I’ve been seeing people forecast their trends for next year—protein will be supplanted by fiber, lab-grown meat, etc. Just for fun (and bragging rights if I get some of these right), here’s my predictions.

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Hojicha, matcha’s nutty, toasted sister, will grow in popularity. It’s already being offered more places in Phoenix, and that will increase in the next year.

Cold foam on coffee and tea beverages will continue its dominance, especially at smaller local coffeeshops. I also see it appearing on more cocktails. Bitter & Twisted has been holding down that fort almost singlehanded for too long.

Phoenix will continue to get locations of major international chains right after Las Vegas gets one. This remains to be the best indicator of when something will open here, unless it originates in Chicago.

The amount of new breweries opening downtown (like Sana Sana and Formation) will slow down. I think the closing of Buqui Bichi foretells that downtown is saturated. Any successful future openings in Phoenix are going to be located midtown or uptown.

More people will do the FODMAP diet, and restaurants will start to offer FODMAP-friendly modifications or dishes. This will be slow growth, though.

The strangely fast-paced growth of oysters in our local scene will slow down. I hope we keep Sottise’s excellent happy hour deal, Shucking & Jiving thrives, and the girl dinner special at Industry Standard sticks around. However, I don’t know how many more bivalve-focused concepts one landlocked city can take.

Late night “reverse” happy hours will continue dying out in the Phoenix food scene. RIP.

Also, I’m just going to leave this here: