Texas restaurant employment spans a large statewide workforce, thousands of establishments, and local labor markets with different occupational profiles. The available figures measure several related but distinct things: restaurant and foodservice jobs statewide, employees of eating and drinking places, and food preparation and serving occupations across all industries in selected metro areas. Keeping those definitions separate makes the numbers more useful.
Contents
- Restaurant employment in Texas statistics: Statewide job counts
- Eating and drinking place jobs by congressional district
- Restaurant employment in Texas statistics: Summer forecasts
- Food-service occupations and wages across Texas metro areas
- National operator surveys provide hiring context
- Sources
Restaurant employment in Texas statistics: Statewide job counts
Texas had 1,496,200 restaurant and foodservice jobs in 2025, according to the National Restaurant Association’s 2026 Texas fact sheet, which says its figures are based on Bureau of Labor Statistics and U.S. Census Bureau data. The state also had 58,426 restaurant locations. These figures give a broad sense of the industry’s scale, but the location count is not a count of workers or businesses grouped by size.
A narrower measure in the same fact sheet puts employment at Texas eating and drinking places at 1,226,000 in 2025. The association describes these jobs as the majority of the state’s restaurant and foodservice total; the remainder consists of non-restaurant foodservice positions. The two job counts therefore should not be added together: the eating-and-drinking-place figure is part of the larger total, not a separate workforce on top of it.
The distinction also matters when comparing employment estimates from different reports. “Restaurant and foodservice” covers a broader set of activity than “eating and drinking places.” For a question focused on restaurants and places serving food and beverages, the narrower count is the more direct measure; for the wider foodservice workforce, the 1,496,200 figure is relevant. (National Restaurant Association, 2026 Texas Restaurant Industry at a Glance)
Eating and drinking place jobs by congressional district
The Texas fact sheet also breaks eating and drinking place employment out by congressional district. In 2025, District 7 had 46,095 employees, District 18 had 38,403, and District 1 had 30,025. These district-level counts illustrate that restaurant employment is distributed across regions rather than concentrated in one statewide total.
| Texas congressional district | Eating and drinking place employees, 2025 |
|---|---|
| 7 | 46,095 |
| 18 | 38,403 |
| 1 | 30,025 |
These three examples are not a ranking of every district, and the figures should not be read as a measure of workforce density or employment share. They are absolute employee counts within district boundaries. Without corresponding district population or total employment figures, they cannot establish which district has the greatest restaurant employment relative to its size. The fact sheet’s table also reports establishments by district, but the employee counts alone are enough to show the scale of the covered workforce in these areas. (National Restaurant Association, 2026 Texas Restaurant Industry at a Glance)
Restaurant employment in Texas statistics: Summer forecasts
The National Restaurant Association’s seasonal reports compare March employment with a projected average for June, July and August. In 2025, the report listed 1,201,200 Texas eating and drinking place jobs in March and projected a summer average of 1,230,000. That was a projected increase of 28,800 jobs, or 2.4%, from March.
The 2026 forecast began from a higher March level: 1,225,700 jobs. It projected 1,248,100 for the June–August average, a gain of 22,400 jobs, or 1.8%, from March.
| Forecast year | March employment | Projected June–August average | Projected change from March |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 1,201,200 | 1,230,000 | +28,800 (+2.4%) |
| 2026 | 1,225,700 | 1,248,100 | +22,400 (+1.8%) |
Both forecasts anticipated a summer increase over March, but the 2026 projection showed a smaller seasonal gain in both jobs and percentage terms than the 2025 projection. These are forecasts, not final summer employment counts. They describe the expected seasonal change within each year, and the summer value is a three-month average. The March-to-summer gains do not by themselves show year-over-year growth or explain why the projected seasonal increase differed. (National Restaurant Association, 2025 forecast; National Restaurant Association, 2026 forecast)
Food-service occupations and wages across Texas metro areas
BLS metro-area estimates offer another view of the labor associated with restaurants: the number, local share and mean hourly wage of workers in food preparation and serving related occupations. These estimates cover the occupations across industries in each metro area, not only people employed by restaurants. They are useful for comparing local labor markets, but they should not be treated as restaurant-industry job totals.
In May 2025, food preparation and serving related occupations accounted for 11.6% of employment in Corpus Christi, with a mean hourly wage of $13.80. BLS reported 22,270 jobs in this occupational group there. Among the metro areas in the comparison below, Corpus Christi had the largest reported local employment share, though not the highest mean wage.
| Metropolitan area | Food preparation and serving occupations as share of local employment | Mean hourly wage |
|---|---|---|
| Corpus Christi | 11.6% | $13.80 |
| San Antonio–New Braunfels | 10.6% | $15.02 |
| Amarillo | 10.5% | $14.00 |
| Houston–Pasadena–The Woodlands | 9.4% | $14.70 |
| Austin–Round Rock–San Marcos | 9.3% | $16.50 |
| Longview | 9.0% | $13.63 |
| Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington | 8.9% | $15.74 |
The occupational group represented between 8.9% of local employment in Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington and 11.6% in Corpus Christi among these selected areas. Mean hourly wages ranged from $13.63 in Longview to $16.50 in Austin. A higher local employment share does not imply a higher wage: Corpus Christi’s reported share was the largest in this table, while Austin had the highest reported mean hourly wage.
These are metro-specific estimates for May 2025, and the areas listed are selected Texas markets rather than a complete state ranking. Mean hourly wage summarizes the occupational group; it does not describe every worker’s pay or distinguish restaurant positions from similar food-service occupations in other industries. (BLS, Corpus Christi; Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington; Houston–Pasadena–The Woodlands; Austin–Round Rock–San Marcos; San Antonio–New Braunfels; Amarillo; Longview)
National operator surveys provide hiring context
National operator survey findings add context about hiring challenges, but they are not Texas employment estimates. In the National Restaurant Association’s 2025 industry report, 77% of operators surveyed in 2024 said recruiting and retaining employees remained a significant challenge.
The report also tracked the share of operators saying they lacked enough employees to support existing customer demand. In fourth-quarter surveys, that share declined from 78% in 2021 to 62% in 2022, 45% in 2023 and 32% in 2024. The sequence indicates that fewer surveyed operators reported an insufficient staff level over those years, while the separate 77% result shows that recruiting and retention challenges remained widespread in 2024. Those measures capture different questions and can coexist: staffing relative to current demand is not the same as how difficult it is to recruit or retain workers.
Among national fullservice operators who reported hard-to-fill openings in the 2024 survey, 78% said they had difficulty finding chefs or cooks, and 61% reported difficulty finding kitchen-support staff. This subgroup finding concerns operators with hard-to-fill openings; it is not a percentage of all restaurants or of Texas employers. The survey helps frame the types of roles operators nationally reported difficulty filling, but it does not establish that Texas employers faced the same rates. (National Restaurant Association, State of the Restaurant Industry 2025: Workforce Trends)
Sources
- Texas Restaurant Industry at a Glance (2026 State Fact Sheet)
- 2026 Eating and Drinking Place Summer Employment Forecast
- 2025 Eating and Drinking Place Summer Employment Forecast
- Occupational Employment and Wages in Corpus Christi — May 2025
- Occupational Employment and Wages in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington — May 2025
- Occupational Employment and Wages in Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands — May 2025
- Occupational Employment and Wages in Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos — May 2025
- Occupational Employment and Wages in San Antonio-New Braunfels — May 2025
- Occupational Employment and Wages in Amarillo — May 2025
- Occupational Employment and Wages in Longview — May 2025
- State of the Restaurant Industry 2025: Workforce Trends