Restaurant Online Ordering Trends for 2026 and 2027

Last verified: October 2026. Every number links to its source, and vendor surveys are labeled as vendor surveys.

In February 2024, Google said its Order with Google feature would stop taking food orders at the end of June and send diners to partner and restaurant websites instead. A spokesperson explained why: "Over time, we've found that people generally prefer to complete their food orders on partner and merchant websites" (Verdict Foodservice, February 2024).

On August 6, 2026, Google came back. Its Gemini-powered Ask Maps can now take a request like "order a pepperoni pizza for me to pick up on my way home," find an open restaurant on the route, and fill the cart (Nation's Restaurant News, August 2026). This time the order doesn't stay with Google. It lands in the restaurant's own Toast or Square online ordering, and Toast says those orders "do not carry third-party commission fees" (Digital Transactions, August 2026).

That U-turn is the story of online ordering heading into 2027: new front doors keep opening, and the ones that stick plug into the restaurant's own ordering. Below, we grade our March 2026 predictions, misses included, then cover what changes in 2027. For sales, menu prices, and wages, see our restaurant industry outlook for 2027.

What online ordering trends matter for restaurants in 2027?

Five trends matter most in 2027: new ordering front doors (Google Maps and AI assistants) that route orders into your own system, AI visibility, voice AI that keeps a person within reach, rising marketplace fees, and first-party guest data.

One idea ties the table together: every new channel ends at a checkout. Channels that end at yours don't add a commission as they grow. Channels that end at someone else's usually do.

How did our 2026 online ordering predictions hold up?

Two of our ten 2026 predictions came true, five came partly true, and three did not. The biggest miss was our headline: we said AI ordering was going mainstream, and only 6% of restaurants use AI for customer orders.

We graded each call against what we actually wrote in March.

What we got right. Multi-channel ordering happened, just not the way we pictured it. Instead of a tablet per channel, Google Maps, ChatGPT, and Claude began taking orders through the online ordering a restaurant already runs on Toast or Square. Autonomous delivery stayed slow: DoorDash expects its Dot robot "to deliver a high single-digit percentage of orders in our largest test market by the end of the year" (DoorDash Q2 2026 results). One test market is not your neighborhood.

What partly happened. AI ordering is real at big chains and rare elsewhere: 26% of operators use AI-related tools, but "only 6% of restaurants are using AI for customer orders," per National Restaurant Association data (Restaurant Dive, February 2026). Commissions rose despite the pushback. Same-day payouts exist, but often as a paid extra: Square, for one, charges 1.95% per same-day or instant transfer (Square Support Center). Personalization arrived as AI marketing agents from POS companies like Toast, which says its agent, Toast IQ Grow, "is the fastest growing product we have ever launched" (Toast, August 2026). On ghost kitchens, we said established restaurants would use ghost kitchen spaces to launch delivery-only brands. The brands held up, like Holy Heat, a Thai concept a restaurant group runs out of its existing restaurant (Orange County Business Journal, October 2026). The shared spaces didn't: CloudKitchens shut its East Oakland complex in November 2025 (SFist).

What we got wrong. Subscriptions didn't spread. Panera limited its Unlimited Sip Club to 30 drinks a month and dropped "unlimited" from the name (Nation's Restaurant News, July 2026). We also claimed subscribers order "2-3x more frequently," and we can't find a source for it, so it's gone. Sustainability didn't drive ordering choices: only 19% of diners in Provoke Insights' Winter 2026 survey would pay more for it regardless of cost (Modern Restaurant Management, November 2025). It arrived as law instead. Since August 1, 2026, online ordering in New Jersey has to default to no utensils or condiments (Cooper Levenson, July 2026). And social commerce stayed a discovery channel. We found no new in-app ordering for US restaurants on TikTok or Instagram, while 15% of guests in a Toast survey found new restaurants on Instagram and 14% on TikTok (PMQ Pizza, July 2026).

How do guest orders reach a restaurant in 2027?

An order can now reach your kitchen through five front doors: your own website or app, Google Maps, an AI assistant, a marketplace app, or the phone. They differ on two things that matter: who charges a commission and who keeps the guest.

Three of those doors increasingly share plumbing with the online ordering you already have: Ask Maps works through Toast or Square online ordering, and Square's ChatGPT and Claude orders land in the seller's own POS and kitchen display. The marketplace door keeps the customer and charges 15% to 30% on delivery (DoorDash Merchants, Uber Eats Merchants). The phone is the oldest door, and the one most likely to be answered by software in 2027.

The consequence is boring and important. Your menu, prices, and hours now get copied to more places automatically, so a mistake in your POS becomes a mistake on Google Maps and inside ChatGPT. Our guide to which POS systems connect to online ordering, and how covers where that sync tends to break.

Can customers order food from Google Maps now?

Yes, in the US, if the restaurant uses Toast or Square online ordering. Since August 6, 2026, Ask Maps can take a pickup or delivery order from a chat, build a cart for the guest to review, and send the order into the restaurant's own system, with an Uber Eats integration "in the works" (Nation's Restaurant News, August 2026).

Restaurant Business summed up the requirements: "The only requirement for restaurants is having a Google Business Profile; menu, hours, and location info will all be automatically synced with Ask Maps, and there are no additional fees or commissions" (Restaurant Business, August 2026). Google isn't charging a commission, but your normal payment processing still applies.

Two details matter. The old Order with Google drove traffic "multiple-fold" of what DoorDash generated for restaurants, DoorDash CEO Tony Xu said, though with much lower retention and frequency (Restaurant Business). And Google is building on an open standard: its Universal Commerce Protocol tells merchants "You remain the Merchant of Record" and lists detailed onboarding as "coming soon," with a waitlist (Google for Developers). Morgan Stanley's base case, cited by Restaurant Business, has agentic commerce at about 1% of US e-commerce spending in 2026 and 10%, or $190 billion, by 2030, a forecast for all e-commerce rather than restaurants.

What it means for a 1 to 3 location independent: on Toast or Square, make sure online ordering is switched on, your Google Business Profile is claimed, and the menu is accurate. That's distribution with no commission attached. On another platform, ask your provider about Google's waitlist, and don't pay extra for "Google Maps ordering" until you've seen a test order go through.

Will diners order food through ChatGPT and other AI assistants?

Some will, but 2026 set a pattern: the AI finds the restaurant, and the restaurant's own checkout closes the sale. Square put its US restaurant sellers inside ChatGPT and Claude on July 1, 2026, while OpenAI pulled back from running checkout inside ChatGPT.

Eligible Square food and beverage sellers were "opted in with no additional work, setup, or fees required." Orders "route directly into sellers' existing Square Online Ordering setup, including POS and Kitchen Display System," and "Square does not charge additional marketplace commissions on orders placed through these integrations" (Square, July 2026).

OpenAI said in March that its Instant Checkout "did not offer the level of flexibility that we aspire to provide" and began letting merchants run their own checkout (TechCrunch, March 2026). Walmart's Daniel Danker told WIRED that conversion was "three times lower" for items bought inside the chatbot than for items that sent shoppers to Walmart (Modern Retail, March 2026). When Starbucks and Little Caesars launched ChatGPT apps in April, both finished checkout in their own apps (PYMNTS, April 2026). "Customers aren't always starting with a menu," Starbucks' Paul Riedel told Food On Demand. "They're starting with a feeling."

Reservations moved faster: since August 10, 2026, ChatGPT can find open tables through OpenTable, Resy, and Yelp (OpenAI release notes, via releases.sh). And in a survey commissioned by PAR, which sells restaurant technology, "62% would order through an LLM given the right offer" (Franchising.com, August 2026).

I spent more than 15 years building software in Silicon Valley, including on Chromium at Google. Here's what I think the checkout story says: assistants will fight to be the front door, and the restaurants that win won't be the ones listed inside every assistant. They'll be the ones whose menu, prices, and checkout are clean enough that any assistant can hand a guest over without breaking the order.

What it means for a 1 to 3 location independent: you don't need your own ChatGPT app. You need a menu with real prices that software can read, and a mobile checkout fast enough that a guest arriving from an assistant doesn't bounce.

Why can't AI assistants find most restaurants?

AI assistants mostly recommend restaurants they can verify: ones with their own website, listed prices, plenty of reviews, and a claimed listing. In a May 2026 check of 10,000 US restaurants, 74.9% never appeared in Google's AI recommendations, while only 19.6% were missing from Google Maps results (Local Falcon, June 2026).

Local Falcon, which sells local search tools, measured Google's AI Overviews only. Two findings stand out. Restaurants with more than 1,000 Google reviews were still left out 70.9% of the time, and independents showed up more often than chains with five or more locations (29.1% against 13.9%).

The most careful study so far comes from outside the US. Vladimir Pitenin's preprint audited all 4,776 cafes, restaurants, and bars in two Bali markets across 2,208 answers from ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity, and 85.6% were never recommended. Documentation predicted inclusion, not stars: an own website (odds ratio 1.92), review volume (1.64), listed prices (1.54), and mentions on other sites (1.44). The assistants also recommended permanently closed venues 93 times (arXiv, August 2026).

Surveys disagree on how many diners use AI to pick restaurants. DoorDash and SevenRooms found 22% "have used AI to choose a restaurant," and only 39% of operators had updated their listings for AI results (DoorDash and SevenRooms, 2026). A survey commissioned by Menufy, which sells online ordering to independents, found 60% use AI-powered tools to help choose where to eat (FSR Magazine, September 2026). The questions are worded differently, and each sponsor has a reason to like its number. The more useful Menufy finding: only 2% would order from an unfamiliar AI-recommended restaurant without checking another source, and 47% visit the restaurant's website first.

What it means for a 1 to 3 location independent: your website is the proof page again. Put the full menu with prices on it as text, keep hours current, and claim every listing. Our guide to getting your restaurant recommended by ChatGPT walks through it, and our restaurant marketing trends for 2026 and 2027 covers what the research on AI search tactics does and doesn't prove.

Is voice AI ready to answer the restaurant phone?

For many restaurants, yes, if it's configured well and a guest can reach a person fast. The 2026 record is mixed: Taco Bell expanded drive-thru voice AI to more than 890 restaurants, while Burger King cut its test back to 50 to 70 drive-thrus after guests drove off rather than talk to a bot.

Taco Bell "continues to see the technology as a core part of our future," even after a customer tried to order 18,000 cups of water in August 2025 (Nation's Restaurant News, July 2026). Burger King's Chakri Somisetti said "there are drive offs because guests don't want to talk to a bot," and Technomic found 23% of consumers think AI drive-thru ordering is appealing and 46% think it's unappealing (Nation's Restaurant News, September 2026). Chick-fil-A's CEO, Andrew Cathy, said its drive-thrus won't use AI: "we really want that hospitality to be human to human" (Restaurant Business, October 2026).

On the phone, Revmo, which sells AI phone agents, analyzed 12,091 restaurant calls: quick-service restaurants answered 59.9%, fast casual 75.3%, full service 91.0%, and pizza 93.1%. Poorly configured AI scored below people on caller sentiment (3.30 against 3.90), while well-configured AI scored 4.2 or higher, though that comparison rests on just 224 AI-answered calls (Revmo, August 2026). Guests are also warier than operators think. Metrigy research found only about 22% of consumers prefer dealing with AI agents, while businesses believe the figure is roughly 40% (Fortune, July 2026).

What it means for a 1 to 3 location independent: point voice AI at the calls you already miss (the rush, the overlap, after hours), and send complaints, allergies, and catering to a person. Our phone order script and checklist covers when to hand the phone to a system.

Do diners prefer ordering direct or through delivery apps?

Most diners say they prefer ordering direct. In NCR Voyix's survey, 58% preferred a restaurant's own app or website for delivery (Restaurant Dive, January 2025), and 45% of operators that offer third-party delivery told the National Restaurant Association those orders aren't profitable.

The NRA's preliminary results, from 830 responses filed with the FTC in May 2026, also found that two in three operators pay an average fee of 15% to 29.9% per transaction, and that 83% of limited-service and 66% of full-service operators charge more on third-party apps (National Restaurant Association, May 2026). Behavior lags preference, though: the same filing says 68% of delivery customers used a third-party service in the past six months.

You'll also see a bigger number. Popmenu, which sells direct ordering, reported that 94% "would rather order from a restaurant's own website," but its question described third parties as the place "where fees tend to be higher" (Popmenu via PR Newswire, September 2026). Treat 94% as an upper bound. Its more useful finding: 50% of diners now pick up orders rather than pay for delivery.

I've watched neighborhood restaurants (a family taqueria, a pho shop, a pizza place) hand a large share of their revenue to platforms that don't share the customer's email address back. Here's what I think the 2026 numbers say: guests aren't loyal to the apps, they're loyal to convenience. Make your own ordering as easy as the app and most of your regulars will use it, but only if they know it exists.

What it means for a 1 to 3 location independent: keep the apps where they pay for themselves, and move every regular you can to your own ordering. Run your numbers through our commission calculator, and check current delivery app commission rates before your next renewal.

What did delivery apps change about fees in 2026?

Commissions went up, not down. Uber Eats raised its lowest marketplace tier from 15% to 20% in March 2026 and now charges 30% on Plus-tier orders from Uber One members, while DoorDash's US plans still charge 15%, 25%, or 30% on delivery and 6% on pickup.

Uber Eats also raised pickup from 6% to 7% with validated in-store pricing (10% without) and added three points to custom rates, capped at 30%, after saying its fees had "remained stable over many years despite the pandemic" (Restaurant Dive, March 2026). Its pricing page now lists Lite at 20% (lower in some cities), Plus at 25%, and Premium at 30% (Uber Eats Merchants). DoorDash's 6% pickup rate also requires pickup menu prices to match in-store prices (DoorDash Merchants).

Some operators walked away. Rave Restaurant Group pulled Pizza Inn and Pie Five off Uber Eats, and CEO Brandon Solano admitted, "We're going to lose some volume as a result of this" (TheStreet via Yahoo Finance, April 2026). Regulators are watching. New York City, which caps app fees at 15% for delivery, 5% for a basic listing, 20% for an optional enhanced service, and 3% for payment processing, asked restaurants for feedback on those caps this spring (NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, April 2026). In April 2026 the FTC opened an early-stage review of delivery fees, including app prices that differ from in-store prices (FTC, April 2026).

None of it slowed the platforms. DoorDash's orders rose 27% year over year to 970 million in the second quarter of 2026, or 17% excluding Deliveroo (DoorDash, August 2026).

What it means for a 1 to 3 location independent: both apps tie their lowest pickup rates to matching in-store prices, so if you mark up app menus, check which rate you actually pay. If you run your own delivery, compare the per-order math in our breakdown of in-house delivery costs against Uber Direct and DoorDash Drive.

Why does first-party data matter more in 2027?

Because the new channels hand the guest to whoever runs the checkout. Google's protocol tells merchants "You remain the Merchant of Record," and Square routes AI orders into the seller's own system, while a marketplace order leaves the brand with "zero data about who that guest is," in Olo CEO Noah Glass's words (Restaurant Dive, January 2025).

Vendor data says knowing the guest pays. DoorDash and SevenRooms found 66% of consumers order more often from restaurants where they're active loyalty members (DoorDash and SevenRooms, 2026), and loyalty vendor Paytronix reports a 95% return rate after a guest's fourth visit (Restaurant Dive, April 2026). The marketplaces know it too: DoorDash more than doubled new signed venues at SevenRooms, its reservations and guest-data business, in the second quarter (DoorDash, August 2026). The 2027 fight isn't only over who delivers the food. It's over who knows the guest.

What it means for a 1 to 3 location independent: capture phone and email, with consent, on every direct order, in a system you can export. See what the apps share, and whether you can put a flyer in the bag, in does DoorDash share customer data with restaurants, and the return-visit math in our restaurant customer retention statistics.

What to do in the next 90 days

Days 1 to 30: fix what software reads.

• Claim and complete your Google Business Profile, including holiday hours.
• Put your full menu with prices on your own website as text.
• On Toast or Square, confirm online ordering is active so Ask Maps and AI assistants can route orders to you.
• In New Jersey, default utensils and condiments to off in every ordering flow.

Days 31 to 60: price every channel on purpose.

• Work out your effective commission per order from 90 days of app statements, promotions included.
• Check which pickup rate you qualify for, and whether matching in-store prices is worth it.
• Make your own pickup checkout at least as fast as the apps'.

Days 61 to 90: own the follow-up.

• Capture phone and email, with consent, on every direct order.
• Test voice AI or an overflow line on your two busiest nights, with a fast path to a person.
• Tell regulars at the counter and on every receipt that your own ordering exists.

Where DirectOrders fits

DirectOrders is commission-free online ordering for independent restaurants on a flat monthly fee: Pro is $249 a month, and Pro + Voice is $349 a month with 500 AI phone minutes included, with a 14-day free trial. Every plan includes a branded website with online ordering, plus SMS and email marketing. Voice AI on Pro + Voice hands complaint, allergy, and catering calls to a person. Deliveries go through your own drivers, Uber Direct, or DoorDash Drive, direct-order payouts arrive the same day, and you own your customer data.

It runs alongside Toast, Square, Clover, Lightspeed, and Revel rather than replacing them; deeper two-way POS sync is on our roadmap, not live today. On Toast or Square, keep their online ordering active for Ask Maps and the AI assistants, with DirectOrders as the branded direct channel next to it. Here's how our commission-free online ordering works.

Sources

• Verdict Foodservice, Google to transition direct ordering service to partner restaurants, February 2, 2024
• Nation's Restaurant News, Google brings restaurant ordering to Google Maps, August 7, 2026
• Digital Transactions, Square, Toast Jump into AI-Boosted Google Maps, August 6, 2026
• Restaurant Business, Google gets back into restaurant ordering, August 11, 2026
• Google for Developers, Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) Guide, accessed October 2026
• Square, Square Introduces New ChatGPT and Claude Integrations, July 1, 2026
• TechCrunch, OpenAI's plans to make ChatGPT more like Amazon aren't going so well, March 24, 2026
• Modern Retail, What went wrong with ChatGPT's Instant Checkout, March 27, 2026
• PYMNTS, Welcome to Vibe Ordering, ChatGPT Is Taking Your Order Now, April 17, 2026
• Food On Demand, Starbucks, Little Caesars Launch ChatGPT Ordering as AI Reshapes Discovery, April 23, 2026
• OpenAI release notes via releases.sh, Restaurant reservations findable in chat, August 10, 2026
• Franchising.com, Diners Revise Their Thoughts About AI, August 31, 2026
• Local Falcon, The Restaurant AI Visibility Index, June 12, 2026
• Vladimir Pitenin, Invisible to the Machine: Auditing AI Restaurant, Cafe, and Bar Recommendation Against a Complete Market Census, arXiv, August 7, 2026
• DoorDash and SevenRooms, The 2026 Restaurant Industry Trends Report, fieldwork March 2026
• FSR Magazine, How AI is Influencing Independent Restaurant Dining Decisions, September 29, 2026
• Nation's Restaurant News, Taco Bell's drive-thru voice AI expands to nearly 900 restaurants, July 8, 2026
• Nation's Restaurant News, Burger King rethinks its drive-thru AI strategy, September 24, 2026
• Restaurant Business, Why Chick-fil-A's view on drive-thru AI is the right one, October 7, 2026
• Revmo, The State of Restaurant Calls 2026, August 6, 2026
• Fortune, Fast-food execs keep pushing for AI, but fail to see the big picture: Customers still want humans, July 30, 2026
• Restaurant Dive, Most customers prefer ordering delivery directly from restaurants, January 30, 2025
• National Restaurant Association, comments to the FTC on online food delivery fees, May 2026
• Popmenu via PR Newswire, Dining Out Looks Different as U.S. Consumers Get Creative with Stretching Dollars, September 30, 2026
• Restaurant Dive, Uber Eats raises marketplace fees, March 10, 2026
• Uber Eats Merchants, Pricing, accessed October 2026
• DoorDash Merchants, Merchant Fees and Pricing, accessed October 2026
• TheStreet via Yahoo Finance, Popular pizza chain cuts ties with Uber Eats, April 2, 2026
• NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, fee cap flyer, April 2026
• Federal Trade Commission, FTC seeks public comment on fee practices in online food and grocery delivery, April 14, 2026
• DoorDash, Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results, August 5, 2026
• Restaurant Dive, Why points-based loyalty programs aren't cutting it anymore, April 8, 2026
• Restaurant Dive, NRA: Over 25% of restaurant operators use AI, February 18, 2026
• Square Support Center, Set up and edit transfer options, accessed October 2026
• Toast, Q2 2026 Consolidated Prepared Remarks, August 2026
• SFist, Cloudkitchens Closes Its East Oakland Ghost Kitchen Complex, November 17, 2025
• Orange County Business Journal, Kei Concepts Opens Ghost Kitchen, Holy Heat, October 9, 2026
• Nation's Restaurant News, Panera to limit drinks in Unlimited Sip Club, July 13, 2026
• Modern Restaurant Management, Health, Value, and Authenticity Drive Consumer Choices, November 12, 2025
• Cooper Levenson, New Jersey Skip the Stuff Law Takes Effect August 1, July 29, 2026
• PMQ Pizza, How Are Guests Discovering New Restaurants?, July 4, 2026