The restaurant and hospitality industry remains one of America’s largest sources of jobs. Accommodation and food services occupations make up 8.35% of all U.S. employment—a massive footprint that touches every region and city size. By 2033, it’s estimated that one in every eight new jobs will belong to this sector.
But what does that mean for an individual job seeker weighing where to live and work? What are the best cities for chefs and hospitality jobs in 2025?
We analyzed major U.S. metro areas to find the places that combine immediate opportunity, future growth, career mobility, and livability for people in restaurant and hospitality careers.
To do it, we looked at data including employment data, international tourism intensity, projected job growth by role, career progression signals across different career pathways, and more. But before we dive into our detailed findings and methodology, let’s take a look at some of the key takeaways from our research. (Jump down to see our methodology)
First, a quick note on terminology. For the most part, we evaluated data for metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs)—geographical regions that encompass cities and their surrounding areas. Many government statistics are reported at the MSA-level, rather than for individual cities, making this the preferred unit for conducting analysis. However, for readability, we will often refer to each MSA by the principal city at its core.
To conduct our analysis, we ranked the largest U.S. metro areas (MSAs) using four lenses:
We assigned each MSA a score in each of these subcategories, then combined them into an aggregate score out of a possible one hundred points. These were the results.
| Rank | Metropolitan Statistical Area | Score |
| 1 | New York–Newark–Jersey City, NY-NJ MSA | 100.00 |
| 2 | Las Vegas–Henderson–North Las Vegas, NV MSA | 94.07 |
| 3 | Orlando–Kissimmee–Sanford, FL MSA | 85.46 |
| 4 | Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington, TX MSA | 79.53 |
| 5 | Austin–Round Rock–San Marcos, TX MSA | 76.15 |
| 6 | San Antonio–New Braunfels, TX MSA | 74.30 |
| 7 | Miami–Fort Lauderdale–West Palm Beach, FL MSA | 73.02 |
| 8 | Houston–Pasadena–The Woodlands, TX MSA | 71.38 |
| 9 | Seattle–Tacoma–Bellevue, WA MSA | 60.48 |
| 10 | St. Louis, MO-IL MSA | 52.97 |
| 11 | Charlotte–Concord–Gastonia, NC-SC MSA | 51.50 |
| 12 | Tampa–St. Petersburg–Clearwater, FL MSA | 46.20 |
| 13 | Denver–Aurora–Centennial, CO MSA | 43.77 |
| 14 | San Francisco–Oakland–Fremont, CA MSA | 43.19 |
| 15 | Nashville-Davidson–Murfreesboro–Franklin, TN MSA | 41.24 |
| 16 | San Diego–Chula Vista–Carlsbad, CA MSA | 40.45 |
| 17 | Portland–Vancouver–Hillsboro, OR-WA MSA | 39.77 |
| 18 | Boston–Cambridge–Newton, MA-NH MSA | 35.55 |
| 19 | Los Angeles–Long Beach–Anaheim, CA MSA | 33.59 |
| 20 | Atlanta–Sandy Springs–Roswell, GA MSA | 29.87 |
| 21 | Washington–Arlington–Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV MSA | 28.68 |
| 22 | Sacramento–Roseville–Folsom, CA MSA | 25.27 |
| 23 | Riverside–San Bernardino–Ontario, CA MSA | 24.78 |
| 24 | Indianapolis–Carmel–Greenwood, IN MSA | 24.21 |
| 25 | Columbus, OH MSA | 17.63 |
| 26 | Baltimore–Columbia–Towson, MD MSA | 16.69 |
| 27 | Detroit–Warren–Dearborn, MI MSA | 15.57 |
| 28 | Cleveland, OH MSA | 14.79 |
| 29 | Phoenix–Mesa–Chandler, AZ MSA | 14.70 |
| 30 | Pittsburgh, PA MSA | 13.15 |
| 31 | Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN MSA | 12.07 |
| 32 | Chicago–Naperville–Elgin, IL-IN MSA | 12.07 |
| 33 | Kansas City, MO-KS MSA | 8.50 |
| 34 | Philadelphia–Camden–Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD MSA | 4.09 |
| 35 | Minneapolis–St. Paul–Bloomington, MN-WI MSA | 0.00 |
A few comments on the results, before moving on to take a closer look at our top performers.
New York City combines the country’s largest market with strong career potential across multiple industry pathways, a high management wage ceiling, and sizable above-national growth potential for the sector as a whole. Translation: not just more positions, but more rungs on the ladder and more headroom for earnings. While the city’s livability is middling-to-below-average, the sheer scale of opportunity more than makes up for it.
There are some notable regional trends in the results, with Texas and Florida packing the top of the list—six of the top ten MSAs belong to one of those two fast-growing states. While the population boom in those parts of the country certainly helps, these high-performers also show a consistent pattern: many restaurants and hotels, healthy tourism channels (especially Orlando and Miami), and strong management progression tracks. For Texas in particular, the combination of high job growth plus management wage possibilities push multiple metros into the top echelon. Florida’s top cities benefit from tourism intensity and broad employment mix, even when affordability is average at best.
On the flipside, Metros across Ohio and Pennsylvania tend to post negative growth deviations versus national trends and softer progression scores—particularly on management pathways—pulling them toward the bottom of the ranking. For a number of MSAs, the industry is actually projected to shrink over the coming years, offering fewer job opportunities and less wage growth than other parts of the country. Job seekers may struggle to get ahead in these areas, at least for the near future.
With that said, let’s take a closer look at the cities that stood out in our rankings.
The country’s largest hospitality market takes the crown with top-tier progression across kitchen and management tracks and the largest positive growth deviation when scaled by its enormous job base. It’s also home to a dense restaurant ecosystem—from indie operators to prestige kitchens—which helps create both entry points and high-end roles. Affordability remains a challenge, so the calculus favors those prioritizing opportunity scale and advancement.
Vegas thrives on tourism intensity and hospitality concentration, pushing it to #2 overall. The city’s structure favors plentiful entry roles, rapid exposure to high-volume operations, and clear steps toward supervisory/managerial positions. Wages and cost dynamics are balanced enough that mobility is achievable early, with strong demand stability tied to conventions and travel.
Orlando’s tourism-per-capita advantage anchors consistent demand for both restaurants and hotels. It also posts a healthy employment share in hospitality, which supports entry and mid-career growth. Add in competitive management pathways and moderate affordability, and you get an attractive mix for workers seeking volume, stability, and movement up the ladder.
DFW brings breadth: lots of establishments, solid tourism flows for a business-centric market, and robust management tracks with competitive wages. Future growth signals are strong across top roles, and affordability is comparatively better than coastal markets—helping the overall score despite lower tourism intensity than vacation hubs.
Austin pairs a vibrant independent scene with sustained demand growth and respectable management wage steps. While affordability pressures are real, career mobility and growth deviation are favorable enough to keep Austin in the top five, especially for culinary professionals looking to move from line roles into leadership.
To uncover the best places for chefs and hospitality professionals in 2025, we first defined a pool of metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) to work with. We selected all MSAs with a population larger than two million people, as of the most recent Census data available (2024).1 This yielded a cohort of 35 MSAs.
We then analyzed data for those MSAs across four key dimensions: Immediate Opportunity, Future Potential, Career Progression, and Livability.
For Immediate Opportunity, we looked at: the number of restaurant and hospitality establishments per capita using U.S. Census County Business Patterns (CBP) data;2 the share of local jobs in hospitality, using data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS);3 and overseas tourism per capita data, using figures from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration.4
For Future Potential, we used long-term U.S. Department of Labor employment projections for three leadership-track roles: Chefs & Head Cooks, Food Service Managers, and Lodging Managers.5 This data was only available at the state level. We calculated each area’s projected job growth and compared it to the national average for that role, weighting the difference by the size of the current job base.
For Career Progression, we built three subscores—back-of-house, front-of-house, and hotel—based on the ratio of senior to feeder roles (like front-line supervisors versus management-level positions) and the wage increases between those roles.3 Higher ratios and bigger wage jumps signal a stronger path to advancement. This data was derived from BLS records.
Finally, for livability we factored in a cost-of-living benchmark from MIT’s Living Wage Calculator for a single adult with no children,6 compared it to average service-industry wages, and added a quality-of-life score from U.S. News.7
Each metric was normalized to a 0–100 scale, then weighted as follows: Immediate Opportunity (40%), Future Potential (20%), Career Progression (25%), and Livability (15%). We combined those weighted scores into a composite for each metro and re-normalized them to produce the final Topline Score used in our rankings.
Our results show that hospitality opportunity isn’t just about how many restaurants a place has—it’s about how quickly you can move up and whether life is workable while you do it. In 2025, a handful of metros manage to deliver all three: jobs now, growth tomorrow, and real ladders to climb.
