Restaurant operators need to understand their diners well – and it all starts with demographics. Demographic data provides essential insights into the basic characteristics of your customer base, allowing businesses to understand and target their potential customers more effectively. Placer provides rich data describing the demographics of visitors to restaurant locations – now and over time.

After reading this article, you’ll able to answer the following questions:

1. What are the key demographic characteristics of diners at a specific location?
2. How do those demographics compare to other locations?
3. How has this demographic profile changed over time?

Get started with the following steps:

Step 1: Review visitor demographics for a specific store or for any Placer POI

From the Property report page, navigate to Demographics in the left sidebar. Here you can view customer demographics in a few ways:

I) Average or Median Household Income, and a breakdown of incomes into specific buckets

II) Age

III) Gender

IV) Visitor Ethnicity

Step 2: Review changes to visitor demographics over time using the Quick Compare function

‍This feature allows you to view the same POI^{Point (Location) of Interest.} side-by-side, with different filters in place.

a. Open the Placer report for your POI, navigate to the three dots in the POI header bar, and click Quick Comparison. Immediately click Go to Report before adjusting any filters - this will open the same POI side-by-side.

Learn about Quick Comparison

b. Here, we’re looking at three different time periods, so add the same POI again by using the plus symbol and clicking Go.

c. From your new report view, click Add Filters. We’re looking at 2020 vs 2021 vs YTD 2022, so choose Filter per Venue on the right, and then choose the custom ranges you want to use in each case. Highlight the custom date range and click Apply. Choose Apply again at the bottom of the section.

d. Navigate to Demographics in the left sidebar. Here you can visualize the shifts in demographics across the time periods. In this example, scroll to Household Income and see how the average income has steadily fallen over the 3-year period.