CHICAGO — The economy is going to the doggie bags.
In an economic indicator that Alan Greenspan might do well to consider, restaurants are reporting an increase in doggie-bag requests over the past year or two. They say it shows that their customers are feeling the bite from the unfriendly economy.
"People who wouldn't have thought about it a year ago will say, 'You know what, I'm going to take that with me,' " says Izzy Kharasch, a Chicago-based restaurant industry consultant. "They now will take home the smallest of portions."
The upswing was cited in an industry trends report this month by the National Restaurant Association, which said one in five dinner customers now asks to take uneaten food home. Twenty percent of the 450 restaurants the trade group surveyed said their customers were requesting more doggie bags than two years ago.
Kharasch says he makes extra sure the restaurants he advises do doggie bags these days, even the expensive ones, where the average check is $80 a person.
"People used to be too embarrassed to ask for doggie bags. Not anymore. They don't want to waste anything," he says.
Who — or what — let the doggie bags out?
Restaurateurs say it is generally the economy, though calorie-counters looking to make today's heftier dinner portions last through tomorrow's lunch also are doggie-bag users.
Customers at Elliott Fread's restaurant in New York have started making his sandwiches last for two days.
"They won't say it's because of money. They'll say, 'This is really good — can you wrap it up?' " says Fread, owner of Bimmy's in Chelsea Market. "But I know it's due to monetary reasons."
Judy Katz admits it, to an extent. A book collaborator in New York, she and her husband are well-off but "feeling the pinch" from the stock market's swoon. They now dine at a neighborhood bistro instead of the elegant Le Cirque and take their leftovers home.
"My portfolio is gone," she laments. "But I'm not going to give up going out to eat. Now we share a meal, and we take home a doggie bag."
Some diners are just staying home.
The average number of U.S. restaurant meals per person per year is down for the first time since 1990, according to NPD Group, a Port Washington, N.Y., company that conducts industry research. The number was 137 meals purchased per capita over the 12-month period ended in February, down 2.8 percent from 141 the previous year.
Still, the NPD data show the average American still eats out 15 times more a year than a decade ago.
"Maybe people think a little more frugally when there is an economic downturn," says Steven Anderson, the National Restaurant Association's president and chief executive. "But I think we've become such an essential part of people's lives that they're going out to eat regardless."