If 2025 had a flavor, it was whatever came in a bowl.
Americans this year spent their lunch breaks shoveling in salads, burritos, and grain bowls, according to new data from Uber for Business. Consider this roundup your Slop Bowl Wrapped — the definitive look at what workers actually ate between Zooms, commutes, and creeping existential dread.
Residents from more than half of the US ordered healthy bowls and salads more than anything else, Uber found. In particular, diners loved lunches from Sweetgreen, which was the most-ordered-from spot in cities such as Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, and Washington, DC, as well as states including Colorado, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island.
Chipotle and Panera Bread were other popular choices.
“The office desk salad is nothing new, and for good reason,” Ash Kebriti, Global Head of Uber for Business, Health and Transit, told Business Insider. “Bowls and salads make for lighter lunches that are easier to digest and leave workers fueled to tackle the rest of the workday.”
That finding was also supported by a report from Zest, an app which tracks the restaurants users visit and helps make recommendations based on their preferences. Zest found that, overall, fast-casual spots like Chipotle and Sweetgreen vastly outpaced the rest of the competition as the top two lunch spots Zest users visited in 2025.
The steady popularity of Sweetgreen and Chipotle is likely a welcome boost to the brands, which struggled with slumping sales this year. Traffic at Chipotle, Sweetgreen, and other “slop bowl” locations has declined in 2025 as diners found themselves questioning the chains’ value propositions amid continued economic uncertainty.
Business Insider previously reported that ezCater, an online catering company, found that high prices are eating into workers’ paychecks as lunch costs have jumped 23% year-over-year, prompting nearly 1 in 5 workers to intentionally skip meals to save money.
Beyond the slop bowls, other niche cuisines broke through as lunch break heroes in some markets. Garlic naan was especially popular in San Francisco, while stir-fry was most beloved in Boston, and egg sandwiches were a favorite breakfast-for-lunch option in Miami.
“The fact that each city was drawn to specific orders — like garlic naan in San Francisco and burritos in Chicago — was unexpected, especially since a lot of these areas aren’t necessarily known for those foods or types of cuisine,” Kebriti said.
Similar reports from Zest and ezCater found that Mexican food, pizza, and Italian food were among the top 10 most popular types of cuisine this year. McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, and In-N-Out also show up in Zest’s top 10.
Of course, caffeinated drinks were also key to workers’ lunchtime rituals. In Dallas, two of the city’s top-ordered items are cold brew and lattes, while Diet Coke was especially popular in New York.
“The major US metros ordered over 18,000 Diet Cokes with their lunches this year, with over 10,000 coming from New Yorkers alone,” Kebriti said. “It goes to show just how important that midday pick-me-up is for workers trying to power through the day.”
Maybe next year we’ll diversify. But for now, it turns out America’s lunch identity is still: bowl, caffeine, repeat.
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