Miami diners prefer to eat late. What about it?
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Illustration: Natalie Peeples/Axios
Surprising absolutely no one, dinner time for Miamians skews much later compared with our fellow American diners.
By the numbers: In 2024, about 10% of dinner reservations were made between 9pm–10pm, according to Resy data shared with Axios.
- Nationally, less than 4% of reservations were made during that time slot.
Why it matters: Science be damned! We know eating earlier in the day supports your body's natural clock, boosting metabolism and improving sleep, experts say.
- But we need that late-night meal to keep us full for when the DJ inevitably begins their set at 3am. Just kidding.
The intrigue: Miami is made up of mostly Latino and Hispanic residents, who tend to eat later, which could be because of cultural norms of eating a larger lunch or just running late.
- And while we tend to reject the often negative stereotypes around Miamians and our tardiness, these generalized assumptions may be warranted.
Zoom in: More than 17% of reservations were made between 7pm–8pm, which we realize is not a crazy or late dinner time. Most other cities also had the highest percentage of reservations made during this time, the data show.
- But nearly 16% of reservations were made between 8pm–9pm, compared with about 10% nationally.
Meanwhile, just 7.2% of reservations were made between 5pm–6pm.
- Of the two dozen cities included in the report, Miami was the only one to have less than 11% of its reservations be made during that hour block.
Between the lines: The percentage is of total reservations for the day, including for meals such as brunch.
The bottom line: In the 305, anything before 9pm is just happy hour.