From Casual Dining to Fast Food: How Chain Restaurants Are Surviving and Thriving in 2023

Olive Garden has been ranked among the top chain restaurants in the United States, despite the dominance of fast-food and fast-casual chains in the industry. While there have been challenges this year, such as Red Lobster’s bankruptcy filing, there are also many opportunities for chain restaurants as they compete with fast-food chains for value-driven customers. From Olive Garden to Denny’s, there are many popular chain restaurants that you may have visited in the past year.

According to a report from research firm Technomic, which is based on historical data and analyzes trends in the food service industry, the top 500 biggest chain restaurants in the US were identified. For this list, we looked at the top 15 chains listed as casual dining, midscale, or family-style, excluding fast-casual or quick-service restaurants like Chipotle and McDonald’s. The report includes each chain’s annual sales and unit counts for 2023, as reported by Nation’s Restaurant News.

Listed in the report are some of the biggest chain restaurants in the US according to Technomic’s analysis: Dunkin Brands Group (founded in 1948) with $14 billion sales and over 13,000 units; Subway (founded in 1965) with $12 billion sales and over 43 thousand units; Wendy’s (founded in 1969) with $9 billion sales and over 7 thousand units; Burger King (founded in 1957) with $8 billion sales and over 6 thousand units; Taco Bell (founded