Defining bar food consumption patterns in United States chain restaurants

This paper aims to provide a base line of the types of menu items that are sold in American chain restaurants that have bars. The term “bar food” is defined for these types of foods.

The research method used the internet to collect all data listed in the appetizer section of the menu. Restaurants were also anecdotally coded as to type of restaurant.

There were 66 restaurants with a total of 67 unique bar menu items. The conclusion was that among all restaurants there were very few bar items that appeared on “most” menus. Only four items were statistically greater than 50 percent of all menu items. When restaurants were coded by ethnic type or style the number of common menu items increased.

This paper defines bar food and for restaurant managers points out the possibility of using bar food offerings as a differentiating factor relative to competitors.

This paper defines bar food and its use in food service.