What Are Americans Craving Most During A Global Health Crisis? According To DoorDash, Chicken Sandwiches.

It’ll be awhile until we know the true destruction of the pandemic. What we know now is that the restaurant industry has been hit hard. 

Really hard. 

Yelp’s latest Q2 economic average report shows that the restaurant industry now reflects the highest total business closures since the crisis began, recently surpassing retail. Of the 26,160 closed restaurants in July, 15,770 have permanently closed (60%), a whopping 23% increase since June 15. 

While these numbers are no doubt staggering, it doesn’t mean restaurants–and their customers–aren’t trying to make things work. That’s why they’ve taken things off site. That’s why third-party delivery is on a tear right now. 

It just so happens that the market share leader for third-party delivery, Door Dash, is giving us a glimpse of what our consumption habits have been during these past six months. The new DoorDash Deep Dish report, released today, pulls the top takeout trends from Jan. 1 through June 30, a period of time dominated by the global pandemic and its mandated stay-at-home orders. 

So, what did we crave during this unusual, unprecedented, emotionally draining time? Chicken sandwiches (with a side of fries).

Buoyed by the chicken sandwich wars of 2019 (incited by Popeyes), this simple offering is the top food item ordered through DoorDash through the first half of this year. That perhaps explains why Popeyes has been somewhat pandemic-proof, with visits up by 40% during that challenging Q1, according to Placer.ai. 

Unsurprisingly, more Americans (70%) have spent more time cooking throughout the past six months and nearly half of us are tired of it. Forty-one percent of us are especially tired of cooking chicken, but we’re clearly not tired of ordering chicken dishes for delivery, as evidenced by DoorDash’s report. This pent-up demand for chicken from a restaurant is especially true in New York City and Washington, DC, where consumers have ordered everything from chicken parmigiana to curry chicken. 

Other top items on DoorDash’s list include mac and cheese, spicy shrimp tacos, make-your-own pizza, iced coffee, California roll, breakfast burrito, chicken fajitas, spicy tuna roll and fish and chips. None of those offerings have the same star power as the classic chicken sandwich, but it’s interesting to see just how much we’re hankering for sushi (especially on the West Coast) and Mexican. 

Speaking of Mexican cuisine–it is the number one type of cuisine people miss most from restaurants. As such, the top trending Mexican items ordered on DoorDash include Queso Blanco (1,735% increase), grilled chicken tacos (1,502% increase), cheese nachos (1,130% increase), shrimp tacos (997% increase) and chicken fajitas (318% increase). Perhaps it’s no coincidence that Chipotle launched its own version of Queso Blanco nationwide in late February and, on Wednesday, reported a 216% increase in digital sales during Q2.  

Some other interesting insights from the report, as they pertain to the restaurant industry specifically, include:

1. Consumers place larger orders for takeout so they can have leftovers. This might explain why a number of brands have launched family meals or bundles in the past few months, leading to higher ticket sales to ease some of the pain from the crisis.
2. As it turns out, consumers navigating a crisis really crave comfort food. By nearly a 3-to-1 margin, customers are more likely to order comfort food (53%) than healthier foods (18%). This sentiment was echoed during a few Q1 earnings calls. McDonald’s
   MCD CEO Chris Kempczinski said disrupted customers crave comfort in his company’s “iconic core menu,” for example. Of course, what consumers say they want and what they actually purchase can be different. The pandemic is a global health crisis, after all, and more consumers claim to be eating healthier because of it.
3. Plant-based meat offerings were making quite a bit of headway in the fast food segment prior to the pandemic, but the crisis seems to accelerated this trend. According to the report, 18-to-24-year-old consumers ranked plant-based as the most appetizing vegan dish and DoorDash orders for plant-based burgers surged 443% increase in 2020. 

If this report were to provide any sort of post-pandemic, crystal ball-type predictions, it’s that customers will flock to their nearest Mexican restaurant when this crisis is over and most of them will order a margarita.

Also, the coveted millennial consumer is likely to be a bit more discerning about their meals. In the past six months, 45% of millennials have tried a new food trend, for example, whether that be intermittent fasting, foods infused with CBD or collagen-rich foods. Further, more consumers (20%) are considering or have considered veganism.

Whether or not these changing habits will have an impact on the menu when this crisis ends is yet to be seen. For now, however, more brands are simplifying their menus in an effort to simply get by.