Food & Beverage

US pizzeria visits increase 49% since January

They're ba-a-a-ck! Pizzeria in-store visits have soared since the beginning of the year. (Photo: iStock)

June 22, 2021

Americans are getting physical about their love of pizza and increasingly heading out to dine at or carry out from pizzerias to the tune of a 49% increase in such visits nationally on average since January, according to the most recent store visit numbers from Zenreach. The report indicates the easing of pandemic-related concerns as vaccination rates grow nationally.

The company's dive into pizza visit data also noted:

• Westies may be pizza's besties since in L.A. alone, pizza stores have seen a 156% increase in visits, while California as a whole saw an increase of 119.69%.
• At the other end of the spectrum was the Phoenix metro area, which saw just a 5% increase in foot traffic, while Arizona was only up 3.90% overall.
• Chicago visits exceeded those in New York City, but the state of New York visits increased 92.18%, beating Illinois' lift of 79.66%.

But, Zenreach Vice President of Marketing Megan Wintersteen said the data did show some notable dips in the generally upbeat numbers in two markets in February. In Texas, visits fell off nearly 50% in and around Feb. 20, while in New York visits were down nearly 25% at the end of January and start of February.

"These can largely be correlated to weather," she said in response to a question from Pizza Marketplace. "The New York area saw significant snowfall late January through early February, and Texas experienced their significant winter storm (winter storm Uri) towards mid- to late February."

All graphs above provided by Zenreach.