Pop-up restaurants are measured indirectly because official statistical systems do not publish one global series for temporary restaurants. The closest measures include mobile food services, special food services, temporary stands, limited-service restaurants and off-premise dining. The figures below keep those categories separate and identify each country and measurement period.
Table of contents
- How pop-up restaurants are measured
- The wider restaurant market
- Mobile and temporary food-business footprint
- Revenue and operating economics
- Employment and labor capacity
- Consumer demand for flexible dining
- Digital sales, seasonality and event recovery
How pop-up restaurants are measured
No official source publishes a single global pop-up-restaurant count. Instead, available official classifications cover related formats: mobile food services, event and special food services, temporary stands and market stalls, limited-service restaurants, and off-premise sales. These are descriptive proxies, not interchangeable counts of pop-up restaurants.
The UK classification material provides context for temporary stands and mobile food stands, but it does not provide a population estimate. Country figures also retain their original currencies and coverage. That distinction matters when comparing a short-term restaurant concept with a permanent restaurant business or a mobile food operator.
The wider restaurant market
Pop-ups operate within a much larger food-away-from-home economy. In the United States, limited-service restaurants accounted for 36.5% of food-away-from-home spending in 2025, while full-service restaurants accounted for 34.5%. Other food-away-from-home outlets represented the remaining 29.0%.
Source: Food Service Industry - Market Segments, USDA Economic Research Service, 2025.
USDA average daily, inflation-adjusted full-service restaurant sales rose from $1,193 million in January to $1,427 million in May 2025. Limited-service sales were $1,277 million in January and $1,493 million in May. These figures describe broad market segments rather than pop-up venues, but they show the scale of the customer spending environment in which temporary concepts compete.
| U.S. food-away-from-home measure | January 2025 | May 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Full-service average daily sales | $1,193 million | $1,427 million |
| Limited-service average daily sales | $1,277 million | $1,493 million |
Source: Food Service Industry - Market Segments, USDA Economic Research Service, January–May 2025.
Mobile and temporary food-business footprint
Indonesia’s official food-and-beverage service statistics counted 4.85 million businesses in 2023. The total was 21.13% higher than in 2016. Mobile food-and-beverage services represented 14.55% of the 2023 business count, compared with 24.75% for restaurants and eateries and 3.48% for catering services.
The same Indonesian source recorded 998.37 trillion rupiah in food-and-beverage service sales in 2023, 48.04% higher than in 2016. Expenditure reached 601.21 trillion rupiah, up 50.34% over the same comparison period. These figures cover the national food-and-beverage service sector, so the mobile-service share should not be read as a count of pop-up restaurants alone.
Source: Food and Beverage Service Activities Statistics 2023, Statistics Indonesia, 2023.
The Philippines recorded 27,638 formal establishments in restaurant and mobile food service activities in 2024. That category represented 73.7% of the country’s 37,500 formal accommodation-and-food-service establishments. The wider establishment count was 21.5% higher than in 2022.
The UK had 40,570 VAT- and/or PAYE-based enterprises in take-away food shops and mobile food stands in 2021. This is an enterprise measure, not a direct estimate of pop-up restaurants, and it should be interpreted within the UK’s classification system.
Sources: 2024 Annual Survey of Philippine Business and Industry, Philippine Statistics Authority, 2024; Businesses operating in the UK for specific 5 digit SICs, Office for National Statistics, 2021.
Revenue and operating economics
Canada’s special food services industry, which includes caterers and mobile food services, generated $7.8 billion in operating revenue in 2024. Revenue increased 10.9% from 2023 to 2024. For the broader food services and drinking places subsector, operating revenue reached $99.6 billion, up 4.8% year over year, while operating expenses reached $95.5 billion, up 4.3%.
The Canadian subsector’s operating profit margin was 4.1% in 2024, compared with 3.6% in 2023. Cost of goods sold made up 35.9% of expenses, salaries, wages, commissions and benefits made up 33.6%, and rental and leasing costs made up 8.1%. Those percentages describe the Canadian subsector overall, not a typical pop-up unit, but they identify the cost categories most relevant to short-term food operations.
Source: The Daily — Food services and drinking places, annual, 2024, Statistics Canada, 2024.
In the Philippines, accommodation-and-food-service revenue reached 874.70 billion pesos in 2024, up 41.1% from 2022. Expenses reached 763.33 billion pesos, up 44.0%. Restaurants and mobile food services generated 641.76 billion pesos, or 73.4% of section revenue, and incurred 568.93 billion pesos of expenses, or 74.5% of section expenses. Their revenue-per-expense ratio was 1.13 in 2024.
| Philippine 2024 measure | Restaurants and mobile food services | Accommodation and food services |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 641.76 billion pesos | 874.70 billion pesos |
| Expenses | 568.93 billion pesos | 763.33 billion pesos |
| Revenue share | 73.4% | — |
| Expense share | 74.5% | — |
Source: 2024 Annual Survey of Philippine Business and Industry, Philippine Statistics Authority, 2024.
Employment and labor capacity
Indonesia’s food-and-beverage service businesses employed 9.80 million workers in 2023. Employment was 20.48% higher than in 2016. The figure covers the full food-and-beverage service sector, including but not limited to mobile operators.
In the Philippines, accommodation and food service activities employed 520,642 workers in 2024, up 43.0% from 2022. Restaurants and mobile food service activities employed 349,629 workers, or 67.2% of section employment. Paid employees numbered 517,696, equal to 99.4% of section employment.
The average Philippine accommodation-and-food-service establishment had 14 workers in 2024, up 16.7% from 2022. Restaurants and mobile food service activities paid average annual compensation of 183.20 thousand pesos per paid employee. Total compensation across accommodation-and-food-service establishments was 98.58 billion pesos.
Sources: Food and Beverage Service Activities Statistics 2023, Statistics Indonesia, 2023; 2024 Annual Survey of Philippine Business and Industry, Philippine Statistics Authority, 2024.
Historical UK hospitality figures illustrate how quickly staffing capacity can change around major disruptions. Hospitality furloughs were just under 1.65 million employees in April 2020 and just under 590,000 by the end of May 2021. Estimated vacancies were 102,000 in April–June 2021, compared with 19,000 in December 2020–February 2021. These are historical pandemic-period measures, not current 2026 levels.
Source: Coronavirus and its impact on UK hospitality, Office for National Statistics, January 2020–June 2021.
Consumer demand for flexible dining
Nearly 75% of U.S. restaurant traffic occurred off-premises in the National Restaurant Association’s 2025 report. Off-premise sales represented a larger share than in 2019 for 58% of limited-service operators and 41% of full-service operators.
Speed was critical to 94% of U.S. consumers when ordering restaurant food off-premises. More than 80% used restaurant deals such as buy-one-get-one offers, combo meals or real-time specials, and nearly 90% said they would use limited-time app-only restaurant offers. These results are especially relevant to pop-ups because temporary menus and short operating windows can be paired with time-limited promotions.
Mobile ordering had recently been used by 57% of U.S. adults, 74% of millennials and 65% of Gen Z adults in the survey. Consumer interest also extended to adjacent formats: 67% expressed interest in bundled meals, 70% in meal kits and 62% in subscriptions. In rural areas, 67% wished they had more takeout options.
Source: From Trend to Transformation: Off-Premises Dining Now Essential for Restaurant Consumers, Operators, National Restaurant Association, 2025 report.
Digital sales, seasonality and event recovery
Philippine accommodation-and-food-service e-commerce sales reached 16.98 billion pesos in 2024, up 186.1% from 2022. Restaurants and mobile food service activities generated 10.33 billion pesos, or 60.9% of section e-commerce sales. The National Capital Region generated 8.17 billion pesos, or 48.1% of section e-commerce sales.
These results show that online ordering is measurable within the restaurant-and-mobile category, while the regional figure shows how concentrated digital sales can be. They do not establish that every pop-up uses e-commerce or that online sales are representative of all temporary operators.
Source: 2024 Annual Survey of Philippine Business and Industry, Philippine Statistics Authority, 2024.
USDA average daily, inflation-adjusted sales at other U.S. food-away-from-home outlets were $672 million in January and $723 million in February 2025. Full-service sales also varied from $1,193 million in January to $1,427 million in May, while limited-service sales rose from $1,277 million to $1,493 million over that January–May period. These are market-level measures, not a seasonal index for pop-ups.
In the UK, restaurant and mobile food service turnover was £3.3 billion in May 2021, 5.5 times its May 2020 level, after outdoor dining and takeaway activity expanded as restrictions eased. Food-and-drink businesses’ payments to suppliers and contractors were 51% of their February 2020 level in May 2021. Average weekly hours worked in accommodation and food services were 25 before the pandemic, 13 during the spring 2020 lockdown and 19 in March–May 2021.
Sources: Food Service Industry - Market Segments, USDA Economic Research Service, January–May 2025; Coronavirus and its impact on UK hospitality, Office for National Statistics, January 2020–June 2021.