How Restaurant Menu Calorie Labels Change Order Behavior

Restaurant Business with Fexingo: Food Service, Hospitality, and Independent Operators · Jul 23, 2026 · 9m · transcript

Since the nationwide menu-labeling rule took effect in 2018, chain restaurants have been required to display calorie counts on menus. But does showing the number actually change what people order? And what happens when a restaurant hides the numbers? Lucas and Luna dig into the data — including a 2024 Cornell study that tracked 50 million orders across 4,000 locations — and find surprising effects on both per-head revenue and average calories ordered. They look at how operators like Cheesecake Factory and Starbucks adapted, why some diners ignore the numbers entirely, and the counterintuitive…