Move over Taco Tuesday, Friday night takeout is bringing restaurants back from the brink

Based on data collected quarterly from 27,000 chain restaurants, off-premises meals on Friday and Saturday nights accounted for 24 percent of overall sales in the second quarter of this year, about double the second quarter last year.Rewards Network, a provider of loyalty-based marketing and financing services that tracks delivery and takeout through the Zuppler online ordering system, found that since the pandemic began, the average number of orders was 31 percent higher on Fridays than on other days of the week. Because there is no “dine in” currently in San Francisco, all business has pivoted to delivery and curbside, but he says the company is up for the year in total dollar sales and expects each unit will gross $3 million in sales this year.On a Friday night this month, the Sunnyvale location did 100 percent more business than a year ago, with his restaurants overall doing 75 percent more business than a year ago — four back-to-back hours of record numbers. I’d rather pay my servers $10 per hour and pay their insurance than give that money to a delivery service.”Topper says that during the pandemic, people have reported ordering takeout and delivery for special occasions and “special treats” but that there’s a family aspect to the takeout trend: “Almost a quarter of parents say they are ordering restaurant meals for their families more often year over year.”To accommodate this push toward family takeout, many restaurateurs have debuted family meals to go.“We launched a family meal, which is huge on Friday nights,” Noveshen says.