Grabbing a bite to eat outside of the house is a weekly occurrence for almost half of global respondents, but are we stopping to savor our entrees or eating grub on the go? As it turns out, we’re doing quite a bit of both! Quick-service and casual-dining restaurants are the most popular types of out-of-home dining establishments frequented in every region, and they’re particularly popular in North America. Formal dining restaurants, street food and self-serve cafeterias are popular in Asia-Pacific, while cafés are popular in Europe.

Check, please!

Regardless of where we choose to eat, which factors are the most influential when choosing a dining establishment?

Not surprisingly, reasonable food prices and food quality are the two main factors that respondents in every region consider when choosing a restaurant or other out-of-home dining establishment—by a wide margin in most. Reasonably priced food is particularly important in Europe, while Latin America exceeds the global average for the importance of both food quality and service. In North America, the type of cuisine served is a close third behind reasonable prices and quality, and it exceeds the global average by nine percentage points.

Other findings include:

• Fifty-eight percent of respondents in both the Asia-Pacific and North America regions say they eat at a restaurant or other out-of-home dining establishment at least once a week.
• Respondents in the U.S. are more likely than the global average to say they eat breakfast at a restaurant (21%), exceeding the global average (16%).
• Sixty-five percent of respondents in Latin America say they eat lunch at restaurants or other out-of-home dining establishments, compared to 53% globally.

For more detail and insight, download Nielsen’s Global Ingredient and Dining-Out Trends Report. If you would like more detailed country-level data from this survey, it is available for sale in the Nielsen Store.

About the Nielsen Global Survey

The Nielsen Global Out-of-Home Dining Survey was conducted Aug. 10–Sept. 4, 2015, and polled more than 30,000 consumers in 61 countries throughout Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East/Africa and North America. The sample for the survey includes internet users who agreed to participate in this survey and has quotas based on age and sex for each country. It is weighted to be representative of internet consumers by country. Because the sample is based on those who agreed to participate, no estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated. However, a probability sample of equivalent size would have a margin of error of ±0.6% at the global level. This Nielsen survey is based only on the behavior of respondents with online access. Internet penetration rates vary by country. Nielsen uses a minimum reporting standard of 60% internet penetration or an online population of 10 million for survey inclusion.