Fellow moms, it’s our time to shine!
Well, it’s time for restaurant brands to shine a spotlight on us! Either way, look out, because we’re coming for your restaurant promotions.
It’s almost Mother’s Day — the industry’s Super Bowl, when families decide it’s a good time to give us a break from cooking and take us out to celebrate all the work we do.
And there are always plenty of ways to celebrate this year. For about the past month, in fact, our inboxes have been flooded with Mother’s Day promotions from restaurant concepts big and small. There are brunch deals and new fancy drinks and special “Mom” doughnut boxes from Shipley Do-Nuts and mini doughnuts from Krispy Kreme. Pizza Hut is breaking out its heart-shaped pizza for us moms, which is a big deal as it was historically only available for lovers to celebrate Valentine’s Day.
We moms can also score free chili dog meals from Wienerschnitzel or order a filet mignon and lobster dish as part of Outback Steakhouse’s limited-time Mum’s Day Menu.
We moms are also influential enough to bring back the prime rib at Logan’s Steakhouse. We can order banana pudding waffles at Metro Diner or a Chocolate Covered Strawberry Stack Hack at IHOP for the occasion. We’re getting extended brunch hours and mimosa flights and kids’ eat free deals at places like Hooters and bonus rewards points and a Perfect Peony Cake from Baskin-Robbins.
The list is no doubt extensive, and the promotions are still flowing in. By Sunday, we’ll have more choices than we’ll know what to do with and we won’t even have to worry about the dishes!
Now, there are plenty of reasons restaurant marketers roll out the red carpet for moms each May and it’s not just to give us a break. The holiday is consistently the busiest day of the year for restaurants, surpassing even Valentine’s Day (which is perhaps why Pizza Hut is trying to corner both markets). And it seems to be getting even more popular. Last year’s holiday drove a 12% uptick in traffic year-over-year, according to OpenTable.
The National Restaurant Association is expecting 80 million American adults to dine at a restaurant on Sunday, May 10, up from 75 million in 2025.
The timing couldn’t be better. New data from the National Restaurant Association shows that restaurant operators reported a net decline in customer traffic in March, after registering positive results in February for the first time in 13 months. Thirty-one percent of operators said their customer traffic rose between March 2025 and March 2026, down from 43% in February. Forty-six percent of restaurant operators reported lower traffic in March, compared to 30% in February.
Further, 45% of restaurant operators said their same-store sales rose between March 2025 and March 2026. That was down from 61% of operators who reported higher sales in February. This downward trend coincides with a surge in gas prices and a steep drop in consumer sentiment. The industry has been struggling with muted sales and traffic for at least two years now, while managing a dizzying macroeconomic environment.
In other words, not only could us moms use a break, but most restaurants could, too. So, Happy Mother’s Day! Let’s go out and celebrate with brunch, followed by some prime rib, chased down with a mimosa flight and a Perfect Peony Cake!
Contact Alicia Kelso at Alicia.Kelso@informa.com
Follow her on TikTok: @aliciakelso