Covid changed many ways of life, and in looking at spending patterns in New York City, we have seen a significant shift in where and when people are eating and going out - from lunch to dinner to late night.

The changing spending patterns in New York City offer valuable insights into the evolving nature of work and its impact on the local economy. Looking at aggregated and anonymized Mastercard insights, we explore daily spending at restaurants and bars by hour of day.

Overall, spending at restaurants and bars across New York City’s five boroughs is up +13% in the 12 months through March 2023 relative to the 12 months before the pandemic (through February 2020). Spending growth, however, has varied substantially across neighborhoods, days of the week and time of day. The Bronx (+33%) has seen the strongest recovery, closely followed by Brooklyn (+30%) and Queens (+30%). Manhattan has lagged, with growth of just +3.7%. 1 The recent trend, however, in Manhattan is encouraging, with momentum building as commuters and tourists return to the core of the Big Apple. Looking at Q1 2023, year-over-year growth in Manhattan (+36%) is outpacing the rest of the city by a wide margin. 2

Zooming in on Manhattan and looking at the same measurement of growth relative to pre-pandemic, the story of the dining sector varies by the time of day. The gains reflect a popular nightlife scene, with +6.3% growth in late-night spending. Lunch, in contrast, is still running down about -5%, but the trajectory is positive for lunchtime spending. 1 Again, this is a nuanced story with differences by the day of the week: Tuesdays through Thursdays have seen greater lunchtime activity in the business districts, reflecting the return of commuters during those days.

Examining restaurant spending can help us not only understand how people have shifted their behavior post-pandemic, but empower restaurants to make data-driven decisions to acquire high-value consumers and engage existing ones.

Exploring the NYC lunch scene
Working from home means eating out for lunch in the outer boroughs, but lunch crowds are now emerging in Manhattan mid-week.

Lunchtime spending during the workweek looks much different now than three years ago. With more people working remotely than before the pandemic, spending at restaurants during the lunch hours of 11 a.m.-4 p.m. has shifted from commercial to residential areas during the workweek.

In Manhattan, lunchtime spending was down -5% vs. pre-pandemic levels, 1 although this has slowly been improving with each passing month. By comparison, growth has been positive since May 2021 in the outer boroughs.

In looking at spending by day of the week, Manhattan lunchtime spending was down only -6% on Wednesdays, compared to down -15% on Fridays. But it differs greatly by the type of neighborhood. Focusing first on the major office districts (where office space occupies over 50% of buildings in the zip code), Friday lunchtime spending was down over -26%, Monday was down -22%, and Wednesday was down –12%, while weekend spending was up +6%. 1

We see a differentiation by neighborhood even within the office districts. In Midtown’s high-rise office district encompassing Grand Central Terminal, lunchtime accounted for 37% of daily restaurant spending in Q1 of 2023, budging only slightly from 38% in 2019. Financial firms that dominate this area have been the most eager to bring employees back to the office. In contrast, the Financial District (lower Manhattan) has seen the lunchtime share of daily restaurant spend dropping by -10 percentage points. 3 This likely reflects the transition of the Financial District – it has become more residential over the last three decades and the pandemic accelerated this shift. The restaurant scene would typically quiet down after lunch hours, and now it has a burgeoning evening scene catering to an entirely different crowd.

The opposite is happening in Brooklyn and Queens, where many residents who have historically commuted to Manhattan every day have been on hybrid schedules, resulting in bigger lunch crowds on Mondays and Fridays. The return to office is much more visible Tuesdays through Thursdays, while those on hybrid schedules will likely work remotely on Mondays and Fridays. For example: in Greenpoint, lunchtime spending growth on Fridays is up +60%, growing about twice as fast as Thursday, which is up +30%. 1

The strongest neighborhoods overall have been those where a construction boom has resulted in strong population growth and gentrification. For example, take Greenpoint again, where 20% of residential units were built after 2016 and population has soared. 4 It saw a +52% increase in lunchtime spending, with overall restaurant spending up just shy of +50%. 1 Long Island City-Astoria, Queens, another area with rapid residential development, has seen growth nearly as strong.