The next time you go out to eat, look around the restaurant: are there more solo diners than you remember in past years? According to new research from Technomic Ignite, a whopping 38% of restaurant visits are now made by people dining alone, Restaurant Business reported on October 22, 2026.
That’s a big increase since 2019, when the rate was 30.5%, and it has risen every year since the pandemic. That concerns mental health experts, who say there’s a direct correlation between eating alone and negative mental health outcomes.
Solo Dining is Up Among All Types of Restaurants
The amount of solo diners has increased across all types of restaurants, Restaurant Business said. At fine dining and upscale casual-dining spots, solo dining has more than doubled. In 2026, one out of five customers at “higher-priced sit-down restaurants” is someone eating alone. Back in 2019, only 10% of fine-dining customers sat alone, but that number has jumped to nearly 22%.
Meanwhile, the number of customers at quick-service or fast food restaurants is a whopping 46.5% in 2026. Restaurant Business noted that the growth in mobile ordering and delivery services since the pandemic has likely driven that increase. Another reason people are more comfortable dining alone is that they can engage with their phones.
Robert Byrne, senior director of consumer research with Technomic, told the outlet, “People are receptive to the idea that I can go to the restaurant, sit down, maybe watch what’s on the TV or whatever and do my thing and just scroll through my phone and be alone at the restaurant and get that experience of being served.”
Why Happiness Experts Are Worried About the Increase in People Eating Alone
The solo dining trend is in line with data from the 2025 World Happiness Report, which said that in 2023, roughly 1 in 4 Americans reported eating all of their meals alone the previous day – an increase of 53% since 2003. Dining alone has become more prevalent across all age groups, but it’s especially on the rise among young people.
More than one in four U.S. adults eat all their daily meals alone, according to U.S. Department of Labor’s American Time Use Survey, released in June. That stat skyrockets among people under age 35 and those who live alone; in 2023, nearly 70% of people who lived alone reported eating all their meals alone, compared to 20% for those who lived with others.
That concerns the researchers behind the World Happiness Report, whose data shows that people who shared even one meal in the past week with someone else have “notably higher” life satisfaction evaluations than those who ate all of their meals alone. Interestingly, each meal shared with others results in incremental increases in happiness; the peak level of contentment is reported at 13 meals shared with others in a week.
The impact of dining alone is especially rough on women, the report says: “Women who spend more time dining alone report much higher levels of negative affect than women who spend more time dining with others.”
Business Insider did a deep dive into the report and found that meal sharing is a “stronger predictor of well-being than income and unemployment combined, and dining alone has a greater impact on life evaluation than unemployment.”
New Data Says 38 Percent of Restaurant Visits Are By Solo Diners, Which Concerns Mental Health Experts