The 15 biggest chain restaurants in the US, ranked

Reading time 5 minutes
Restaurants

Minnesota shoplifting bust narrowly thwarts potential mass-shooting planned by suspect: ‘Deathtoamerikka’

Food

The 15 biggest chain restaurants in the US, ranked

Erin McDowell

2024-06-30T13:07:03Z

Read in app

Angle down icon
An icon in the shape of an angle pointing down.

Olive Garden ranked among the top chain restaurants in the US.

Sarah Schmalbruch/Business Insider

Technomic data analyzed by Nation’s Restaurant News ranks the top 15 US chain restaurants.
Olive Garden, Texas Roadhouse, and Applebee’s lead in casual-dining chain restaurants.
Waffle House has the most restaurants on this ranking with 1,985 locations.

While fast-food and fast-casual chains dominate the industry, many casual-dining and family-style chain restaurants are also thriving.

This year, there have been challenges — Red Lobster’s recent bankruptcy filing sent shockwaves through the industry — and opportunities for chain restaurants, which are now competing with fast-food chains for value-driven customers.

From Olive Garden to Denny’s, you’ve likely visited at least one of these chains in the past year. But which chains are faring better than others?

The research firm Technomic recently identified the top 500 biggest chain restaurants in the US. The report, which Technomic said is based on “decades of historical data,” analyzes trends in the food service industry and includes each chain’s annual sales and unit counts for 2023, which were also reported by Nation’s Restaurant News.

We looked at the top 15 chains listed as casual dining, midscale, or family-style for this list. Fast-casual or quick-service restaurants like Chipotle and McDonald’s are not included. We also listed the year the company was founded, its 2023 sales, and restaurant count, per Technomic’s report.

Here are the biggest chain restaurants in the US.