See the largest restaurant chains in America ranked by sales, units and more
June 22, 2021
The 2021 Top 500 report, presented by Nation’s Restaurant News in partnership with Datassential, offers an unparalleled look at the performance of the country’s largest restaurant chains. Below, you’ll find all Top 500 chains ranked by 2020 annual U.S. sales, and each brand entry also includes 2020 U.S. unit counts and average unit volumes, as well as the year-over-year percent change for all three metrics.
These brands run the gamut from 39 units to more than 22,000 and from $14 million to nearly $40 billion in sales, painting a broad picture of the current restaurant landscape. Additional data and analysis for the 500 chains tracked in this report can be found in the upcoming July issue of Nation’s Restaurant News and throughout the year on NRN.com.
How to use this table
Click on a column header once to sort ascending; click a second time to sort descending; click a third time to return to the default ranking by sales. Use the search function to find a specific brand or brands within a specific segment.*
*Segments in this table are as follows: FSR American; FSR Italian / Pizza; FSR Midscale; FSR Regional / Ethnic; FSR Seafood / Steak; FSR Sports Bar; LSR Bakery-Cafe; LSR Burger; LSR Chicken; LSR Coffee / Bakery; LSR Dessert / Snack; LSR Mexican; LSR Other; LSR Pizza; LSR Salad / Healthful; LSR Sandwich / Deli
Methodology
The Top 500 report is presented by Nation’s Restaurant News in partnership with Datassential and its Firefly 500 data. Restaurant sales estimates and location data come from Firefly, Datassential’s analytics platform with nearly 1.5 million profiles of foodservice operators across North America. For companies not required to share revenue figures publicly, Firefly estimates systemwide sales and average unit volumes based on available corporate documents, such as franchise disclosures and industry research, as well as algorithms proprietary to Datassential.
Update July 8, 2021: The Top 500 report has been updated to reflect newly available information, including revised figures for some restaurant chains.
The Top 500 report is presented by Nation’s Restaurant News and Datassential, using insights from Datassential’s proprietary Firefly platform. Datassential’s Firefly is the ultimate strategic tool — No. 1 operator database, lead generator, customer marketing and intelligence platform, all-in-one. Learn more about getting complete access at datassential.com/firefly
