Top 500 Chains Growth in 2023
$31 Billion INCREASE IN TOTAL SALES
4,000 NET NEW LOCATIONS
7.1% AVERAGE PRICE INCREASE
“ The Top 10 chains grew 9.1% last year and now represent 44% of all Top 500 sales, up from 42% in 2019.” ment now accounts for $49 bil- lion in total sales. 7 Brew’s immense growth also highlights the rapid expan- sion of drive-thru coffee chains, including Dutch Bros (24% sales growth) and Scooter’s (41% sales growth). Pizza chains of all kinds, however, have hit a plateau. Sales at such chains grew just 3%, after recording just 2.1% sales growth in 2022. Companies like Domino’s, Pizza Hut, Papa Johns and Little Caesars have slowed after thriving coming out of the pandemic.
$53 billion. It is larger than the combined sales of the second and third largest chains, Star- bucks and Chick-fil-A. But both those chains grew at a health- ier clip (12.5% and 14.7%, re- spectively) than did the Chica- go-based fast-food chain (9%). The one major move on the Top 10 came from Chipotle Mex- ican Grill, which leapfrogged Domino’s to be the 9th largest chain. But there is a big drop be- tween the No. 10 and No. 11 chain on the ranking. Domino’s is about $2.6 billion in sales larger than Panera Bread, mean- ing it will be some time before a new chain is able to break into that group. Limited-service restaurants also continued to outperform full-service concepts. Sales at fast-casual chains grew 11.2% last year, followed by quick-ser- vice at 7.9%. But midscale or family-dining restaurants grew 5.7% and casual-dining chains 4.7%. Technomic is a sister company of Restaurant Business. It com- piles the data through a variety of sources, including compa- ny submissions, publicly avail- able documents and estimates.
The ranking features some of the country’s fastest growing chains that have thrived with a combination of strong sales and aggressive unit growth. 7 Brew, the drive-thru coffee chain, was the fastest-growing concept in the country last year, with total system sales growth of 267%, including 350% unit growth. Close behind was the Asian chain KPOT Korean BBQ and Hot Pot, which grew sales by 252%. Dave’s Hot Chicken, which has been among the fastest growing chains in recent years, doubled in size in 2023. But for all of that growth there were plenty of chains that saw steep declines. That in- cludes Boston Market, the big- gest decliner of the year, with sales cut 57%. That likely has fallen much further this year as more of its restaurants have closed. The casual dining chain O’Charley’s closed more than half of its units and saw sales decline 48%. Chicken chains continued to thrive, with sales in that seg- ment up 12% in 2023, the fifth straight year of double-digit sales growth. Led by companies like Chick-fil-A, Raising Cane’s, Popeyes and Wingstop, the seg-
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