Mandatory prix-fix menus and other annoyances were found to significantly dampen the romantic mood of Valentine’s Day, according to survey results.
NoWait, the mobile waitlisting app for anti-reservation, casual-dining restaurants, polled more than 150,000 restaurant-goers who want to avoid lines on the popular heartfelt holiday. What they found was that not-surprisingly, lines and forced menus killed the romance, along with a few other interesting tidbits:
- Italy is for lovers. Although Paris is known as the City of Love, when respondents were asked to rank their top cuisine and restaurant types for Valentine’s Day, they chose Italian first, followed by steakhouse, seafood, American, wine bar, and, finally, French. For those hoping to spice up their relationship, it will not happen at dinner; spicy cuisines – Asian and Mexican – were at the bottom of the list.
- Money can’t buy you love. For the majority of America, it’s not about spending money, as much as recognizing the moment. More than 76% of respondents budgeted less than $100 on dinner for two.
- Familiarity is romantic. The number-one criteria in choosing a Valentine’s Day restaurant was it being their “favorite, regardless of ambiance,” followed by a “higher-end, fancy” restaurant, a “new restaurant that I’ve never been to” and, finally, a “restaurant known for being romantic.”
- Eat your heart out…anywhere. When offered a setting that is “small, intimate” (50%), “fun, lively, boisterous” (9%), or just good food, nearly half (41%) said they “did not care about ambiance as long as the meal is good.”
Find the rest of the survey results here.
