John Mulaney had a bit a few years back about his French bulldog Petunia becoming the “alpha” of his house. In order to reclaim power over the poorly-behaved puppy, Mulaney was instructed to eat dinner before his dog’s dinnertime of 5 p.m. because, in the dog trainer’s words, “the king eats before anyone else eats.”
“Oh yes, and what a mighty king I’ll be,” Mulaney laughed, “eating dinner at 4:45 in the afternoon.”
Yet, early dinners — long the depressing purview of empty nesters and young parents — have recently gained a passionate following from an unlikely cohort. Egged on by influencers and supermodels on TikTok, Gen Z adults are making 5 p.m. meals a pillar of their daily wellness routine.
Are they onto something? Yeah, I think so — but this micro movement needs some context. Here’s how the early dinner craze likely started, whether it’s a sustainable practice and why it isn’t as lame as it sounds.
A Few Factors at Play
How do we know if the early dinner trend is a real thing outside of social media vibes? Look to restaurant culture. According to data that OpenTable made available to The Guardian last year, 53% of Gen Z diners are interested in booking earlier dinnertimes. And in New York City, 5 p.m. dining was up by 20% for the first eight months of 2025.
There’s an irony in OpenTable reporting that information; alongside Resy, the platform has helped turned the once-civil act of securing a dinner with friends into blood sport. OpenTable’s 2026 trends report states that in New York, diners are willing to wait up to 57 minutes for a table. This is a somewhat inevitable consequence of A) short-form food review content, B) influencer chefs and C) eateries needing to market themselves to survive…an initiative that sometimes goes a little too well.
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Don’t fret a bad start to the year. Your resolutions might not stick until March.A friend of mine mentioned that after years of walking into her beloved sushi counter, she now has to make a reservation at least a week in advance. Alternatively, she might start pushing her dinnertime earlier — and cash in on happy hour deals in the process.
Also worth considering here: remote and hybrid workers now have the autonomy (especially on Fridays) to close the laptop early, or log off for a bit, eat dinner and then return later.
Is It Healthier?
Assuming you’re not just eating out earlier, but implementing an earlier dinnertime for every night of the week, are there benefits to be had? Is this a healthier daily protocol than eating at a “normal” dinner time (which has been cited as 6:22 p.m. in the United States) or even later in the evening?
It depends. When do you go to bed? What level of activity (physical or mental) do you expect after you finish eating? Are you eating that early just to get dinner over with, or does it make sense with your schedule? Would eating earlier lead to you cooking more or less?
Here’s what we know for sure: sleep experts recommend eating your last full meal two to three hours before bed. (The literature is a little different on snacking, which can be beneficial for high-performance athletes and diabetics.) A late feast carries digestion into the bedroom, which disrupts your circadian rhythm.
An early dinner doesn’t just create separation between eating and sleeping. It also provides time for a digestive walk, which exercise scientists have dubbed “a superior intervention.” A stroll within 60 to 90 minutes of your meal tangibly reduces blood sugar levels, while helping you wind down from the challenges of your day. This prescription squares nicely with a restaurant dinner, too — you’ll have plenty of time to explore a neighborhood or hit a second location before heading home.
Our Verdict
I’m not surprised that Gen Z is so attracted to early dinners. Resy wars aside, 20-somethings have been clear for years now that they’re interested in working out more, drinking less and waking up earlier. There’s a reason Oura is worth $11 billion.
I can appreciate that, in some ways, this is kind of sad — though I’ll fall short of agreeing that this development signifies the “death of civilization” (to paraphrase an only somewhat sarcastic essay from The Telegraph). For one, these viral trends come and go, just like new year’s resolutions. Gen Z may deploy 5 p.m. dinnertimes to secure buzzy reservations; over time, they might find eating at that hour is logistically difficult. Or perhaps it’ll become easy again once they have kids. Who knows?
For now, aging cultural critics are in uproar that Gen Zers are such poor stewards of the romantic, chaotic late-night dining found in Spanish tapas bars and Chinese night markets. (That’s my editorializing; the essay actually just calls Gen Z “losers.”)
I understand the frustration; it’s depressing when spontaneity is sacrificed at the altar of optimization, when group booth hangs are traded for solo Netflix binges. But if you’re a young person juggling your work, social and wellness lives — in a distracted, hyper-competitive age you didn’t ask for — the overwhelming majority of your meals are eaten at home, and potentially alone. A reliable routine can go a long way.
I’d argue that earlier dinners are best approached as an aspirational guideline, not a fixed rule. Is 5 p.m. a little too early? Probably. (Personally, I don’t know how I’d make that work with work.)
But if you eat in the 6 to 6:30 p.m. window, which allows more time for home cooking, you still have hours to go for a walk, do some house chores, call a friend, read, whatever, before heading to sleep. And if you’re eating that early, you’re likely making better decisions, too — decision fatigue and dinner choice are in direct tension with one another, unsurprisingly. And from a health perspective: more important than any explicit dinnertime is simply what’s for dinner.
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