We’re losing them to grocery and food at home,”
Boatwright, its CEO, said on the company's recent earnings call.
Stanoeva said the same cohort also has a tendency to replace full meals with snacks
— think of the "girl dinner" trend that swept through TikTok about a year and a half ago
— which “could speak to cost concerns
or maybe just how fast-paced their lives are."
Students who spoke to CBC News said with prices so high,
they’ve been preparing more food at home
and bringing it to school
and work
rather than ordering in
or getting take out (though some research shows this younger cohort is still among the most likely to use food delivery apps).
“I shouldn’t be spending this much money on food.
So sometimes I make something at home and eat it here,”
said Zain Matadar, who was walking around the Toronto Metropolitan University campus with lunch in hand.
Third-year student Nathan Liu said eating out has become a “significant challenge,” so he’s taken up a new hobby: “I try to cook more now. I'm a very bad chef, but I still try."
For now, fast-food chains are fighting to get this particular group back into their restaurants.
“The fight is really going to be around this Gen Z and this [Gen] Alpha consumer in getting their share of spend over the next couple of years,” restaurant industry analyst Carter said.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/fast-food-industry-gen-z-diners-9.6971302
My opinion: I always pack my lunch like make a sandwich and bring an orange. I also make coffee and put this in my thermos.
I will bring crackers, chips, and cookies as snacks so it's more delicious and less boring.
Dec. 4, 2025 "Chain restaurants are out. Restaurant groups are in": Today I found this article by Paula Duhatschek on CBC:
Picture this: you walk into a new, buzzy, chef-driven restaurant. It’s the only one of its kind, and by all appearances, it looks like an independent spot.
But dig a little deeper and it turns out the independent restaurant is actually one of more than a dozen owned by the same company.
The business model of a restaurant “group” has, of course, been around for years.
But experts say these groups are becoming bigger players as the industry struggles post-pandemic amid
and lower customer spending.
Being big, they say, offers
better buying power
and a barrier against risk.
Vince Sgabellone, a food industry analyst with the market research firm Circana Canada, said there's "strength in numbers."
"It's very difficult for an independent restaurateur.”
Unlike at a restaurant chain, where every location is emblazoned with the
same name,
menu
and décor,
customers at a restaurant group business may never know the spot where they’re dining is part of a broader company.
But some say that past a certain scale,
the trend can still involve a certain amount of homogenization,
where even seemingly standalone restaurants start to look and taste a little bit the same.
A chain that’s not a chain
The extent of the growth of the restaurant group model is difficult to pin down. Restaurants Canada doesn’t track it; neither does Statistics Canada.
But Sgabellone said Circana data shows that between 2020 and 2024,
smaller chains
and independent restaurants
(restaurant groups are tracked as part of both categories)
grew at more than twice the pace of large restaurant chains in Canada.
And experts like Bruce McAdams say the trend is picking up as part of a generational vibe shift around the concept of a chain restaurant.
There’s an admittedly fine line (and potentially, some overlap) between
a company running a chain of restaurants
and a multi-concept restaurant group.
But broadly speaking, whereas in the 1970s and 1980s it was desirable for restaurateurs to bring their local joint to every city in the country, that’s no longer the case, said McAdams, an associate professor of hospitality at the University of Guelph.
“The whole dining marketplace has changed dramatically,” said McAdams, who worked for the Toronto-based restaurant group Oliver & Bonacini before becoming an academic.
As the country has become more diverse,
Canadians have been exposed to different kinds of food.
Customers are more interested in trying the next new thing, and less keen on familiarity (though McAdams noted some large chains, like The Keg and Earls, still do quite well).
For companies offering sit-down fare, this means they can get more buzz by
opening different types of restaurants
with different types of cuisine,
rather than by trying to replicate the same restaurant over and over again.
Economies of scale
Buying power is a major benefit for restaurant groups.
Compared to independent restaurant owners,
groups can command better economies of scale by working in larger quantities.
For Calgary’s Concorde Entertainment Group, the company’s size means it has managed to set up its own downtown commissary kitchen that makes ingredients, like cocktail syrups,
that it can dispatch to all of its locations.
This can be done more affordably compared to ordering items from individual suppliers.
It also allows the company to make sure everything meets a certain standard of
consistency
and quality,
said Jon Molyneux, the company’s vice-president of business development, sales and events.
“People may not understand how razor thin the margins are,
and all our costs on everything have been increasing,”
said Molyneux.
"Anytime we can save a dollar here, dollar there, it really helps."
Concorde started in 1987 with a single college bar and has since grown to include around two dozen spots, including an
acclaimed steakhouse,
a Japanese restaurant,
a Pacific-inspired restaurant
and a chain-within-a-restaurant-group of brewhouses.
The company has also expanded outside of Calgary by bringing some of its more popular restaurants to Canmore and Toronto.
At Concorde restaurants, there’s no sign announcing the business is part of a group, but it’s easy for customers to tell if they visit the website or buy a gift card.
“We're not trying to keep it a secret,” said Molyneux.
‘Dominating’ a market
Another advantage of the business model is proximity. While businesses like Concorde do, at times,
expand beyond the borders of a particular city,
typically groups start by opening multiple restaurants in the same region.
“Maybe they've got a sushi place.
Well, now they can open a steakhouse right across the street,”
said Circana analyst Sgabellone.
“This allows them to really monopolize and dominate a geography.”
This means companies benefit from some of the same economies of scale as chain restaurants,
but don’t have to deal with the logistics of trying to keep a restaurant concept consistent across multiple cities,
especially in a country as vast as Canada.
McAdams recalls the difficulty of doing just that when he worked for Red Lobster during a period when the company was rapidly expanding across the country.
“It was a gong show,” he said.
Being part of a group means restaurants can also consolidate some of their back-office work.
Multiple spots can use the same
human resources,
marketing
and payroll department.
Plus, Sgabellone said, the model offers some protection against shifting consumer preferences.
If one restaurant in a group stops doing well because a cuisine has fallen out of fashion,
the company has other concepts to lean on.
“If they have more restaurants,
there's more chances they're going to be at the leading edge,”
he said.
Pros and cons
Calgary restaurateur Tony Migliarese sees pros and cons to the restaurant group model. He now owns five restaurants in the city
(an Italian bistro,
a wine bar,
a noodle shop,
a tavern
and a pizza place),
and considers his business not quite a restaurant group, but getting close.
Migliarese says he understands why the model is becoming more common.
“You’re too big to fail in a sense,” said Migliarese, best known as the owner of DOPO.
The model also works as a sort of staff retention tool, he said.
If someone who works for a restaurant group wants to open a new spot,
they can do so without leaving the company.
But at a certain scale, Migliarese said,
it carries a risk of blandness and "everything looks the same."
Restaurant industry analyst Robert Carter agrees. In any industry, he noted,
consolidation comes with a certain risk of homogenization,
perhaps especially where private equity is involved.
“There's the fear of losing that sort of independent feel and just becoming more of a corporate sort of structure,”
said Carter, managing partner with the restaurant consultancy The StratonHunter Group.
What consumers see
Restaurateurs aren't the only ones benefiting from the group model; those eating at them can, too.
If large groups can get better deals on ingredients,
that could translate to lower prices.
And for consumers squeezed by the high cost of living,
spending money at a restaurant associated with a known favourite
might seem less risky than taking a chance on something completely new,
said Sgabellone.
In the current economic climate, businesses are also trying to mitigate risk.
According to a recent report from Restaurants Canada,
food,
labour and staffing costs
continue to climb,
putting a squeeze on restaurant owners,
while consumers are choosing to spend less on discretionary items.
Experts say that means the restaurant group model is likely to keep growing.
When times are tough, they say, it helps to be big.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/restaurant-groups-restaurant-chains-concorde-dopo-9.6998867
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