Bored with your usual PBandJ lunch? Looking to spice up your lunchtime routine? Hardly anyone will name their work among their best lunch spots. Every now and then, you need to get out of the office and treat yourself to a lunch out. It can be a nice reward for a long week or a way to get your work week started off the right way. Your average American goes out for lunch about twice a week and spends about $10 per lunch. Additionally, going out for lunch can give you fresh inspiration and a little activity in a day, which is especially important in jobs that require you to be sitting for long period of time. You can often find yourself feeling more productive and refreshed if you leave your desk and walk around for a short period of time.
What are the Most Popular Options?
Sandwiches
One of the most popular lunch options for Americans remains trusty sandwiches. Did you know that collectively, our society eats more than 300 million sandwiches every day? Depending on the kind of sandwich you enjoy, delis can offer you anything from the usual ham or turkey sandwich or new sandwiches, with unusual ingredients (bacon or Brie; sweet potatoes and black beans) or condiments (like chipotle mayo or pesto). Delis can be some of the best lunch spots to find a cheap and quick meal. There’s also a variety in delis–some sell just sandwiches, while others have branched out to salads and sandwiches. Although an old option, sandwiches have not fallen out of favor with the public–49% of sandwiches eaten in 2012 were bought and not made.
Catering
Even if your work place isn’t included in your best lunch spots list, sometimes it’s necessary to stay at work for lunch or even later, for important meetings or presentations. In these cases, it may be good to look into catering, a very lucrative industry. In 2013, catering brought $45 billion in revenue to the economy. Catering is good for providing a good amount of food to a lot of people for a lower cost. It’s also usually high quality food and has something for everyone. Caterers find that their average size for a party is between 100-250 people, so if you work for a giant corporation and are worried about finding a place to feed everyone, catering may be the perfect solution.
If you’re trying to lose weight and are concerned about breaking your diet by going out to eat, don’t worry. A growing health kick trend has been transforming the way restaurants approach food. Although fast food chains will always be around, there are now ways to find something healthy, low fat, or green in almost every restaurant now. On days when you look in your refrigerator and feel completely uninspired, consider going out for lunch. Someone else can come up with a delicious lunch for you and even do the dishes afterward!
