Retail grocery inflation in Ireland cooled to just 0.6% in June 2026, but restaurant and hospitality pricing remained far more persistent, at around 3.6% year on year, according to the latest Meaningful Vision data.
Food prices in retail are easing, but menu prices in restaurants, cafés and quick service restaurants are still rising. At the same time, new openings are reshaping competition across the Irish foodservice market. Meaningful Vision data shows that restaurants recorded the strongest price growth, core meal categories moved fastest, and traffic gains were concentrated in chicken and ethnic fast-food.
New Openings Continue to Shape the Irish QSR Market
Store growth has returned to the Irish quick service restaurant market. Total QSR store numbers increased by 1.1% in Q2 2026. Across the quarter, 26 stores were opened by 17 chains, showing that expansion remains a major driver of market change.
Some new players, including Popeyes, Joe and The Juice and Dave’s Hot Chicken, opened their first stores in Dublin. German Doner Kebab, Taco Bell and Wendy’s continued to add to their Irish portfolios, while more established brands, including Apache Pizza, Esquires, Insomnia Coffee Company, Auntie Anne’s, McDonald’s and Nando’s, also increased their store numbers.
Ethnic fast food recorded the strongest store growth, up 13.2%, followed by quick service chicken at 10.0%. Burger and pizza both grew more modestly, up 0.6%, while coffee shops declined by 0.7% and bakery and sandwich store numbers fell by 2.0%.
This makes the Irish fast-food market more active than it was a year earlier, when outlet numbers did not grow. New brands may not change the national market immediately, but they can quickly alter customer traffic in a retail park, shopping centre, high street or delivery catchment.
That is why foodservice market intelligence needs to be local. Pricing decisions are not made in the abstract. A menu increase may be easier to defend in a stable catchment, but much harder when a new chicken, ethnic fast food or coffee brand opens nearby.
Restaurants Lead Price Growth
Casual dining and fast-food restaurant prices were up 3.6% year on year in July. The price growth by market segment data shows that restaurants recorded the highest increase in Q2 2026, up 4.4% year on year.
Burger and pizza operators both increased prices by 3.7%, while chicken QSR rose by 3.1% and coffee shops by 2.8%. Across total QSR, prices increased by 3.5%.
Pricing pressure is not being felt equally across the market. Restaurants are seeing the strongest increase, while coffee price growth is more moderate. The difference reflects the structure of hospitality costs.
Labour is one of the biggest reasons Irish hospitality prices are growing faster this year. In many cafés, bars and restaurants, labour typically represents 30% to 45% of total operating costs. From January 2026, operators also faced a nearly 5% increase in the National Minimum Wage alongside pension auto enrolment.
When margins are already tight, there is limited room to absorb all of these increases. Some costs need to be passed on to consumers. That is why menu prices cannot be understood by looking at retail food inflation alone.
VAT timing has also added pressure. The return of the 9% hospitality VAT rate from July may help businesses recover some margin loss in the first half of the year, but it is unlikely to result in an immediate slowdown in menu price growth.
Main Meals and Kids Menus Move Fastest
Main meals recorded the strongest increase, up 7.6%, followed by kids menu items at 5.9%, pasta and rice at 5.4%, and both snacks and pizza at 5.1%.
At the lower end, sides increased by 1.6%, starters and breakfast items by 1.9%, sweet bakery by 2.1% and savoury bakery by 2.3%.
Main meals absorb a greater share of cost pressure, while more moderate increases in sides, bakery and breakfast items can help preserve accessible price points and everyday value. But it also creates risk. Main meals are highly visible price benchmarks, and kids’ menus are particularly sensitive because they are closely associated with family value.
Traffic Growth Is Not Evenly Spread
Customer traffic is still growing in parts of the Irish QSR market, but not evenly.
Meaningful Vision traffic data shows that chicken recorded the strongest growth in Q2 2026, with visits up 9.3% year on year. Ethnic fast food followed at 7.7%, while bakery and sandwich grew by 4.7%. Coffee was the only quick service category to lose traffic, down 0.8%.
The link between traffic and openings is important. In chicken and ethnic fast food, the fastest growing traffic segments are also the categories adding the most capacity. More stores mean greater brand visibility, more convenient access and more chances to capture visits across lunch, afternoon and evening occasions.
But if price growth becomes more intense, it may start to affect traffic. Operators can defend higher prices more easily when visits are growing, but the risk is much greater when demand is already weakening.
This is why Irish operators need to manage price increases more carefully and monitor competitor activity more closely.
Meaningful Vision provides foodservice market research and competitive intelligence for operators, suppliers and investors across Europe, including Ireland, the UK and other European markets. Our platform tracks more than 70,000 international and national chain locations, with comparative data across customer traffic, store openings, menu pricing, promotions, new products and competitor activity.
Maria Vanifatova,
CEO of Meaningful Vision