Fast Food Restaurant Trends for 2026

Fast food trends 2026 are focused on technology, customization, health-conscious options, and enhanced convenience. Key trends include:   

• AI and automation in drive-thrus and kitchens.  

• Expanded plant-based and healthier menu items.  

• Personalized build-your-own options.  

• Seamless digital integration for ordering and delivery.  

• Providing customer value, driven by deals and overall experience. 

The fast-food restaurant industry has been forced to change because its customers have. 

People still want quick service, but they now crave food that is better for their bodies and does not hurt the planet.  

Behind the counter, a rapid evolution of technology and customer data is changing how restaurants operate. 

For restaurant owners, understanding where the industry is heading is particularly important.  

Below are the main fast food industry trends for 2026 and how they can help you stay in the loop and future-proof your fast food restaurant. 

Let’s dig in! 

Customers are becoming more educated on the health risks associated with consuming fast foods.  

They still want speed and convenience, but they are also paying attention to what they eat and how much it costs. 

However, value for money is still the top priority. Customers determine value by how good the food makes them feel and how healthy it seems. This is why menu engineering and marketing have started focusing less on affordability and more on sustenance. 

You should include nutritional information on menus as well as a restaurant allergen list to inform your customers about what’s in their food. 

With GloriaFood’s easy to use menu builder you can add that infomation without hassel.

Another key shift in customer behavior is loyalty. Customers are now less loyal to brands and more loyal to restaurant experiences.  

If one restaurant makes ordering easy and offers consistent quality, they will come back. Loyalty programs built around personalization, not points, are becoming the new fast food trends. 

Using a product like GloriaFood’s restaurant marketing software can help you create more customized offers for your clients, improving the customer experience and increasing loyalty. 

Segment your clients by new or returning, order type, payment type, number of past purchases, etc. Use these segments to create promotions, such as “buy one get one” deals, discount % on cart, fixed $ discount on cart, etc. 

In the past, fast food restaurants used language that was unclear when discussing sustainability. They switched from plastic straws to paper straws, used recycled napkins, and mounted a few solar panels on the roof. 

That is no longer sufficient. Customers want evidence that fast food restaurants are actually changing. This has pushed the fast food restaurant industry to reconsider everything, including supply chains and packaging. 

One use plastics are becoming a thing of the past. They are now being replaced by reusable containers and cardboards. One of the latest fast food trends is that for a slight discount, some restaurants allow customers to bring their own cups or packaging.  

Here’s what fast food restaurants can do to be sustainable in 2026:  

• Source responsibly: Use local, seasonal, and ethically produced ingredients; add more plant-based menu options. 
• Use sustainable packaging: Switch to compostable or recyclable materials and reduce single-use plastics. 
• Cut food waste: Improve inventory tracking, donate surplus food, and compost kitchen scraps. 
• Save energy and water: Upgrade to energy-efficient equipment, LED lighting, and low-flow fixtures. 
• Green the supply chain: Shorten delivery routes, use eco-friendly transport, and go digital with menus and receipts. 
• Engage staff and customers: Promote eco-initiatives, reward sustainable choices, and train employees on green practices. 
• Design sustainable spaces: Incorporate renewable energy, eco-friendly materials, and energy-smart layouts. 

There have been some significant advances in fast food technology trends over the past few years. What used to be seen as futurist and far-fetched has already made its way into fast food restaurant trends for 2026. 

Data now drives everything, including menu items and promotion timings. Ordering systems can now learn customer preferences, visiting times, and spending habits.  

This isn’t just about collecting data anymore. It’s about creating a smoother and more personal experience. Customers expect fast and accurate service; they don’t want to go looking for the order button or scroll through tons of irrelevant menu items.  

The fast food restaurant trends of 2026 provide systems that meet these needs by remembering preferences and predicting choices. 

Let’s take a look at some of the most important fast food technologies on the radar for 2026: 

Many restaurants now depend on AI-assisted systems to handle tasks that used to need a full crew. They use machines that control frying times, manage portion sizes, or organize orders without error.  

These systems work faster and help reduce waste and control costs. 

Automation also addresses one of the biggest challenges in the fast food restaurant industry: labor shortages. Shifting repetitive and difficult tasks to machines reduces the reliance on human workers. 

Restaurant owners are finding balance by allowing machines to take care of mundane tasks while people focus on the more human side of operations like interacting with customers and food presentation. 

Online ordering paired with delivery integration has also improved. Fast food restaurants no longer treat delivery as an afterthought, it is now a vital part of their business. 

Some of the best online ordering systems combine fulfilment timing with delivery routes into a seamless process. This makes it feel effortless for customers, who get an estimated delivery time and are in the loop regarding their delivery. 

For restaurant owners, delivery heatmaps let you know where your hotspots are so you can use that information to tailor promotions for areas with less frequent deliveries.  

Use the GloriaFood restaurant flyer maker to create flyers with a free delivery promotion. Then, hand them out around your community or place them in take away bags when deliveries are made. You can learn more about delivery heatmaps in this video: 

One of the challenges facing the fast food industry is restaurant owners finding a complete QSR point of sale system. 

In a fast food restaurant, speed and accuracy are paramount. They can be the key to repeat business and a huge part of your brand identity. 

A quick service POS system simplifies:  

• Order taking 
• Payments  
• Stock management  
• Employee management  

This helps workers focus on preparing food and serving customers while reducing errors. 

A good POS system should contain: 

• Fast & secure payment processing – so you can accept several forms of payments (card payments, cash payments, mobile payments).  

• Offline mode – is necessary on days with a weak or non-existent internet connection. The POS remains operational so you can open check and accept payments, and syncs to the cloud when the connection is re-established. 

• QR Menu code ordering – this enables customers who dine in to order and pay from their mobile phones. Print unique QR codes for each table so that your front of house knows exactly which table your order is coming from. This reduces steps and turnover time. You can set the orders to be auto accepted through the POS and sent directly to the kitchen for preparation. 

• Online order integration – orders placed from your restaurant website, or social media profiles are sent directly into the POS. There is no need to manually enter the information into the POS a second time.

• Printer management – this allows your POS and kitchen printers to communicate so orders go in the right place. For example, food items go to the kitchen and bar items print to the bar. 

• In-store & online reporting & analytics – This feature combines online and in-store transaction data into a centralized analytics dashboard. It provides multiple insightful reports including: 
  • Daily sales  
  • Property financial summaries  
  • Employee financial reports 
  • Employee tip reports 
  • Employee open check report 
  • Employee journal report 
  • Employee closed check report 
  • Future open check report 
  • Check journal report 
  • Tax summary report 

This allows you to monitor performance, make informed business decisions, and optimize menus by: 

• • Identifying best-selling items 
  • Reconciling financial data daily 
  • Detecting potential fraud through check journal reports  
  • Evaluating staff performance 
  • By consolidating data from all sales channels, GloriaFood POS gives you a clear view of your operations to boost overall profitability.  

Staff management & permissions:  this feature allows you to: 

• Easily manage employee roles. 
• Control permissions. 
• Track all transactions from a single dashboard. 
• Add and manage staff profiles.  
• Assign different user roles with specific access levels to various POS operations.  
• Use a dedicated “training mode” for new employees that does not impact financial reporting.  
• Get access to transparent employee activity logs for accountability by assigning a unique POS ID to every team member.  
• Add, remove, and update employee information as needed to streamline operations. 

Plant based menus in quick service restaurants was practically unheard of a while back., Now, with healthy fast food trends almost every big chain has at least one item on the menu. 

Many customers are eating less meat while trying to feel better about what they buy. These types of customers make up a large and growing share of the fast-food industry, so fast food restaurants had to adapt to the demand. 

Here’s what you can do to introduce the plant-based options in your restaurant.  

• Develop and promote burgers, nuggets, wraps, and salads made from plant-based proteins like soy, pea protein, or mushrooms. 
• Clearly mark plant-based options on the menu to make them easy to identify. 
• Implement separate cooking areas or equipment to avoid cross-contamination with meat products. 
• Allow customers to swap animal-based ingredients for plant-based alternatives in existing menu items. 
• Provide nutritional info and highlight benefits like lower calories or cholesterol for plant-based options. 
• Promote the environmental benefits of choosing plant-based meals. 
• Educate staff on plant-based diets so they can better assist customers and answer questions. 
• Experiment with spices, sauces, and textures to make plant-based meals appealing and flavorful. 
• Price plant-based options competitively to encourage trial and repeat purchases. 
• Add more plant-based side options like fries, salads, fruit cups, or vegetable snacks. 
• Run campaigns targeting flexitarians, vegans, and vegetarians highlighting tasty plant-based choices. 

Ordering food has become one of the most important parts of the customer experience. Think about it, most people now decide what to eat from their phone, not from a menu board. Fast food chains have capitalized on this. 

Their apps remember your favorite meals, when you like to order, and what promotions you like the most. If you always grab a coffee and sandwich at 8 a.m., the app might have it ready to reorder with one tap. If you skip fries but love dessert, the next promotion you see might offer a free ice cream. 

At the drive-thru, AI voice assistants take complex orders without getting them wrong. In some cars, you can order from the dashboard without pulling out your phone. 

Restaurants use all this data to schedule employees, adjust pricing, and test new menu items. They can predict when certain products will sell out or when extra staff is needed before the rush even starts. 

Fast food restaurant trends for 2026 focus on the change in customer behavior, the increase in sustainability, the expansion of technology , the inclusion of plant-based options, and the introduction of personalized ordering. 

If you incorporate these ideas in 2026, your restaurant can stay afloat and you will remain competitive in the industry.