Taco Tuesday is a tradition across America. Its history is often disputed with many trying to take credit, including Taco John’s which trademarked the name in 1989. But its place in American pop culture shouldn’t be questioned, especially after making a recurring appearance on the legendary TV show The Simpsons.
As millions of families observe the Taco Tuesday tradition by feasting on Tacos every Tuesday night, Mexican food restaurants have tried to capitalize with promotions and discounts.
Del Taco, the third largest Mexican food restaurant chain the United States, has been running a Taco Tuesday promotion where $1.29 buys you three regular tacos. We love tacos and we love data so we decided to do a little exploration to see what we could find.
The first thing we did is plot Del Taco’s daily market share over the past three months.
On average, Del Taco gets 0.57% of the Quick Service Restaurant market (QSR). This is good for 3rd on the list of Mexican food and 31st overall across the top 100 QSR chains we ranked.
You’ll notice a bunch of peaks in the graph above, which not too surprising, are all on Tuesdays. We have highlighted the chart below to make it easier to follow. Clearly market share for Del Taco spikes on Tuesdays.
However the promotion only runs from 3pm to 11pm, so looking at the daily market share is undercounting the lift Del Taco sees during the promotion. The graph below plots Del Taco’s market share in the afternoons.
With this cut of data it becomes apparent that the Taco Tuesday promotion is even more significant. During the 3-11 time period Del Taco owns 0.77% of the market. This is a 35.1% increase from it’s typical market share.
The Taco Tuesday promotion is a real winner for Del Taco, helping them achieve a significant lift (35.1%) in foot traffic on Tuesday afternoons.
Sense360 is an insights firm with a panel of over 2 million anonymous consumers and data on more than 150 million consumer trips a month. By understanding the visits and journeys of millions of people in the real-world, we are able to provide restaurants and retailers with detailed competitive and consumer insights.