Twenty years ago, family dinner on Friday nights typically meant minivans pulling into parking lots of family-friendly diner chains. Families slid into booths for 90-minute dinners of meatloaf, burgers, and chicken tenders. Sunday morning breakfast outings looked like smiley face pancakes and unhurried conversation over coffee refills.
That era peaked a long time ago.
As schedules filled with soccer practices and piano lessons, families traded the dining room for the drive-thru lane and convenience began to beat connection. The numbers tell the story: Old-guard family-dining chains like IHOP, Denny's, Cracker Barrel, and Bob Evans all posted sales declines and closed locations in 2025, according to Technomic data.
“The family-dining industry is not growing up, it’s aging, and not very gracefully,” Gary Stibel, CEO of New England Consulting Group, said.
But now, the drive-thru solution has its own problem: price inflation. Over the past couple of years, fast-food has lost its reputation as a cheap meal alternative. From 2019 to 2024, quick-service prices rose 30% on average—outpacing the rest of the restaurant industry, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Suddenly, families face a new mental calculation: If they're going to spend money and time eating out, the experience needs to be worth both.
"The opportunity is not to save the aging family restaurant," Stibel said. "It is to identify which occasions, which meal items, and which assets remain valuable to families, and then to rebuild the model around fewer hours, smaller menus, lower prices, and a more contemporary experience."
Enter the new generation of family-dining restaurants.
The same Technomic data reveals that the best-performing family-dining concepts in 2025 were mostly regional brunch spots with a focus on snappy branding and experience over predictably long menus and oversized portions. Eggs Up Grill, Keke's Breakfast Café, and Toasted Yolk Café are all mid-sized daytime concepts with limited menus, shorter operating hours, and something for every member of the family — including mimosa flights and Bloody Mary bars. All three of these brands saw double-digit unit growth and sales increases of at least 20% in 2025, according to Technomic data.
So, what’s the secret?
Pick a lane
“When you specialize in one thing versus trying to be all things to all people, it gives a sense of clarity to the guest and a level of confidence that you’re really good at what you do,” Ricky Richardson, CEO of Eggs Up Grill, the top performing family-dining chain of 2025, said. “A narrower menu enables you to stay incredibly obsessed with quality and consistency of execution.”
The South Carolina-based Eggs Up Grill is a community-focused, 113-unit concept open daily from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. Richardson said the ability to only focus on one daypart is a key strength. Although Eggs Up Grill’s menu is smaller and narrower than some of the old-guard family-dining concepts, the specialization surprisingly allows them to have a broader consumer base.
“We don’t limit ourselves to being just a brunch concept — a lot of overnight service workers use us for their after-shift meal or after-work mimosas during the week,” Richardson said. “We’re more consistently appealing than just the weekend brunch occasion.”
Eggs Up Grill’s menu is no-frills with mostly classic options like biscuits and gravy, benedicts, and omelets and is decidedly more traditional than some of the trendier regional brunch concepts.
“One of our cornerstones is around approachability,” he said.
Experience is value
Like most of the restaurant industry, family-dining leaders have realized that value isn’t just about price or meal deals anymore. Families want dining occasions that are worth their time and money. When several family-dining category leaders were asked about their success, “experience” was one of the most frequently mentioned terms. Experience can have many meanings, ranging from an exciting menu to community vibes, and from fast service to social media-friendly aesthetics.
“It’s 100% about experience and understanding your audience and programming your menu to really address every menu of the family,” Toasted Yolk franchise developer Clay Carson said. “The customers’ mindset has changed, and I think they want that exciting experience and that community feel. Vibe is key. Families want to go out and have a good time.”
Houston-based, 55-unit Toasted Yolk was the fourth fastest-growing family-dining chain in 2025, according to Technomic, with 21% sales growth and 20% unit growth. Experience, Carson said, is very much tied to community involvement for the brand. Every location has a mural that’s designed by the local high school or junior high art departments and is unique to that town.
Brunch has a big opportunity in family dining right now because checks are usually right-sized for budget-conscious family, and it’s a quicker experience. That’s where value and experience overlap, Richardson said.
“We have real speed of service inside these restaurants,” he said. “Folks can typically get in and out of an Eggs Up Grill in less than 40 minutes.”
UIF (Unidentified Cool Factor)
One of the reasons family-style dining is changing so much is hard to quantify, but it might have something to do with the “vibe” Carson mentioned. It’s challenging to nail down the UIF (Unidentified Cool Factor) that attracts families of all demographics and age ranges, but it starts with an exciting interior aesthetic, Instagram-friendly menu, and increasingly, brunch drinks for the adults.
“If you have young kids, you have less time to do a sit-down family meal,” Robert Byrne, senior director of consumer research at Technomic, said. “And with kids now being introduced to the entire universe of food options online, your classic Denny’s or IHOP might not be as exciting as what their friends are sharing online.”
This strategy has even trickled down to much smaller chains that aren’t growing as quickly as a First Watch, Snooze, or Eggs Up Grill.
Grumpy’s Restaurant is a much smaller brunch café concept that has not (yet) appeared on Technomic’s family-dining radar. With five locations, the brunch concept has already mastered the art of appealing across generations. The Florida-based chain offers stickers and temporary tattoos for kids, and just recently launched an alcohol program for brunch cocktails.
“If the kids love Grumpy's, then the parents typically are going to come and eat there too, right?” CEO Daniel DeLeon said. “We put unique things on the kids menu like chicken and waffles and try to branch out beyond your typical bacon and eggs. We try to do it up a bit.”
Grumpy’s also began introducing new menu items with social media in mind. One example is the carrot cake waffle, made with waffle batter that’s infused with carrot cake flavor and served with a slice of carrot cake on top.
“It looks awesome on social media,” DeLeon said. “We've launched alcohol programs at multiple Grumpy's locations to get more of the younger brunch crowd in, or the soccer moms who want to have mimosas on the weekends. … We’re just trying to appeal to multiple demographics at the same time.”
The Cracker Barrel dilemma
The solution to family dining’s woes might seem simple: Counteract slipping sales with a marketing makeover, more modern aesthetics, and a buzzy booze menu. Paradoxically, this could hurt more than help. Just ask Cracker Barrel.
Cracker Barrel hired Julie Masino in 2023 to breathe some life into the aging family-dining brand. But two years and one controversial logo change later, Masino was ousted from the company for trying to modernize Cracker Barrel, and the company has abandoned its cleaner store makeovers. Ironically, even though plenty of people cared online about the nostalgia of the classic Cracker Barrel, they didn’t care enough to dine there frequently.
Cracker Barrel definitely lacked the “cool factor” — but consumers wouldn’t let the brand evolve with the times.
“I don’t think any of that old country stuff is going to come back into fashion,” Aaron Allen, restaurant strategy consultant, said. “There are just too many choices. It’s natural for any ecosystem including the foodservice industry to need a brush fire. It comes through and clears out the weeds, so the stronger ones can live. And this category is in need of a brush fire.”
A family-dining eulogy?
Family dining isn’t dead; it’s just fragmented. Rather than lines of minivans pulling into the diner chain parking lot every weekend, some are headed to their local brunch chain so mom and dad can have a mimosa while the kids eat carrot cake waffles. Some are saving money by cooking from home. Others are pulling up a delivery app or sticking with the drive-thru despite price inflation.
But if you want to win over families looking for a dine-in experience, a good place to start is a narrowly focused menu, modern branding, a cocktail menu, and a promise to never rest on your laurels.
“It’s a crowded space and only getting more so,” said Carson of Toasted Yolk. “You can't rely on what you did last year… There is no, ‘Hey, we're doing well. Let's keep doing what we're doing.’ You always have to incubate new ideas and think about tomorrow.”
Contact Joanna at joanna.fantozzi@informa.com