Where Is the Culinary Industry Growing Fastest? A State-by-State Breakdown

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The culinary industry is positioned for significant growth over the next decade, with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projecting one in eight new jobs created through 2033 will be in the leisure and hospitality sector.

But culinary job seekers and industry analysts alike may be curious to know where, exactly, those jobs may be found. Where is the culinary industry growing the fastest? Which states are positioned to see above average restaurant job growth?

To identify where the strongest job prospects might lie, Escoffier analyzed national and state-level employment projections, comparing projected trends and actual growth across all 50 states. The results reveal striking regional patterns and notable divergences between long-term forecasts and real-world job market dynamics.

But before we dive into our results, and the methodology we used to obtain them, let’s have a glance at some of the key findings. (jump down to see our methodology)

Which U.S. States Have the Fastest Growing Culinary Industry?

To determine which states offer the strongest culinary job prospects, Escoffier obtained data from the Projections Managing Partnership (PMP), a federally sponsored resource that presents data from national and state-level workforce agencies. We supplemented this source with additional data from the BLS.

We combined this data to analyze job prospects in each state for three professions (chefs and head cooks, restaurant cooks, and food service managers) across three categories: projected growth rate from 2022 to 2032; absolute job creation, or the total number of projected new positions between 2022 and 2032; and actual job growth compared to expectations between 2022 to 2024.

Each metric was normalized to a 0-100 scale, then combined into a weighted topline score representing overall opportunity.

Note that some states—even high ranking ones—may have negative values in the “actual growth” category. This simply means that, over the past few years, the state appears to have underperformed growth projections; the industry still grew in that state, but perhaps not as much as anticipated. Given the short timeframe (2022-2024), this category plays a small role in our rankings relative to the ten-year projections.

Our analysis yielded the following results.

U.S. States with the Fastest Growing Culinary Industry

The culinary job market through 2032 is perhaps best defined by regional concentration and notable variation amongst the states, highlighting how profoundly location can shape career prospects.

The Sunbelt dominates the top rankings, with Southern and Western states capturing four of the top five positions. Texas leads the pack, combining massive scale with a strong combined projected growth rate of 24.88%; the state is expected to add over 52,000 culinary positions by 2032, more than any other state. California follows closely with 51,200 new jobs. Together with Florida, Georgia, and Washington, the top five overall states are projected to account for more than half of the nation’s culinary job growth over the next decade.

The Mountain West emerges as the fastest-growing region, with Utah, New Mexico, and Wyoming all posting combined growth rates above 20%. This could be due to these smaller states experiencing demographic shifts and economic diversification that create outsized opportunity relative to their current workforce size.

The Rust Belt and Northeast, by contrast, are notably absent from the top of the overall rankings, with states like Michigan, Ohio, and Maine showing minimal expansion.

Across virtually all states, restaurant cook positions drive growth, expanding at rates two to three times higher than food service manager roles. This pattern reflects the industry’s expanding front-line workforce needs as Americans continue to spend more on dining out.

Let’s take a closer look at these trends by focusing on our findings in each of the three scoring categories.

Top 10 States by Projected Growth Rate

Utah stands alone at the top of the growth rate rankings, with a combined rate of 40.19% that far exceeds any other state. The state’s restaurant cook positions are projected to grow at an extraordinary 56.4% through 2032, while chef positions are expected to expand by 35.0% and food service manager roles by 29.2%. This balanced, across-the-board growth suggests a culinary industry experiencing healthy, comprehensive expansion.

The Mountain West region dominates this category more broadly, with Wyoming (21.09%), New Mexico (30.22%), and Nevada (20.91%) all ranking in the top 10. These relatively small markets may be experiencing demographic shifts, tourism expansion, and economic diversification creating substantial opportunity relative to their current workforce size. Tennessee ranks third at 26.51%, making it the only Southern state to crack the top five in this category.

Several major metropolitan states are notably absent from this list. California, New York, and Illinois—despite their massive culinary workforces—show more modest percentage growth, suggesting their mature markets may be expanding at steadier, more incremental rates compared to the explosive growth in emerging markets.

Top 10 States by Projected Absolute Growth

Texas and California operate in a class by themselves in terms of sheer job creation, with each state projected to add more than 50,000 culinary positions by 2032. Texas leads at 52,070 new jobs, while California follows at 51,200. Other large states round out the top of the list: Florida ranks third with 25,800 new positions, followed by New York’s 21,110 and North Carolina’s 20,570.

The top three states alone—Texas, California, and Florida—will add nearly 130,000 culinary jobs, almost 45% of all jobs created in this industry (despite those states making up about 28% of the nation’s population). This demonstrates an extraordinary scale of opportunity for job seekers willing to relocate to states with booming restaurant scenes.

With seven of the nation’s ten largest states also placing in the top ten here, this category somewhat mirrors state population, though not perfectly; large states like Pennsylvania (5th-largest state), Ohio (7th), and Michigan (10th) do not crack the top ten, while Arizona (14th), Tennessee (15th), and Colorado (21st) overperform compared to their size.

Notably, several states in this category rank modestly in growth rate: New York shows just 18.46% combined growth, and Illinois posts only 9.52%. However, their existing workforce scale means even modest percentage gains translate into thousands of new positions. The Southeast is particularly well-represented, with Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Florida all appearing in the top 10.

Top 10 States by Actual Growth 2022-2024

Projected growth is one thing, but reality is another. That’s why Escoffier examined the number of jobs created since 2022 and compared those results against projections.

Washington leads the actual growth rankings, having added 5,800 culinary jobs from 2022 to 2024 against expectations of just 1,300—a 348% overperformance suggesting the state’s culinary market is accelerating far beyond initial projections. Pennsylvania similarly outperformed, adding 8,430 jobs when only 1,785 were projected through 2024.

This category reveals interesting divergences from long-term forecasts. Several states appearing here show modest long-term growth projections: North Dakota and Montana rank in the top 10 for actual performance despite unremarkable decade-long forecasts, suggesting near-term market conditions don’t always align with long-term trends. Conversely, Utah and Tennessee—both ranking in the top five for projected growth rate—are notably absent from this list, indicating their anticipated boom has yet to fully materialize.

Only Georgia appears in both the high growth rate and outperforming projections top 10, suggesting it may offer the rare combination of strong momentum today and promising long-term prospects. The geographic diversity of this list is striking, spanning from Alaska to Virginia, indicating that early market acceleration isn’t confined to any single region.

Methodology and Notes

To obtain these findings, we first identified three positions to function as a proxy for the overall restaurant industry: chefs and head cooks, restaurant cooks, and food service managers. For each of these positions, we collected long-term projections (2022-2032, the most current range available) from the Projections Managing Partnership (PMP).1

We supplemented these data with actual 2024 employment figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey data.2

Three scoring categories were calculated for each state:

Projected Growth Rate: We calculated the percentage change for each occupation from 2022 to 2032, then took the simple arithmetic mean of the three rates. This approach treats each occupation equally, preventing the larger restaurant cook category from dominating smaller professions in the combined score.

Absolute Job Growth: We summed the total number of new positions projected across all three occupations to measure the scale of opportunity in each state.

Actual Growth Against Expectations: We calculated the expected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for each occupation based on 2022-2032 projections and used that to determine what 2024 employment “should” have been, then compared that to actual 2024 figures. States outperforming their projections received positive scores, while states that underperformed received negative scores.

Each of the three categories was normalized to a 0-100 scale, then combined to produce a weighted, normalized topline score for each state.

This analysis relies on projected data that may not account for unforeseen economic shifts, policy changes, or industry disruptions. Actual 2024 employment figures may lag real-time market conditions by several months. Furthermore, different methodological approaches among states may account for variation among the states. Projections for one state (Massachusetts) appeared to differ substantially from figures reported for the same years in BLS data; thus, we replaced the PMP data with BLS data from 2022 and replicated the projections for that state.3

The culinary job market through 2032 presents vastly different outlooks depending on location, with strong regional trends and outsize opportunity concentrated in larger states. While early market indicators suggest some states are accelerating beyond forecasts, whether this momentum continues remains to be seen. For culinary professionals and job seekers, these findings underscore the importance of location when it comes to staking out one’s culinary future.

Interested to find out more about the food in America? Check out these articles next!:

• Hospitality Statistics: Industry Trends and Data for 2025
• Best and Worst U.S. States for Access to Locally Produced Food
• Food Deserts: An Analysis of their Prevalence in the U.S.

Sources

1.  Projections Managing Partnership, Long-Term Occupational Projections (2022-2032)
2. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2024 State Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates
3. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2022 State Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates Massachusetts