Technomic recently announced the top 5 restaurant trends for 2009.  I didn’t think the list held too many foodie-oriented surprises, declaring “ethnic flavors will continue to star” and “experimentation with flower.”

While Technomic’s press release acknowledged that the coming year will be even more of a “buyer’s market” than 2008, I was surprised to see that none of the trends reflected the fact that what is not flowering is consumers’ wallets.  There is no mention of how restaurateurs are going to try to drive traffic in the worst economy since the ’30s.  One of the trends, in fact – “kids menus will be up-scaled and expanded” – could imply an up-scaled price, as well.

This is odd, given that Technomic itself issued the results of a survey in October indicating that restaurants will be hit hard by the weakened economy.  74% of consumers plan on visit QSRs and full-service establishments less often next year and 50% - including 70% of higher income diners – plan to spend less when they do dine out.

At least from a consumer point of view, there seems to be an odd disconnect between the trend list and reality.