World food day is right around the corner. So, the personal-finance website WalletHub decided to find the Best Foodies Cities in America. And while the expected big cities like New York and San Francisco were tops on the list… Grand Rapids made a pretty good showing.
“Grand Rapids ranked 25th out of all them, so, definitely a good number, especially when you’re considering almost 200 cities across the country.”
Jill Gonzalez-WalletHub Analyst says even though many of the cities listed in their latest survey are larger cities, like San Francisco, L.A., Chicago or Seattle, Grand Rapids scored well, coming in at number 25 as one of 2019’s Best Foodie Cities in America.
“And the reason why, is it comes down mostly to growth. Especially when it comes to full service restaurants. Over the last few years or so, we’ve seen the restaurant scene grow by about a third, about 30%. It shows a lot about what kind of city Grand Rapids is becoming.”
The WalletHub report says the foodie lifestyle can be quite expensive, considering that restaurant prices rose 3.2% just between July 2018 and July 2019. And in 2015, they say Americans spent more money at food establishments than at grocery stores for the first time, and restaurant purchases continue to experience greater year-over-year growth than grocery sales in 2019. With that said, the study reveals almost 200 cities, including Grand Rapids that offer residents affordable foodie life, at restaurants and at home.
And when we looked at it, we looked at 30 indicators for foodie friendliness. So, everything from cost of groceries, to affordability and accessibility to high quality restaurants, to things like food festivals per capita.”
The top five cities on the “2019 Best Foodies Cities in American” list include, Portland, Oregon at number one, followed by New York, Miami San Francisco and L.A.
Gonzalez says being in the top 25 of almost 200 cities is great for residents and good for tourism as well. You can find the full listing at Wallethub.com.
