NoWait Wins Hearts On Valentine's Day With New Survey Results

NEW YORK, Jan. 28, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- In celebration of Valentine's Day – the busiest day of the year for restaurants – NoWait today announced the results of its second-annual survey to reveal dining-out behaviors. 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.

When asked about their biggest pet peeve on Valentine's Day, 73 percent of respondents complained about "long lines or crowds." Other irks, in descending order of annoyance, were "mandatory prix-fixe menus," "noisy neighbors," "over-the-top decor," and "pretentious servers."

Additionally, the tolerance of waiting for a table varied greatly, with more than half (59%) waiting at a restaurant for only "up to 30 minutes" before walking out, the less tolerant reported "up to 15 minutes" (19%), 21 percent would wait "up to an hour," and a few saints (1%) would stick around "as long as it takes."

Despite their intolerance for long lines, the study further reveals that romantics do not plan ahead, with only 13 percent making plans a "month in advance." A procrastinating 87 percent make plans at the last minute: "one week before" (43%), "within a couple of days" (24%), "the same day" (4%), or "not at all" (16%).

"Although Valentine's Day is the Super Bowl of dining-out days, our recent survey reveals that couples still fumble it by not planning ahead, nor are they willing to wait in long lines for a table," says Ware Sykes, CEO, NoWait. "In an on-demand economy, NoWait is the procrastinators' hero, enabling them to be seated immediately at their favorite restaurant without skipping a beat, even on February 14^th."

Other key results from NoWait's second-annual Valentine's Day survey are as follows:

• 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. However, saving time may. 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."

As the first mobile network for the casual-dining market, NoWait has increased the number of diners seated monthly to 10 million, and has on-boarded more than 1,000 restaurants to its consumer app since launching nationally a year ago. For its restaurant partners, NoWait helps them replace traditional pen-and-paper and buzzers with its front-of-house, iPad-based system. Guests use NoWait's consumer-facing app to view a list of nearby restaurants and real-time wait times, enabling them to join wait lists remotely from their mobile phones.

About NoWait:
With offices in New York City and Pittsburgh, NoWait is backed by Drive Capital and Birchmere Ventures. The NoWait guest app is a complementary extension of the NoWait host app, which currently is used in casual-dining restaurants across the country, including major national chains such as Chili's, First Watch, On The Border, and Buffalo Wild Wings, as well as popular independent hotspots like Jose Garces' Village Whiskey, Marc Vetri's Pizzeria Vetri, and Hubert Keller's Burger Bar. To date, NoWait has seated more than 101 million diners and regularly seats more than 10 million diners every month. For more information, visit nowait.com, follow @NoWaitApp and like it on Facebook at facebook.com/nowaitapp. The app is available for iOS, as well as Android.

CONTACT:
Lisa Hagendorf
Centerpiece Public Relations
[email protected]
(917) 623-7091

SOURCE NoWait

Related Links

http://www.nowait.com