Food trends: 20 ways restaurants, dining out will change in 2021

1. Ghost kitchens will haunt the dining scene
Also called "ghost restaurants," "shadow restaurants," "virtual kitchens," or "cloud kitchens," these are facilities for preparing food for delivery with no dining rooms, takeout counters, or consumer-facing storefronts.

2. The definition of 'restaurant' will change
Taking orders tableside and delivering food to seated diners is so 2019. At least some establishments, the report suggests, will morph into hybrids, offering not just full service but also takeout, delivery, and meal kit options all in one location.

3. There'll be less attitude, less small talk
Prominent New York City restaurateur Danny Meyer, whose 35-year-old company runs almost 20 eating places around the city, believes that once the industry is back up and running, restaurants won't take customers for granted the way they might have once; they'll "love you more than they ever did," as he puts it.

4. Restaurant staffs (including management) will be more diverse
The food service industry already employs more women and minority managers than any other part of the private sector, and the industry will almost certainly become increasingly more diverse over the next decade.

5. Outdoor dining is here to stay
When official mandates in many parts of the country limited dining room capacity and in some cases banned indoor seating altogether, restaurants – with the support of city and state governments – began setting out tables on sidewalks, in parking lots and alleys, and even on streets partially closed to traffic.

6. Private dining pods will proliferate
Restaurateurs across the country began introducing this year individual enclosed dining structures as the weather cooled and outdoor dining became more challenging.

7. More drive-thrus are coming
Drive-thrus have long been a staple of the fast-food industry, but the pandemic has made them more popular than ever, both because they minimize customer contact with servers and because restaurant owners like the efficiency and safety they provide.

8. There'll be cocktails and wine to go
Laws in most places used to prohibit restaurants from adding a bottle of wine or a couple of Cosmos to pickup or delivery orders.

9. Restaurants will do double duty
In order to remain profitable with their dining rooms closed or restricted, some establishments have gone beyond just takeout and delivery offerings, doubling as food shops, selling staples like rice, pasta, and milk and even do-it-yourself meal kits.

10. You'll order and pay without touching much
Increasingly, restaurants are introducing automated ordering and paying systems to minimize physical contact between staff and guests.

11. Some things will disappear from bars and restaurants
Famously unsanitary bar fixtures like bartenders' soda guns and pre-cut fruit garnishes will likely disappear out of continued post-pandemic concern for hygiene, as will self-service soda machines.

12. Some health and safety measures will probably become permanent
Even when COVID-19 disappears completely from the planet – assuming that it will – industry experts expect sanitation measures introduced in 2020 to remain the new standard.

13. Customer outreach will get more sophisticated
Building on existing social media marketing programs, operators will get more personal and localized, perhaps using geo-tracking and even facial recognition technology to anticipate customer needs and wants.

14. Apps may become more important than restaurants
With the rapid rise of food delivery apps and the fact that delivery services will likely launch ghost kitchens of their own, with unique URLs, consumers might become more loyal to the apps than to any real restaurants – at least when they're ordering in.

15. Self-driving cars might deliver your food
Though the pandemic may have slowed their development somewhat, autonomous vehicles (AVs) are coming.

16. Non-food companies will take food orders
As people increasingly order restaurant food to be delivered, rather than going out to restaurants, new alliances could be formed.

17. Algorithms might produce new taste experiences
As AI systems collect and analyze data about foods, beverages, ingredients, and tastes, new recipes and kinds of food and drink could be created.

18. Climate change could affect menus and prices
What the report calls "weather volatility" could affect growing patterns for both standard and specialty crops and encourage the popularity of lab-grown and plant-based meats or meat substitutes.

19. There'll be fewer restaurants to choose from
It's no secret that the restaurant business has been devastated by COVID-19, with everything from fast-food units to Michelin-starred fine-dining places closing down for good.