Washington, DC’s bistro environment sits inside a large restaurant and tourism economy. In 2025, the District had 2,679 restaurant locations, $7.8 billion in restaurant and foodservice sales, and 67,800 restaurant and foodservice jobs. Tourism added another major source of customer activity: the District welcomed approximately 27.2 million visitors in 2024, including 25.0 million domestic and 2.2 million international visitors.
Contents
- Restaurant market and footprint
- Bistro cooking jobs and pay
- Employment movement and labor rules
- Tourism and customer demand
- Residents, workers, and neighborhoods
- The surrounding food economy
Restaurant market and footprint
The National Restaurant Association’s Industry at a Glance: In the District of Columbia reports 2,679 restaurant locations in 2025. The same 2025 source reports 54,600 jobs in eating and drinking places and 67,800 jobs across restaurant and foodservice employment. These are related but different measures: eating and drinking places describe a narrower segment, while restaurant and foodservice employment covers the broader industry classification.
District restaurant and foodservice sales totaled $7.8 billion in 2025. Restaurants paid $1.5 billion in total taxes during that year. The association also reports that each dollar spent in District restaurants was associated with $1.30 of state-economic contribution in 2025. That figure describes an economic contribution measure, not a direct customer discount or a restaurant’s profit margin.
The restaurant subsector added roughly 1,700 jobs per year on average from 2001 through 2016, according to the same industry fact sheet. A separate District planning study reported that restaurants employed more than 53,500 people in 2016, representing about 75% of workers in the food economy. The dates and definitions differ, so these figures are best read as separate snapshots rather than as a single time series.
DC Health’s Division of Food provides a wider regulatory footprint. Its current service page says the division inspects approximately 7,500 food establishments, including restaurants, grocery stores, mobile vendors, and cottage-food businesses. That total is broader than the 2,679 restaurant-location figure because it includes several types of food establishments.
Bistro cooking jobs and pay
Bistro kitchens draw from several food-preparation occupations. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ May 2023 State Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates for the District of Columbia counted 55,000 people in food-preparation and serving-related occupations. The estimated mean hourly wage was $22.26, and the estimated mean annual wage was $46,300. These are employer-survey estimates across all industries in the District; annual wages are not take-home pay.
The closest direct occupation for a bistro kitchen is restaurant cook. BLS counted 6,960 restaurant cooks in May 2023. Their median hourly wage was $18.33, and their mean annual wage was $41,570. Chefs and head cooks numbered 1,770, with a median hourly wage of $33.37 and a mean annual wage of $75,520.
Supervisory work formed another measurable part of the kitchen and dining workforce. First-line food-preparation and serving supervisors numbered 3,390 in May 2023. Their median hourly wage was $27.65, while their mean annual wage was $56,380.
The following BLS estimates show how closely related food-service occupations differ in employment and pay:
| Occupation | Employment, May 2023 | Median hourly wage | Mean annual wage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chefs and head cooks | 1,770 | $33.37 | $75,520 |
| First-line food-preparation and serving supervisors | 3,390 | $27.65 | $56,380 |
| Restaurant cooks | 6,960 | $18.33 | $41,570 |
| Food-preparation workers | 3,960 | $18.09 | $39,540 |
| Short-order cooks | 350 | $17.79 | $38,220 |
| Fast-food cooks | 2,010 | $16.95 | $36,900 |
Food-preparation workers numbered 3,960 in May 2023, with a median hourly wage of $18.09 and mean annual wage of $39,540. Short-order cooks numbered 350, with a $17.79 median hourly wage and $38,220 mean annual wage. Fast-food cooks numbered 2,010, with a $16.95 median hourly wage and $36,900 mean annual wage. Institution and cafeteria cooks numbered 1,500, with a $20.77 median hourly wage and $45,440 mean annual wage.
Front-of-house occupations were also substantial. BLS counted 3,740 bartenders, whose median hourly wage was $22.70 and mean annual wage was $59,850. Waiters and waitresses numbered 11,640, with a $17.98 median hourly wage and $51,970 mean annual wage. These occupation estimates cover the District rather than bistros alone.
Employment movement and labor rules
The National Restaurant Association’s DC Restaurant Employment Trends: July 2025 describes a sharp sequence in full-service restaurant employment. From May 2022 to May 2023, the segment added 4,000 jobs, a 16% increase. After Initiative 82 took effect in May 2023, full-service restaurant employment was essentially flat for nearly two years through March 2025.
The next movement was downward. Full-service restaurants lost 900 jobs between March and June 2025, a 2.8% decline. In June 2025, employment was 300 jobs below the segment’s pre-Initiative-82 level in May 2023. These are employment movements for full-service restaurants, the closest broad classification in the supplied data to many bistro businesses; they are not a count of individual bistros.
The District’s FY 2025 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report recorded a $17.50 all-worker minimum wage before July 1, 2025, rising to $17.95 per hour on that date. The base minimum wage for tipped employees remained $10.00 per hour on July 1, 2025. The same report gives a living-wage rate of $17.50 per hour from January 1 through June 30, 2025, rising to $17.95 per hour on July 1.
For District government contracts or assistance of at least $100,000, the FY 2025 report says the living-wage requirement applies to affiliated employees. This threshold is a specific contractual rule, not a statement that every restaurant employee is covered by a government contract.
Longer-range planning figures provide context but must be labeled carefully. The District’s Trends in the District’s Food Sectors study reported 53,813 food-services-and-drinking-places jobs in 2016 and projected 63,898 jobs for 2026. It reported 80.8% growth from 2001 to 2016 and projected 18.7% growth from 2016 to 2026. The 2026 values are projections from the study, not observed 2026 outcomes.
That study projected full-service restaurant employment at 33,386 jobs in 2026, compared with 27,804 in 2016. Limited-service restaurant employment was 12,945 in 2016 and projected at 15,668 in 2026. Those projections describe restaurant categories, not a separate bistro category.
Tourism and customer demand
The District’s FY 2025 ACFR, identifying Destination DC as the tourism source, reported approximately 27.2 million visitors in 2024, up from 26.0 million in 2023. The 2024 total represented a 4.62% increase from 2023. Domestic visitors accounted for 25.0 million of the 2024 total, while international visitors accounted for 2.2 million.
Visitor spending reached $11.46 billion in 2024, compared with $10.15 billion in 2023. Food and beverage represented $3.10 billion of 2024 visitor spending. Lodging represented $4.60 billion, and entertainment represented $1.60 billion. These categories show the scale of visitor spending associated with the District, but they do not isolate spending at bistros.
Tourism supported 111,500 District jobs in 2024. Hotel occupancy was 71.70% in 2024, compared with 69.90% in 2023. For a bistro, these measures describe the size of the surrounding visitor economy and its hospitality connections, not a forecast of any one restaurant’s covers or revenue.
Residents, workers, and neighborhoods
The District’s customer base also includes workers and residents. In September 2025, the Washington metropolitan area had 354.0 thousand federal workers. Approximately 183.9 thousand federal employees worked in Washington, DC, while approximately 170.1 thousand worked elsewhere in the metropolitan area. These figures describe the regional federal workforce, with geography stated separately for the District and the rest of the metro area.
Housing measures add a neighborhood context. The ACFR reported 270,433 apartment units and condominiums in the District in calendar year 2025, including 171,844 occupied units. As of September 30, 2025, 5,021 apartment units and condominiums were under construction. The District issued 2,174 housing-unit building permits in the 12 months ended September 30, 2025.
The Housing in Downtown program estimated 8,400 new housing units from a $41 million investment, according to the FY 2025 report. This is an estimate associated with the program, not a count of completed homes. The same report recorded 400 thousand square feet of office space under construction in one District building as of September 30, 2025.
Together, the housing and employment figures describe several potential sources of dining activity: occupied homes, federal workplaces, regional commuters, visitors, and future development. They do not identify which neighborhoods have the highest bistro demand, because the supplied measures are District-wide or metropolitan rather than neighborhood-level.
The surrounding food economy
The District’s food economy extends beyond restaurants and helps explain the commercial setting in which bistro cooking operates. The planning study reported 8,125 food-and-beverage retail jobs in 2016 and projected 9,709 in 2026. Supermarket and grocery-store employment was 5,058 in 2016 and projected at 5,889 in 2026, with projected growth of 16.4% from 2016 to 2026.
Several specialty retail categories also had projections in the study. Specialty food-store employment was projected to increase 98% by 2026. Baked-goods-store employment was projected to grow 31%, confectionery and nut-store employment 32%, and convenience-store employment 24% from 2016 to 2026. These are projections from the study’s 2016 baseline, not observed results for 2026.
The historical food-retail figures show additional change. Meat-market employment increased 71% in the District from 2001 to 2016. Thirty-two full-service grocery stores or grocery-heavy stores opened between 2000 and 2016, including six replacement stores.
For readers interested in bistro cooking, these numbers place restaurant work inside a wider food system: 2,679 restaurant locations, 55,000 food-preparation and serving-related workers, a projected food-services-and-drinking-places workforce of 63,898 for 2026 in the older planning study, and a large set of grocery and specialty-food businesses. The categories should remain distinct, especially where the available figures are estimates or forecasts rather than direct measurements of bistro activity.
Sources
- Industry at a Glance: In the District of Columbia, National Restaurant Association, 2025 measures.
- Division of Food, DC Health, current page accessed 2026.
- May 2023 State Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates: District of Columbia, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
- DC Restaurant Employment Trends: July 2025, National Restaurant Association.
- District of Columbia FY 2025 ACFR.
- Trends in the District’s Food Sectors, District planning study.