Square Data Reveals America's "Summer of Aperitivo" as Spritzes Surge and Happy Hour Drives the Bar Scene

New report shows bright, low-ABV spritzes climbing fast as consumers shift their drinking earlier in the day, with New York City leading the charge

Square’s latest food and beverage data shows a clear seasonal story taking hold across bars nationwide: consumers are trading spirit-forward classics for bright, bitter, low-ABV spritzes, and increasingly doing their drinking earlier in the evening. Square analyzed cocktail sales data alongside bar transaction timing across the U.S. – with a special look at New York City – to understand what’s driving the “aperitivo” moment. And while summer 2026 is still underway, the data collected so far provides strong directional insight into where the trend is heading.

Spritzes are the fastest-growing drinks on the menu

Across Square sellers, spritz varieties posted some of the largest year-over-year gains of any cocktail category. Hugo Spritz orders were up 153.2% year-over-year. Campari Spritz orders rose 68.5%, while Limoncello Spritz orders grew 75.0% – both categories also saw average prices climb, up 16.2% and 7.3% respectively. Aperol Spritz, the category’s longtime standard-bearer, grew a steady 14.7% in orders.

By contrast, spirit-forward classics were flat to declining this summer: Old Fashioned orders dipped 1.1%, Mojito orders fell 7.6%, and Manhattan orders slipped 1.3%. Where classics did see revenue gains, it came from higher prices rather than more drinks sold – the opposite of the spritz category, which is growing in both volume and price simultaneously.

A decade in the making

The spritz boom isn’t a single-season blip – it’s the product of ten years of steady momentum. Last year, Square data shows total U.S. spritz orders during the summer season (defined as June 21–Sept 22 per year) had a roughly 22-fold increase from 2016 to 2025, with associated sales climbing 45-fold over the same period. Average price per spritz has more than doubled, from $4.89 to $10.15.

Growth has cooled from its early highs. While orders were up as much as 99% year-over-year in 2018, growth settled into a steady 6.5% rate in 2025. That’s the signature of a trend that has moved from novelty to permanent menu fixture, with growth being viewed across a consistently large base.

2026 so far: growth continues, increasingly from new venues

With the 2026 season already underway, early data points to the trend not just continuing but broadening. Through the first six weeks of summer, total spritz orders paced roughly 24% ahead of the same point last year. Most of this summer’s growth so far is coming from new venues adding spritzes to their menus for the first time – a sign that the category is still expanding its footprint even as its most established venues normalize.

Hugo Spritz remains the standout: early-summer data has it pacing roughly 103% ahead of last year’s full-summer total, an even faster clip than last year’s already-remarkable growth. Limoncello Spritz and Campari Spritz are both continuing to grow as well, and prices are climbing across the board – the average spritz now costs $10.49, up from $10.15 a year ago.

The cocktail hour is moving earlier

Beyond what’s in the glass, Square data shows that when people are drinking is shifting too. Nationally, Happy Hour (5–8pm) has captured a larger share of bar transactions every year since 2019, rising from 23.19% to 24.70% of transactions in 2025. Late Night (11pm–4am) has moved in the opposite direction, falling from 24.08% to 21.55% over the same period – the steepest decline of any daypart. The shift holds up across every day of the week, from Monday through Saturday, pointing to a broad change in drinking habits rather than a weekend-only phenomenon.

NYC continues to be the largest spritz market

Nowhere is the happy hour shift more visible than in New York City. Happy hour’s share of NYC bar transactions has grown every year since 2019, from 15.2% to 18.8% in 2025, and climbing further to 19.4% in the first five months of 2026. That’s nearly three times the pace of the national happy hour gain over a comparable period. While the “city that never sleeps” remains committed to late night activity – and is the national leader on this front – there has been a steady redistribution of drinking hours.

Late night has fallen from 48.0% of NYC transactions in 2019 to 38.9% so far in 2026, marking a steady decline as happy hour takes that share of activity. This again signals a greater aperitivo culture, as customers opt into a light, pre-meal drink and small savory snacks in the early evening (typically between 6:00 PM and 8:00 PM).

New York’s spritz volumes had cooled slightly in 2025 even as the happy hour occasion kept growing, suggesting the city’s early adoption of the spritz trend was stabilizing while the earlier-drinking-hour shift expanded independent of any single drink category. That cooling appears to have been temporary: year-to-date data for 2026 shows NYC spritz orders up 17.5% compared to the same period in 2025, with Hugo Spritz alone up a whopping 174.4% in the city. NYC remains the largest spritz market in the country by volume and sales figures, but it’s no longer the fastest-growing. Houston (+139.7% YTD items), Los Angeles (+45.0%), and San Francisco (+41.6%) are outpacing NYC’s growth rate this year, even off smaller bases. That’s consistent with the broader 2026 story: the category’s next chapter of growth is increasingly coming from cities and venues beyond the original coastal hubs that adopted it first.

“This data isn’t just interesting – it’s actionable, and the sellers that win are using their data to make meaningful business decisions,” said James Schonzeit, Head of Food & Beverage at Square. “When a seller can see that happy hour is growing faster in their city than the national average, or that a certain drink is taking off, they can adjust their hours, their inventory, and their menu accordingly. That’s the real value: helping businesses lean into what’s working and meet customers exactly where they are, with the products that they want most.”

A new spritz has entered the scene

One more early-2026 data point that caught our attention: Sarti Spritz has appeared in Square’s U.S. data for the first time this year. It’s too new and too small of a seller base to draw any meaningful conclusions from yet, but it’s helping the spritz category continue to broaden beyond its established favorites.

Methodology: Findings are based on menu search terms. Items were identified via keyword matching on item names as entered by sellers. Cocktail sales figures reflect year-over-year order and sales data across Square sellers. Spritz trend data reflects the summer season (June 21–September 22) each year; five-year figures use a stable panel of sellers active in every year studied to control for Square’s own merchant growth, while ten-year and city-level figures use the full seller base over time. Bar transaction timing data requires sellers to be active in every year studied to ensure a consistent seller population.