Progress Is on the Menu
The James Beard Foundation 2025 Independent Restaurant Industry Report, created in collaboration with Deloitte, brings together insights from an extensive research study of 350+ restaurant owners and professionals. The report highlights the state of the industry, emerging trends, and critical factors that the independent restaurant industry could leverage to thrive and create progress in the year ahead.
Independent restaurants are no strangers to the unpredictability of the industry. After a growth year in 2023, there was cautious optimism for continued growth entering 2024. Despite that optimism, 2024 reflected a year filled with rising labor costs, economic headwinds and extreme weather events. For years, the industry shared an understanding that the COVID-19 pandemic was the root cause of volatility, but in 2024, challenges came from multiple fronts, with no single factor to rally behind. While these challenges affect many industries and restaurants more broadly, independent restaurants—operating on thin margins—felt the weight of these shifts more acutely in 2025.
Looking forward in 2025, chefs and restaurateurs need to dig deep, propelled by their passion and creative spirit, to evolve their businesses and weather the economic, legislative, and environmental unknowns that lie ahead.