Heavy Influence

For these consumers, quick- and full-service restaurants aren’t a splurge; they’re a way of life.

By Derek Gale, Associate Editor -- Restaurants & Institutions, 7/1/2007

They’re out there: Those coveted customers who keep restaurants in the black by coming to order at counters, drive-thru windows or hostess stations as frequently as once a day. They’re known as heavy users.

Who are they? New York City-based Scarborough Research defines heavy quick-service restaurant (QSR) diners as those who made at least 10 visits in the past month; heavy full-service (FSR) diners as those who had eaten at a sit-down restaurant at least six times in the past month.

Barrington, Ill.-based Sandelman & Associates goes a bit further, defining heavy QSR users as those who made 12 to 19 food purchases at fast-food outlets in the past month. They label as "super-heavy" QSR users those who made 20 or more quick-service visits in the past month.

In the QSR category, Sandelman finds that heavy users most frequently are young males, 16- to 24-years old, and are more likely to be African American or Hispanic than Asian or Caucasian. They’re most likely to live in Texas or the Carolinas; six of the top 10 markets for heavy QSR usage (averaging 12 or more visits per person each month) are in those states.

R&I’s New American Diner Study finds that about 26% of both Gen Y (age 26 or younger) and Gen X (ages 27 to 41) say they visit a QSR once a week. About 23% of baby boomers (ages 42 to 60) and 14% of matures (61 or older) are weekly QSR patrons.

Among older users of quick-service restaurants, the presence of kids or teens in the household is a major determinant of heavy usage, according to Scarborough.

Sandelman’s "super-heavy users" category makes up only 25% of all QSR customers, but they accounted for 64% of occasions in 2006.

Not surprisingly, heavy full-service (FSR) restaurant diners differ greatly from their QSR counterparts. Firstly, FSR heavy users are older than the general adult population, Scarborough research shows, and they tend not to have kids in the household. In addition, African Americans and Hispanics are less likely to be heavy users of FSRs, while consumers with higher incomes are more likely to be so.

Also worth noting is that about 7% of the adult population falls into the heavy-usage category for both QSR and FSR restaurants, Scarborough research shows.

Geographically, Southerners are most likely to be heavy restaurant diners (with Florida having three of the top four sit-down markets), while those in the Northeast are least likely. Those in rural counties, not surprisingly, tend to have the fewest heavy restaurant diners, Scarborough finds.