No one heads to a restaurant expecting to spend good money on lousy food. But for Gen Z, sometimes tastiness is beside the point. In fact, according to research firm Datassential, when it comes to dining experiences, a slight majority of Gen Z consumers prioritize novelty and excitement over taste. Fifty-one percent of Gen Z say they will try a new food just because it sounds exciting, even if it doesn’t seem particularly delicious.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Over half of Gen Z say they don’t even care if a food will taste good; they value the excitement of new experiences even more.

You might be shaking your head at a stat like that. Still, across time, young consumers have always craved new experiences, with every successive generation propelling trends forward. They have always pushed the boundaries of culture, from music to fashion and from politics to food, and they have almost always faced resistance from older generations as they did so.

Photo Credit: Regina Kemple

The success of a viral video led Gen Z influencer Dylan Lemay to launch his unique Catch ‘N Ice Cream concept.

44% of Gen Z say when trying new foods, “the crazier and more unique the better.”
Source: Datassential, 2023

DIGITAL WITNESS

Today, it takes a lot more work to introduce younger consumers to something new. As the first digital native generation, Gen Zers have had a limitless stream of information at their fingertips throughout their lives. Social media lets them view what their peers are eating anywhere in the world, as they spend hours scrolling through feeds brimming over with meals, snacks and drinks. Of course, they also have unprecedented access to those foods, growing up in an era when interest in food and availability of or access to a range of global concepts and dishes is the norm.

So how do today’s operators approach a new dual focus of creating flavor-forward dishes that appeal to all, while ensuring they also feature an experiential dimension for Gen Z consumers? To start, menu items must perform on social media—”perform” being the operative word. In our video-driven social media culture, does your concept have a dish or experience that is TikTok-worthy? Gen Z consumers are always looking to share their unique food experiences with friends and followers.

Just ask a Gen Zer who created his own foodservice concept. Dylan Lemay is a digital influencer whose following exploded thanks to a viral video of him tossing scoops of ice cream around the Cold Stone Creamery where he worked in his Michigan hometown. That led to Catch’N Ice Cream, his interactive ice cream parlor in New York, where he and his staff mix balls of ice cream with toppings, then toss them in the air and into customers’ cups. To make it possible, they blast-freeze soft-serve ice cream in silicone molds at -35 degrees F, then apply toppings like crushed Biscoff cookies, mini marshmallows, salted pretzels and Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal.

How staff engages patrons is the key differentiator here. Catch’N Ice Cream offers an interactive experience primed for social sharing. Lemay extends it further with a full immersion, offering customers the chance to buy tickets to join him in a 30-minute “behind the counter” personal training session.

“We use the ice cream as a vessel to bring younger consumers and Gen Z from the online world of YouTube and TikTok to real life,” Lemay says. Playing catch is a fun way to break the ice with young customers who are looking for connections in a post-COVID world. “After everything we went through in the past few years, people naturally crave genuine relationships,” he adds.

Indeed, social-media sharing on video platforms isn’t the only driver pushing Gen Z to seek out engaging dining experiences. But the desire for this kind of interactivity is certainly a response to the years of being cooped up at home. Some of these experience-driven concepts may not even be “new” (what is ice cream throwing but another form of flair bartending or teppanyaki?), but they are new and attractive to Gen Z.

Photo Credit: Tony Boloney

Tony Boloney’s appeals to Gen Z with its “experimental” menu, which includes offerings like the K-Pop Mic Drop pizza, with a sesame seed crust, gochujang-buldak fire chicken and scallions.

CHAOTIC CREATIONS

While experiential dining options are key for social media sharing, sometimes all it takes is one over-the-top creation to catch the attention of Gen Zers attracted to the absurd or surreal. After years of perfectly designed spaces and Instagram-curated foods, many are embracing options that are decidedly imperfect or even downright chaotic.

Consider the “wacky cake” trend that celebrates cakes decorated with gobs of icing (in often unappetizing colors), messy writing and random elements (like candy and plants) inserted willy-nilly. A good example can be found at Gong Gan, a New York dessert shop by day and natural wine bar at night co-created by Per Se alum Anna Kim. The menu features desserts like a Devil’s Food Lava Cake covered in a random piping of neon blue and green icing with a dill leaf stuck into the top, and a green cake flavored with cilantro and jabbed with sprigs of rosemary and sage. One Instagram user who loved the Goblincore Black Tea Cheesecake said they were “only mildly disturbed” by the concept.

New York seems to be the epicenter of the “chaos cooking” trend aimed at Gen Z, with operators like New Jersey-based pizza and sub chain Tony Boloney’s proudly calling its dishes “crazy” and “experimental.” It menus options like the K-Pop Mic Drop, sporting a sesame seed crust, gochujang-buldak fire chicken (a Korean-style prep typically featuring gochugaru, Sprite, garlic, beef and chicken stock powders, oyster sauce, mirin, Korean rice syrup, black pepper, soy sauce, ginger and scallions), and the Boloney Rex sub sandwich boasting a caveman-style short rib bone sticking out of the bun.

With New York’s competitive market in mind, business partners Chen Zeev and Josh Appelbaum opened ChickenHawk, a hot chicken fast-casual concept. To stand out, they focus exclusively on “only one item on the menu, really,” Zeev says of the hot chicken available in sandwich and nugget forms. Customers choose their preferred spice level, from mild made with guajillo peppers to Dumb Ass (colorful language also gets attention) made with Carolina Reapers. Zeev and the team don’t actually recommend the Dumb Ass because it’s so hot, but they offer it, “because there are lots of Gen Zers who love a good food challenge and might be willing to post about it on social.”

Roughly 3 in 5 Gen Z consumers have tried a new food or drink in the past week.
Source: Datassential, 2023

Jjajangmyeon, a popular Korean black bean noodle dish, is Instagram-ready with toppings like cucumber, sesame seed, spring onion and egg.

55% of Gen Z say they are “always trying new foods at restaurants.”
Source: Datassential, 2023

GLOBAL TASTES

Of course, while novelty is essential for Gen Z consumers, making the food taste great is still important if you want to inspire repeat visits. After all, the other 49 percent of Gen Z say a food has to sound good before they’ll try it. That’s the challenge facing Ken Toong, executive director of University of Massachusetts Amherst Auxiliary Enterprises, and his peers, as the college and university segment is wholly dominated by the Gen Z audience and its desire for new foods and experiences day in and day out. Toong and his team have clearly cracked the code, leading the nation in “Best Campus Food” in the Princeton Review for the past six years.

Toong finds there are plenty of flavorful global dishes that his Gen Z customers haven’t discovered, and his dining team takes full advantage of this fact. Menus have featured options like tantanmen, a spicy, creamy ramen; jjajangmyeon, Korean black bean noodles; and sambal eggplant with shrimp paste. Toong says the operation introduces such items as LTOs, telling the story of the dishes and making sure the flavors are true and authentic, while also trusting that those students who did grow up with these foods will introduce them to their friends. “We’ve found that our students crave these types of food discoveries and, by their second year, will seek out these dishes,” he says.

With an imperative to introduce novelty as a strategy to reach Gen Z consumers, imagination and a willingness to push the envelope is critical. Whether you focus on dreaming up new dining experiences, go all-in on insanely over-the-top creations or mine the world for new global dishes, don’t hold back if you want them to come back.