The cost of going out to eat has reached ridiculous levels! Many restaurants have closed, including some chain restaurants, due to the economy. Others, though, seem to be finding their way through the economic woes.
Texas Road House, Longhorn Steak House, Chick fil A, Dominos, McDonald’s, and Burger King all experienced growth in their revenue stream between 2024 and 2025. Olive Garden showed essentially no change in revenue in the same year. Places like Red Robin, Outback Steakhouse, Red Lobster, and Ruth’s Chris Steak House, which is more of a high-end restaurant with amazing food, all suffered financial reversals.1
In spite of the high prices, it never fails that restaurant parking lots are full and drive-thrus are backed up with a line of cars. How is it possible? Successful restaurants have found ways to entice customers to dine. What have they done? Here’s a few ideas from oddee.com.
- Serve food on wooden boards or roof tiles to appear trendy and artistic.
- Put candles on tables to create artificial intimacy between exhausted strangers.
- Train servers to remove empty plates quickly so tables feel ready for dessert.
- Play upbeat music loud enough to create energy but quiet enough to allow spending.
- Offer tiny free samples that psychologically guilt people into buying full meals. (this is the tactic used at the mall food courts)
- Position bakeries near entrances so people smell sugar before reason activates.
- Place sizzling dishes through the dining room for maximum sensory manipulation.
- Have staff constantly moving fast to create the illusion of high demand and importance.
- Pump the smell of fresh bread or grilled meat onto the sidewalk like edible hypnosis.
- Put “family recipe” beside dishes probably invented three weeks ago.
- Add “chef’s special” labels to move ingredients needing urgent use.
- Add unnecessary adjectives like “ultimate,” “loaded,” or “signature” to basic food.
- Keep menus outside specifically so hungry people make decisions before thinking logically.
- Use oversized menus to overwhelm decision-making and encourage impulse orders.
- Place fries and melted cheese in social media ads because human resistance is weak.
- Display giant desserts near the entrance before you’ve even seen the actual menu.
- Use open kitchens so flames and sizzling sounds become dinner theater.
- Put “locally sourced” on menus without explaining how local “local” actually is.
- Train servers to ask about appetizers before you’ve settled into your seat.
- Train servers to say “excellent choice” regardless of what you ordered.
I’ve personally heard those words! Excellent choice. Regardless of what you order, the server says that is one of their personal favorites.
Now, I don’t think this is manipulative. I just think it is a matter of enticement. We can be – even should be enticed to good things.
Hebrews 10:24 says, “And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works.” We usually interpret the word provoke negatively. And it can certainly mean that. But the context here is positive. That is another side to the word.
Thayer’s Greek Dictionary says that the word means to incite. It comes from a root word that means to make sharp, stimulate, arouse, and urge.
As a Christian, my life should be so full of Jesus that it provokes (in a good way) those who are saved to love better and do more good. It should provoke the lost to inquire about Jesus because of the obvious difference He has made in us. That’s the thought behind Paul’s words in Romans 11:14. “If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them.”
There is an old phrase that is mostly true. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t 
make him drink. MOSTLY true. However, the way to get a horse to drink who has been led to water is to make him thirsty. When he is thirsty – when he has been provoked to thirst – he will look for a way to quench it.
I wonder today if our lives will shine brightly for Jesus and if we will provoke the saved and lost alike. Jesus said in Matthew 5:13, “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.”
1https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com
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