Photo by Clif Burns.
By DCist Contributor Victoria Finkle
The D.C. restaurant scene continues to grow, and apparently the city’s residents are taking advantage.
A new survey, out today, finds that Washington diners eat out for lunch and dinner four and a half times per week on average, or about one in three meals. And what’s more is that the report says they diners are dropping an average of more than $38 per person for dinner—a dollar lower than the national estimate and a whopping $10 lower than the New York City figure.
The 2015 National Dining Trends Survey by Zagat, the restaurant rating service, tracks the “habits and preferences” of more than 10,000 diners across the D.C. area and 16 other major cities.
Like many of the locales surveyed, D.C. diners wisely favor carbs and comfort foods above all else, with Italian and American ranked most highly as favorite cuisines.
Diners’ biggest pet peeves? D.C. residents, along with pretty much everyone, said inattentive and rude staff, and slow service frustrated them the most.
Perhaps most surprising, Washington surpassed New York, San Francisco, and practically every other city surveyed as being the most “tech savvy”—at least when it comes to making online reservations. Three-quarters of D.C. restaurant-goers rely on the Internet to claim a table, far higher than the national average. (People need to distract themselves somehow during endless hearings on the Hill or while waiting out inevitable Metro delays, amirite?)
The city is also full of health freaks. One-third of diners said they were “over” the whole “bacon anything” trend, while nearly half reported a love of Brussels sprouts. Beets and kale, the other hip veggies right now, also rated highly.
You can read the full survey below:
