By Annie Gasparro and Heather Haddon 

The dozens of Chick-fil-A Nuggets, Taco Bell At-Home Taco Bars and buckets of KFC chicken that Audrey Simes ordered recently have something in common: The meals are big enough to yield leftovers for her family of eight.

"It's a huge, huge help to have that extra food on hand," Ms. Simes said.

She is working from her home in suburban Denver, where she and her husband care for five daughters and her 90-year-old dad. Fast-food leftovers save time and give her a break, said Ms. Simes, who works for a law firm. She has deconstructed a Chick-fil-A wrap to build a salad and cooked her father an omelet from the "guts of a Chipotle burrito."

"I am creative," she said.

The coronavirus has made leftovers newly appealing to families isolated in their homes, eager to save time and money and minimize outside trips. McDonald's Corp., Wendy's Co., Grubhub Inc. and Papa John's International Inc. have all reported a rise in average order sizes. In the U.S., spending per purchase last month rose 18% at fast-food restaurants, according to data-provider Black Box Intelligence, while rising 15% at fast-casual chains such as Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc.

The trend mirrors what is happening broadly in supermarkets and other retailers. Spending per purchase is up as people limit their visits to stores and buy things in bulk online.

The larger restaurant orders aren't enough to compensate for the broader drop in traffic. U.S. restaurants lost some $80 billion in sales in March and April because of the pandemic, according to the National Restaurant Association.

But bigger orders have been a bright spot, restaurants say, and many are capitalizing on the demand for leftovers with new marketing, sales tactics or menu items. Dunkin' Brands Group Inc. restaurant owners have put boxes of doughnuts in drive-through windows to tempt customers to add to their orders.

"It's some real old-school retailing," Dunkin' Americas President Scott Murphy said in an interview. "We are just upselling people."

California-based BJ's Restaurants Inc. is selling a "family feast" along with 32 ounces of margaritas to-go. Denny's Co., eager to boost sales beyond breakfast, is selling bundles of chicken tenders and burgers for four.

Yum Brands Inc., owner of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, has added bulk meals including a $30 KFC dinner that includes two buckets of chicken, coleslaw, biscuits, mashed potatoes and gravy.

"It's enough food to feed your family one night and have something for the following day," Yum's chief executive, David Gibbs, said in an interview.

Mr. Gibbs said Yum's restaurants in Asia have continued to fill larger orders even as the pandemic eases in the region. He said he expects that trend will extend to the U.S. as restrictions slacken and dining rooms begin to reopen.

Uber Technologies Inc.'s Uber Eats division, which introduced a family-meal filter on its app during the pandemic, also is planning for larger orders to stick. The food-delivery service hopes to capture more business with families, executives said Thursday, as it bulks up its position in the competitive U.S. food-delivery sector.

In some cases, multiple generations of families are sheltering under one roof, including children sent home from college, so there are more mouths to feed. Some people say the added risks of venturing out during the pandemic are motivating them to buy more when they do.

Blair Kennedy, a resident of Severna Park, Md., who works in real estate, said he is ordering more carryout with his wife and 2-year-old daughter in part to break up the monotony of being at home all the time.

"The goal is to have enough for lunch tomorrow at least, always," Mr. Kennedy said.

The larger orders and the time it takes to fill them can slow service at some restaurants, whose workers are also being asked to clean more regularly and thoroughly.

Breana Conklin, a worker at a Taco Bell in Branson, Mo., said more customers are ordering items like 24-packs of tacos -- and that has boosted average orders at her store to about $80, compared with $20 before the pandemic.

"There are some very large orders," she said. "Lines have been pretty long."

Regan McGrail said large orders are also on the rise at the Sugarfire Smokehouse restaurant where she works in St. Louis.

"There have been a lot of locals coming in and ordering pounds of meat to get them through the weekends," Ms. McGrail said. She is one of them. Ms. McGrail said she takes salmon and turkey left over from her meals at work to use in salads at home.

Tyler Hood, who works at Austin Beerworks in Texas, said he has been "living that takeout life over and over." His favorite was using leftover Wendy's spicy chicken nuggets and french fries combined with Chick-fil-A Nuggets to make a chicken fried rice. He called it "fast-food fried rice."

Write to Annie Gasparro at annie.gasparro@wsj.com and Heather Haddon at heather.haddon@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 30, 2020 10:14 ET (14:14 GMT)