Once the custom of retirees, younger people are beginning to prefer dinner before 7pm.

Even Sinatra’s smooth tone could not hide the tension in the line “she gets too hungry for dinner at 8.”

The hour was established by habits of formality, or so pop culture tales would have it. Get home from work, have a drink, don proper evening attire – it required time to prepare for fine dining. To reserve a table any earlier, well that would just be gauche.

Yet when Kevin Phillips, owner of Beach House Restaurant + Bar in Pacific Grove, launched the “sunset menu” for those few who might want an early start, he learned that the Rat Pack was not always right. When the doors opened, people filled the room.

Phillips was forced to drop the idea. “I converted it into a locals’ menu, available anytime,” he says. “That way we’re not crushed between 4 and 5:30pm like we were.”

As it turns out, Beach House was ahead of its time. Data collected by the market intelligence firm Placer.ai found an increase in the number of Americans placing dinner orders before 7pm – enough to make 6pm the most popular time for reservations.

Restaurateurs have taken notice. Schooners in the Monterey Plaza Hotel opens at 4:30pm. Max’s Grill in Pacific Grove welcomes diners at 4pm. The Salinas institution Gino’s is even more aggressive, switching to the dinner menu at 3pm.

“We’ve seen a growing interest in earlier dining,” observes Chef Bert Cutino, who opened the Sardine Factory in Monterey more than 50 years ago, when Sinatra’s line might have rung true. “In fact, we recently adjusted our hours to open daily at 4:30pm.”

The kitchen also developed a special three-course prix fixe early bird menu for the occasion.

In the past, those calling on restaurants before 6pm tended to be retirees. But now more younger diners are getting an early start. Max Muramatsu, chef and owner of Max’s Grill, traces the transition to Covid. Pandemic-era social distancing requirements upended working habits. Earlier this year, the Food Institute reported a movement known as 3:45 Dinner was taking hold.

“It’s less about eating dinner at 3:45pm sharp and more about a broader cultural shift toward earlier dining habits – whether such meals include the whole family or just the kids,” the report read.

Of course, many restaurants offer all-day menus. It is possible that such locations – mid-range kitchens not so set on attire or occasion – were always absorbing the early dining crowd. Yet the numbers support a shift away from later meals that accelerated during and after the pandemic.

Yelp, which collects data from its reservation service and other sources, notes that 10 percent of evening meals in 2023 took place between 2-5pm, a figure that doubled since its 2019 study.

While Muramatsu says the early dining rush “is not crazy, so far,” Phillips was forced to tweak the hours at his steakhouse, The Whaling Station near Cannery Row. It now opens a half hour earlier, at 4:30pm.

“Often there was a line of people waiting,” he explains. “Dinner is trending earlier.”

A study of popular habits that spanned 2018 to 2022 published as the American Time Use Survey found that mealtimes have been dropping across the country. Pennsylvanians gather at the table at 5:37pm, on average. In Maine, people prefer to wait a few minutes longer, placing orders at 5:40pm.

In California, 6:19pm is the norm, probably because of traffic.

There are suggestions that the trend is actually aligning more closely with at-home dining habits. Meals have always been planned for times when family members get home from work and school – a relatively steady range of 5-7:30pm over the past 50 years. Nights out at fine dining establishments were more special occasions.

Indeed, when the Sardine Factory opened in 1968, evening wear was a social norm at upscale places.

The dining timeline is not the only shift that has occurred. People are far more casual in their approach to the evening meal, even when white tablecloths are involved.

“Dining a little earlier gives guests the chance to extend the evening – whether that means relaxing with a cocktail in our lounge or heading out for a show in town,” Cutino says. “While ‘dinner at 8’ is still classic, we think Sinatra would approve.”