Best Credit Cards For Restaurant Spend

Updated for 2019, if you notice any errors or cards missing let us know in the comments below.

According to the Bureau of Labor statistics the average spent on food away from home was $2,698 for 2012/2013, this number was higher for those with incomes of $70,000 or above (who spent an average of $4,602). It’s no wonder that people want a credit card that earns at a high rate for restaurant expenses. Below we look at some of the best options for consumers.

Contents

Top Restaurant/Dining Credit Cards

Citi ThankYou Premier 2x ThankYou Points, $95 Annual Fee Waived First Year

This card earns at a rate of 2x ThankYou points per dollar spent on restaurant expenses. The annual fee of $95 is waived for the first year. The value of this card is really going to depend on how much you value ThankYou points at.

U.S Bank American Express FlexPerks 2x Points, No Annual Fee

Points are worth 1.5¢ a piece when redeeming for airline and hotels. Note: this is only available on the American Express version of this card.

City National Crystal Visa Infinite card 3x Points, $400 Annual Fee

Our review of this card

Card has a big annual fee of $400, but the upside is that it comes with a $200 travel credit and authorized users (free to add) also get their own credit.

TD First Class Visa Credit Card 3x Points, $89 Annual Fee Waived First Year

The TD First Class Visa offers 3x points on all restaurant purchases with no limit on the amount of points that can be earned. Points are worth 1¢ each when redeeming against restaurant or travel expenses. The card also earns 3x points on all travel expenses.

Santander Bravo 3% Cash Back, $49 Annual Fee

The Santander Bravo MasterCard earns 3% cash back on all restaurant purchases. It earns at this rate for the first $5,000 in purchases per calendar quarter (15,000 points/$150 cash back). Unfortunately there is also a $49 annual fee associated with this card which greatly reduces it’s usefulness.

Huntington Voice 3% Cash Back, First $2,000 Per Quarter

The Huntington Voice card allows you to choose one 3% cash back category per quarter. Restaurants are one of the categories you can choose from. The card has no annual fee.

Wells Fargo Propel 3x Points, No annual fee

Read our review

This card earns 3x points on dining, gas & travel with no annual fee.

Bank of America Cash Rewards 3%-5.25% Cash Back, First $2,500 Per Quarter, No Annual Fee

The Bank of America cash rewards card lets you select one category to earn 3% cash back in on the first $2,500 in spend per quarter. This deal becomes better with Bank of America Preferred Rewards program. This lets you earn another 25-75% back, meaning this card can earn up to 5.25% cash back on this category.

TD Cash Rewards 3% Cash Back, No Annual Fee

Read our full review

Card isn’t very useful outside of this and it’s only available in selected states (CT, DC, DE, FL, MD, ME, MA, NC, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI, SC, VT, & VA).

Bank of The West Cashback Mastercard, 3% Cash back, No Annual Fee

Read our review of this card

Basically the same as the TD card listed above, available in the following states: AZ, CA, CO, ID, IA, KS, MN, MO, NE, NV, NM, ND, OK, OR, SD, UT, WA, WI, WY.

Marvel Synchrony Card 3%, No Annual Fee

Read our full review

Card earns 3% cash back on restaurant and catering purchases with no cap and no annual fee.

InFirst Federal Credit Union 3% Cash Back, No Annual Fee

Read our full review

Also earns 4% on travel and points can be worth more than 1¢ each bringing the value of the card up.

AARP 3% Cash Back No Annual Fee

The AARP card is offered by Chase and one of their less well known credit cards. It earns at a flat 3% cash back on all gas & restaurant purchases. There is also another version of this card that earns at a flat 3% on all travel purchases. You must be a member of AARP to apply for this card which is a $16/yr fee and you must be over 50 years of age. According to JJ this is not necessary, you can sign up and then just cancel, you might not even need to sign up. Update: You don’t even need to sign up at all.

Golden 1 Platinum Rewards Visa 3% Cash Back, No Annual Fee

Our full review

Card earns 3% cash back on all gas, grocery and restaurant charges. There is no earning limit, although your cash back is only paid out once yearly. No annual fee and earns 1% cash back on all purchases.

Sam’s Club, 3% Cash Back No Annual Fee, $5,000 Cash Back Limit Annually

This card also earns 5% cash back on gas ($6,000 spending limit) and 3% on all travel expenses as well. You can earn a maximum of $5,000 cash back in any calendar year.

Points are worth up to 2¢ a piece when redeeming for airline and 1.5¢ when redeeming for hotels. Note: this is only available on the American Express version of this card.

Citi Costco Anywhere Visa 3% Cash Back, No Annual Fee

Read our full review

This card gives you 3% cash back with no limits and no annual fee.

Capital One SavorOne  3% Cash Back, No Annual Fee Or Cap

Our full review

Card earns 3% cash back on all purchases with no annual fee or foreign currency conversion fees.

Chase Sapphire Reserve – 3x Points, $450 Annual Fee

Our full review

This card earns the most valuable points and at a 3x rate for restaurant purchases. It does come with a massive annual fee, but this is somewhat offset by the $300 annual travel credit.

U.S Bank American Express FlexPerks Gold 3x Points, $80 Annual Fee Not Waived

Read our full review

Points are worth up to 1.5¢ a piece when redeeming for airline and 1.5¢ when redeeming for hotels.  So this can be worth up to 4.5% back on restaurant spend.

Capital One Savor Card – 4% Cash Back, $95 Annual Fee (Waived)

Our review

Card earns 4% cash back per $1 spent on dining, including restaurants, cafes, bars, lounges, fast-food chains and bakeries. Comes with $95 annual fee, waived the first year.

There’s also the SavorOne card which is the no-fee version; that one only earns 3% cash back.

U.S. Bank Altitude Go: 4% Cash Back, No Annual Fee

Our Review

This card earns 4 points per dollar, worth 4%, on Dining and Takeout, including Food Delivery Services. Card has no annual fee.

American Express  Rewards Gold: 4x Membership Rewards Points, Annual Fee Of $250

This card earns 4x membership rewards points on all purchases made at U.S restaurants, the annual fee is usually waived the first year and it also comes with a $100 airline incidental credit and $120 dining credit to help offset the high annual fee. Sometimes restaurants don’t code correctly, meaning you miss out on the 4x points.

VantageWest Credit Union Connect Rewards Credit Card – 5x, No Annual Fee ($15 Joining Fee), $1,500 Limit Per Quarter

Our review

Card lets you choose one category to earn 5x points in. Unfortunately there is a limit of $1,500 per quarter.

Citi Prestige – 5x Points, $495 Annual Fee

Our review

Annual fee is never waived, but you do get an annual $250 travel credit to help offset it. As well as lounge access and a 4th night free benefit. Card earns Citi ThankYou points that can also be transferred to other travel partners.

Honorable mentions:

Chase Freedom 5% Cash Back, Select Quarters Only, No Annual Fee

The Chase Freedom earns 5% in rotating categories. Since 2012, the Chase Freedom has had restaurants as a category at least once per annum, apart from 2018. This means you can earn 5% cash back on the first $1,500 in qualifying purchases per quarter. This was not included in our regular list as this card will only earn 1% when restaurants are not a category bonus. You can view which quarters have had or will have restaurants by clicking here.

It’s also possible to turn your cash back into airline miles or hotel points if you have another Chase card that gives you that ability (e.g Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Sapphire Reserve or Chase Ink Preferred)

Discover it 5% Cash Back, Select Quarters Only, No Annual Fee

The Discover it card is similar to the card offered by Chase, in that it earns 5% on the first $1,500 in purchases per quarter on selected rotating categories. It used to always offer restaurants as the Q1 category every year. For 2019 restaurants is a 5% category in Q3, For those with bad credit it’s also possible to get a secured version of this card, but you must apply for the regular version first.

Club Carlson Premier Rewards Targeted 10x Promotions, $75 Annual Fee Not Waived

This card regularly sends out targeted promotions where you can earn 10x points on all of your restaurant spend. How often you’re targeted seems to vary a lot of from cardholder to cardholder, but most people seem to get targeted at least once per year. The annual fee is not waived, but the card does come with an anniversary bonus of 40,000 points as well, so it’s worth keeping after the first year.

U.S. Bank Cash+, 5% On Fast Food Only, $2,000 Quarterly Cap

This card lets you choose categories to earn 5% on. Each quarter you can earn 5% on up to $2,000 in spend. Restaurants isn’t an option, but fast food is.

Business Credit Cards

There are a number of business credit cards that offer a high rate on all restaurant purchases, unfortunately none of them come close to the 5-10% that can be gained from personal cards. Here are the top business cards in descending order:

United MileagePlus Explorer Business Card, 2x United Miles, Annual Fee Of $95 Waived First Year

This card earns at 2x on all restaurants, gas stations, office supply stores & purchases made directly from United.com. This option should really only be attractive if you value United Miles highly (e.g at least 1.5¢ each) otherwise you’ll be better off with a cash back card.

Lowe’s Business Rewards Card 3x Back in Gift Cards, No Annual Fee

This card earns 3x points on all restaurant purchases, office supply stores & telephone services purchased directly from U.S. service providers. Points can be redeemed for Lowe’s or American Express gift cards at a rate of 1 point = 1 cent, it carries no annual fee.

American Express SimplyCash 3% Cash Back, No Annual Fee

Amex’s SimplyCash card allows you to choose a 3% category and one of the options is restaurants, you also get 5% on allS. office supply stores and on wireless telephone services. The card has no annual fee.

Citi Costco Anywhere Visa 3% Cash Back, No Annual Fee

Read our full review

This card gives you 3% cash back with no limits and no annual fee.

American Express Business Gold – 4x Points – $250 Annual Fee

This card lets you earn 4x points on two categories your business spends the most on each billing cycle (up to $150,000 in spend per year). Restaurants are one of the 4x categories.

MasterCard 4%+ Cash Back

If you enroll your business MasterCard’s in the Easy Savings program, then you can get 4% cash back at select restaurants. You also get whatever the card usually earns on restaurant purchases. Here are some options:

  • CitiBusiness® / AAdvantage® World MasterCard: 1x AAdvantage miles
  • Cash Rewards for Business MasterCard credit card: 2% cash back on restaurant purchases

Huntington Business Voice – 4% Cash Back – Up To $7,000 In Spend Per Quarter

Read our full review

This card lets you choose one category to earn 4% cash back in. You can change this category every quarter and you earn 4% cash back on the first $7,000 in spend on that category every quarter. One of the categories you can choose is gas stations.

Cards That Didn’t Make The Cut

The following cards didn’t make the cut for the best restaurant credit card list. We’ve included them below as some people might still find this information interesting:

This page does not contain any affiliate links. We always provide you with the best cards, if you think we’ve missed a great restaurant credit card then please let us know in the comments as it wasn’t intentional! You also might enjoy our other posts in this series:

Before you make any restaurant purchases, you should always check to see if that restaurant sells gift cards.

If they do, chances are you can purchase these for a discount greater than 5% by looking at a gift card reseller.

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113 Comments
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Sarah
Sarah (@guest_1730615)
November 5, 2023 08:06

Capital one Savor one is 3% dining and grocery

Shawn
Shawn (@guest_1730538)
November 5, 2023 02:22

I toggle between the Citi Custom Cash 5% up to $500 per month and the USBANK Altitude Go! Cards. CCC I’ve hit the $500 cap and gone over quite a few times (family of 4 Plus oddball things like birthdays / school dances where I let the kids take their friends to restaurants). Citi is pissing me off with their latest snafu with rewards not being applied (affected all of my purchases from Oct 19-22 on my 2 CCC cards).

The USBank card doesn’t seem to have a limit, but the downside is it’s 4%. The bonus though it’s 4% everywhere food related that I’ve seen – All fast food, all restaurants, food delivery, I’ve seen some oddball food carts & bakeries get 4% too (YMMV). Plus they have the 1 month of free Netflix per year thing going.

It’s always a fine line between hassle & max rewards. My P2, aka my wife of 21 years, does not want to track when we’re getting close to the $500 limit each month. So the “break even” factor is this:
Spend $600 in a single month for all fast food, dining & takeout with USBANK: $24.00 returned.
Spend $600 in a single month for all fast food, dining & takeout with CCC: $25.00 + 1% of $100 = $26.00

The USBank wins at the $667 mark, or $26.68 return vs. $26.67 on the CCC.

So who the hell knows. Both cards are easy to pay online. Considering we use the other CCC card for gas purchases, all it takes is for my wife to use the wrong card (despite the more than professional grade label I’ve printed and placed on the card) to lose a couple cents here and there. The tightwad in me wants to always max out our savings though.

Lisa
Lisa (@guest_1634936)
June 15, 2023 13:57

n

Danny L
Danny L (@guest_1598632)
April 15, 2023 18:26

Any consideration towards updating this list?

anon
anon (@guest_1348504)
March 15, 2022 23:11

Two of the Cardless cards (Celtics and Pelicans) give unlimited 4% on restaurants/bars/delivery with no annual fee

Lisa K
Lisa K (@guest_1314020)
January 12, 2022 15:57

Just switched our primary dine out card to Citi Custom Cash. My husband and I both got one and we are going to reserve mine *just* for restaurants, which will earn 5%.

Matt
Matt (@guest_1275475)
October 31, 2021 00:05

Uber visa is now canceled and changed over to the Barclay view mastercard.

Matt
Matt (@guest_1288552)
November 24, 2021 17:05

Wondering if anyone else who was forced the product change has 0 or 3 percent foreign transaction fees? I recieved mine today and is shows 0 ftf which im very pleased with.

Lisa
Lisa (@guest_1150325)
February 25, 2021 08:52

We use the TD Cash Back for all dining out, nothing else. We spend maybe $200-$250 a month on that, so that is maybe $80 at the end of the year. Enough for another dinner.

JImmy
JImmy (@guest_1149544)
February 24, 2021 00:27

Chase Freedom Unlimited and Chase Freedom Flex should both be added, as they both have 3% on restaurant purchases.

Tyler
Tyler (@guest_1076378)
October 20, 2020 18:40

Altitude Go for 4x points should be included on the list

Chuck
Editor
Chuck(@chucksithe)
November 15, 2020 15:21

Added, thanks