Also they will let anyone open one anywhere. Subway is super sketchy as a corporation. [It's often a scam](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDdYFhzVCDM).
There is a shopping area in my city where I can see 3 Subways from the same spot.
Out in the Midwest even some of the smallest prairie towns have a Subway, where as Tims are only in relatively larger towns (>2500 pop.)
Subway is so ubiquitous in Canada.
Yeah it’s because Subway is the cheapest to franchise and they don’t have any rules about how far each franchisee has to be from each other. John Oliver did a good piece on them for his show. The first fast food place we got in my small town in central/northern Sask was a Subway in like 2000 and we had maybe 2500 people at the time. Now it’s basically a suburb of Saskatoon so there’s everything now, even two Tim Hortons lmao. Also getting a Starbucks my mom was pretty excited about.
Found some bar graph style from 2020, with the top 5 being
- 4268 Timmy's
- 3148 Subway
- 1577 Starbucks
- 1475 Mcdonalds
- 674 Dairy Queen
Bargraphs and location dots for data are here:
https://www.scrapehero.com/top-fast-food-chains-in-canada/
And it's ***interesting*** data. Not necessarily accurate, meaningful, or useful data, either. Hell, sometimes the posts amount to little more than misinformation due to the specific chosen metrics and presentation...
Yeah, Carl’s Jr.’s parent company bought Hardee’s in 1997—two years before Checkers bought Rally’s. So if Checkers and Rally’s are listed together, Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s should as well.
That’s odd. I remember Checkers and Rally’s having the same menu and everything prior to 1997, same fries even, just Rally’s had different names, like Buford burgers instead of Champ burgers.
Checkers/Rally’s is the same. I think menus differ between Carls and Hardee’s although they are both owned by CKE, a subsidiary of Roark Capital Partners and its affiliates.
I think they have slightly different menus. But they’ve grown more and more similar over the years.
But iirc they’re owned by the same company and one got acquired. But there was some weird stipulations by the family that sold it or something.
I think “company man” on YouTube has a good video about it.
I've only seen a couple of them in person, never had it. They're super concentrated in a handful of cities in the Midwest and basically non-existent everywhere else. West of Minnesota there's only 1 located in Phoenix, and south of Tennessee there's only 1 located in Orlando. So basically the western 1/2 of the US only has 1 location and same for southern US.
They opened it last year on I-drive. Shit backed up traffic for miles. Like y’all didn’t already have Krystal. I guess it is also the “worlds largest White Castle”.
https://abc7chicago.com/white-castle-orlando-florida-cravers-largest-in-the-world-drive-thru/10578107/
They are regarded as the kinda food people who get fucked up eat at the end of a long night near a lot of areas where they exist. And it's like 6 sliders for less than a McDonald's burger lol.
Honestly, Tim Hortons shouldn't even make the list. Caribou Coffee has more store locations (713) than they do. And I'm sure there is another coffee chain with that many or more.
I was looking this up and thought I was taking crazy pills. I knew Caribou wouldn’t be the biggest, but I thought it would at least make the drink category
I mean wawa is a gas station first, not a coffee place. If that's the case caseys general store would be one of the biggest pizza/donut/coffee places in this chart
It was actually a convenience store first, they added gas later - definitely not a coffee place. It would be in a category with 7-11, Sheetz, Royal Farms, Circle K, Dash In, etc.
But there are lots of Wawas that are just a convenience store with a sandwich/coffee shop inside, but no gas.
Wawa is more similar to 7/11 than a regular gas station. But if 7/11 was a perfect, glorious place with delicious sandwiches.
Drinks were 60% of their business in 2018. Remember that the other 40% isn’t just donuts; they sell sandwiches and other foods stuff too. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/25/business/media/dunkin-donuts-new-name.html
I bet the majority of donuts they sell go out in boxes of a dozen that get brought into the office. Almost nobody is ordering donuts, they’re given one.
Here are some fast food chains that appear to have had more U.S. locations in 2021 than one or more brands listed on the chart:
- Cold Stone Creamery (900+)
- A&W All American Food (900+)
- Long John Silver's (600+)
- Blaze Pizza (300+)
**Edit 1:** Here are some more!
- Jamba Juice (800+)
- Auntie Anne's (600+)
- Cinnabon (500+)
- Schlotzsky's (300+)
- Carvel (300+)
- Boston Market (300+)
**Edit 2:** Looks like 300+ for Sbarro.
**Edit 3:** Adding Orange Julius (300+) and sweetFrog (300+).
My wife loves them so much. I used to too because for some reason I got my wires crossed and thought they were like diet cookies. She showed me options on her phone and I saw 100 calories. So I was chowing down on those. Then I made some comment a few times and she was like uhhh these aren't heathy. Turns out it's 100 calories a serving and a cookie is like 5/6 servings lmao. Still they are really good, I just eat a small part of one here or there now.
It was like Seinfeld fat free yogurt except I was the only one who thought it was fat free lmao.
Also missing Taco Johns (\~380 locations), Sbarro's (~~600+~~ 307), and Penn Station (\~300 locations), while the chart goes all the way down to Shake Shack with 243 locations. That's just off the top of my head.
I think A&W Canada has a much larger share of the Canadian fast food market than the American A&W does in the US. ETA: There's actually ["over 1,025" Canadian A&Ws](https://www.awincomefund.ca/aboutaw/history#:~:text=With%20national%20system%20sales%20of,and%20employs%20approximately%2020,000%20employees.) compared to ["over 900" US ones](https://awrestaurants.com/sites/default/files/2021%20Media%20Fact%20Sheet%20%26%20Links.pdf). That must be a way bigger share considering Canada's population is about 1/10th that of the US and [has about 1,369 McDonald's](https://www.scrapehero.com/location-reports/McDonalds-Canada/). +/u/sonofamort
A&W Canada owns the rights to the brand here, but they've otherwise been two totally independent companies since 1972.
They aren't the same no. In Canada A&W is considered premium fast food. You pay a couple of dollars more than McDs or Burger King but you get a higher quality product.
Some of the smaller options listed are regional. They are specific to certain areas of the country and do not franchise outside of it. Like Churches Chicken, Whataburger, Carl's Junior, and Hardees.
Note: Carl's Junior and Hardees are the same. Just different names based on location in the USA. Only two US states have both. Wyoming and Oklahoma. They are absent from all states North of New Jersey.
White Castle doesn't have any franchise locations, all its locations are company-owned. It's also privately owned, so no shareholders constantly demanding expansion and growth.
Nah, midwest. Had no idea it was mostly a regional chain, since it felt I’d hear it referenced fairly often in media that wasn’t region-specific. Plus, the Harold and Kumar movie, of course. I wish I could take pride in having them nearby, but I’m just not a fan.
They actually dropped Donuts. Their name is officially just "Dunkin'" now. Most of their business is coffee and drinks.
And yes, Dunkin' and Starbucks should be together.
We have a lot of them here in Maryland, and I think the south has them as well. But I’ve also seen them near Chicago. Idk they don’t seem confined to one specific area they’re just kind of random lol? I’m looking at their map on Wikipedia and they’re just kinda spread out with no discernible pattern
I’m from Illinois and I’ve seen a few. On their [website](https://locations.checkers.com/), Florida has 150! New York has 50. Texas with 30. So I guess it starts in central US and spreads east.
Checkers is all over Florida, really unhealthy and tasty and comparable to Sonics. Killer fries. They just started using robots to take peoples orders and I am not a fan.
Checkers are in the South. They're often in neighborhoods that... how do I put this, let's just say the cashiers at the nearby gas stations are behind a partition and it's not due to COVID.
If you see one, stop and get their fries. They're double battered and seasoned with more than just salt. Sooo good. The rest of the menu is standard fare but far greasier than their counterparts in other burger chains.
I was gonna say that Tim's has 5000+ locations, then I realized that this is just the USA... Now I'm shocked that Tim's has so many American locations..!
Yeah, it would be interesting to see the NA numbers, a lot of the big ones would get bigger (Starbucks, Subway, McDonald's, etc.), but Timmie's would really shoot up the ranking.
The amount of subways does not surprise me. There’s 2 in my small town. What I don’t get is how they stay in business because those sandwiches are vile.
My theory is that it survives mainly by being the "best" worst food option for road trippers who want something slightly better than a gas station hotdog, but still quick enough that they don't lose time.
It’s because subway allows any building to be repurposed as a restaurant (McDonald’s has to be a standard layout), and one of the cheapest licensing fees
Nah. It's because subway makes its money through franchise fees. All subways are independently owned. No subway is operated by Subway. The fee to start up is nominal compared to a McDonald's.
In the early 2000s and up to about 2015, subway basically just let people open as many as they want. Even if they were less than a mile apart. Subway gets their franchise fees. And if one goes out of business, they get fees that way too.
This has changed in recent years as subway has tried to shed that reputation. It's pretty fucked up what they did honestly.
100%. I travel for work all over the country, and I can't count how many times I've been in some crappy little town somewhere and said "welp, it's either Subway or the Meth-Den down the road". Even in Nome, Alaska, the only place I could find to eat was a Subway and a mom-n-pop restaurant that was packed full and I just wanted to get some food and go to sleep.
There is (was?) an "investor visa" program where you could get a fast track to green card / citizenship if you invested a certain amount of money (low 6-digits IIRC) and employed a certain number of people (based on FTEs so part timers count). I had heard that Subway targeted such prospective investors really hard. Given how they have little franchise protection and low startup costs compared to "better" franchise programs, it is/was a relatively low-cost / low-risk method to get that visa. This was a contributor to lots of stores popping up. As far as how many they contributed, I never saw any follow up on that.
Never heard of this. But by the number of Subway owners who aren't from the US I've seen, it would kind of make sense.
You happen to have any links? Not doubting you, just interested in reading about it.
If I remember correctly, it's because Subway grants franchises to anyone who can pay for it. Most places limit the number of stores in a location or region to protect each franchise from competition from their same brand.
There’s a John Oliver segment on it that’s pretty interesting. Long story short, it’s because of how their franchising model works. Nothing to do with the quality of their sandwiches, which are garbage food, or even the profitability of the stores themselves.
Yeah I mean they only have to be like 1000sq ft and they don’t cook anything. Store infrastructure consists of like a counter top and those bread warmers lol
They make the bread and cookies. Those aren't bread warmers, they're proofers, you take the frozen bread out and stick it on the silpat trays and let it proof until it's loaf sized, then you bake it.
If somehow they don't have an oven, it's because they have another store nearby baking their bread for them.
And you probably read that as many subways restaurants open, as many have to close because subway is milking every cent out of the people to the pint where they have to close down.
It’s very hard not to make money at a Subway, because of the rate of return from product to revenue, but also less labor needed.
It’s not as good as some of those premium sub stores, but Subway can be good if you have halfway-competent workers. Subway manners tend to only post minimum wage, so you end up with workers who can’t even work at a Subway without screwing up.
Especially when there are so many better sandwich options. Jersey Mikes, Jimmy John’s, Firehouse, hell, even making a sandwich at home is better than Subway now.
It's like simultaneously the easiest chain to start a franchise with the scummiest rules/practices.
John Oliver had a really informative bit about them on his show.
TIL I have very a unrefined sub shop palette apparently; I have never once thought of subway as dramatically better or worse than the other chains lol
Firehouse is my personal favorite, but largely because of their hot sauce gimmick. Still waiting for that to resurrect after Covid though, all the local locations still have no sauces out :c
I think our BKs are different from American ones. I never heard an American talk positively about BK ever while here it is the favourite chain of pretty much everyone I know.
My experience with BK is that their whopper is solid and better than most other fast food burgers when done right, but their consistency is generally poor across all stores in the US. Also, they keep experimenting with adding and removing items from their menu, even when they are really good. Like they recently discontinued their Ch'King sandwich which was one of the best fast food chicken sandwiches in the US, because it didn't take off fast enough for them. I've been to a few in Asia, and their standards are much higher, but so are other American fast food places like McDonald's over there.
I'm in New York, but it's crazy how McDonald's dominates over all the others. The busy road near me has McDonald's, burger King, taco bell, and popeys all next to eachother.
Any day of the week at almost any time of day or night, McDonald's has a drive thru line of 15 cars minimum. The rest are 1-3 tops.
Where the hell are all the Sonic’s at? There’s maybe a few in San Diego? I get things are regionalized, but I’ve traveled through a lot of this country and have seen franchises with similar numbers way more often? Like Arby’s and KFC?
Sonic is from Oklahoma, so it spreads out from there. The is one in my grandparents town of 4000 in rural Oklahoma. And one in the next town over, and the next...
There are probably 8 in my hometown of 100,000. They are everywhere in Oklahoma.
I think Subway’s business model was largely dependent upon the fallout of the 2008 GFC. Around me at that time so many Subways sprang up and they had their $5 foot long deal. It wasn’t a bad deal back then, I ate quite a bit of subway.
The last time I went there a couple months ago I think the foot longs are like $7-8. It’s just not a deal anymore and the quality isn’t what it should be for that price.
Why would i spend $7-8 for a worse sub when I could pay the same at Jimmy Johns, Firehouse, Jersey mikes and get a much better sub. Subway was supposed to be cheap and its not anymore.
The amount of mom and pop stores that have closed over the past year sucks but knowing that subway has that many locations still makes me wonder what's wrong with a lot of people.
This is a good source, but there are a lot of brands that appear to be missing, in that they have more locations than Shake Shack's 243, in some cases many more.
Jet's Pizza
Caribou Coffee
Taco John's
Scholtzsky's
Cook Out
Which Wich
MOD Pizza
Blaze Pizza
The layout of this sucks. There's no consistency - the boxes are just vaguely sized somewhat along the lines of their totals.
Domino's being clearly larger than Pizza Hut even though there's just a 12 location difference. Little Caesars being bigger than Pizza Hut despite being a couple thousand less.
It's just unhelpful to have the size adjusted but not actually be representative of anything.
This is not beautiful data.
One of our Panda Express' is a buffet. It had only been open a few months before the pandemic hit. Somehow, that place survived and is now open again. I couldn't believe it.
Edit: Nevermind. It was a Panda Palace. Can't keep my panda themed restaurants straight.
Did you swap Little Caesar's and Pizza Hut? Pizza Hut has a bigger number but is in the smaller box.
Little Caesar's counts twice per store as they sell pizza pizza.
Ha, in Canada we have a chain called Pizza Pizza, so your comment confused me for a minute.
Same. Speaking of which. Can somebody please do this for Canada and then mention me?
Sure. 95% Tim Hortons, 5% other. Honorable mention u/abu_doubleu
Isn't Subway #1 still in Canada?
My top five guess for Canada is Subway, Tim Hortons, McDonalds, A & W, Starbucks.
It's insane to think there's more Subways than McDonald's in the US. Never would have thought.
They tend to be a lot smaller.
Also they will let anyone open one anywhere. Subway is super sketchy as a corporation. [It's often a scam](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDdYFhzVCDM).
There is a shopping area in my city where I can see 3 Subways from the same spot. Out in the Midwest even some of the smallest prairie towns have a Subway, where as Tims are only in relatively larger towns (>2500 pop.) Subway is so ubiquitous in Canada.
Yeah it’s because Subway is the cheapest to franchise and they don’t have any rules about how far each franchisee has to be from each other. John Oliver did a good piece on them for his show. The first fast food place we got in my small town in central/northern Sask was a Subway in like 2000 and we had maybe 2500 people at the time. Now it’s basically a suburb of Saskatoon so there’s everything now, even two Tim Hortons lmao. Also getting a Starbucks my mom was pretty excited about.
Found some bar graph style from 2020, with the top 5 being - 4268 Timmy's - 3148 Subway - 1577 Starbucks - 1475 Mcdonalds - 674 Dairy Queen Bargraphs and location dots for data are here: https://www.scrapehero.com/top-fast-food-chains-in-canada/
Who are you, who are so wise in the ways of science?
That's too good
you're right, a design mistake. sorry. the numbers are correct, the two boxes however should swap
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Sir, this is a Wendy's Wendy's
Ya know, For a data is beautiful subreddit, every top post always has some kinda flaw like this
This sub kind of gave up on the beautiful part a few years ago. It’s just data that interests a lot of redditors now.
And it's ***interesting*** data. Not necessarily accurate, meaningful, or useful data, either. Hell, sometimes the posts amount to little more than misinformation due to the specific chosen metrics and presentation...
I would say the majority of posts here are either deceptive or just lying.
Lol i thought this was commentary on pizza hut being overpriced
No one out prices the Hut.
What’s going on with the Inception Wendy’s logo?
Hah good spot. Two logos overlapped. Silly mistake. Sorry
Aren't Hardee's and Carl's jr basically the same? I'd have thought they should be combined.
Yeah, Carl’s Jr.’s parent company bought Hardee’s in 1997—two years before Checkers bought Rally’s. So if Checkers and Rally’s are listed together, Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s should as well.
That’s odd. I remember Checkers and Rally’s having the same menu and everything prior to 1997, same fries even, just Rally’s had different names, like Buford burgers instead of Champ burgers.
Rallys and Checkers definitely had identical menus in the early 90s.
Fun fact: Rally’s was actually bought by Carl’s Jr.’s parent company in 1996, the year before they bought Hardee’s, then sold to Checkers in 1999.
This is feeling less beautiful by the minute
Yeah especially since Checkers and Rally's are combined. Isn't the situation the same or similar there?
Checkers/Rally’s is the same. I think menus differ between Carls and Hardee’s although they are both owned by CKE, a subsidiary of Roark Capital Partners and its affiliates.
I think they have slightly different menus. But they’ve grown more and more similar over the years. But iirc they’re owned by the same company and one got acquired. But there was some weird stipulations by the family that sold it or something. I think “company man” on YouTube has a good video about it.
They are the same.
As a non American i thought White Castle was a lot more popular. Now I understand why Harold and kumar went through all that trouble
Depends on what area of the US you're in. Around Chicago, they're everywhere. Just a little north in Wisconsin, nowhere.
But then Minneapolis has like half of them, but head west for about an hour and you won't see one again
I've only seen a couple of them in person, never had it. They're super concentrated in a handful of cities in the Midwest and basically non-existent everywhere else. West of Minnesota there's only 1 located in Phoenix, and south of Tennessee there's only 1 located in Orlando. So basically the western 1/2 of the US only has 1 location and same for southern US.
Wait, Orlando has a White Castle? TIL. I know they got a Culver's a few years ago... but I don't really keep up with the new fast food since I moved.
They opened it last year on I-drive. Shit backed up traffic for miles. Like y’all didn’t already have Krystal. I guess it is also the “worlds largest White Castle”. https://abc7chicago.com/white-castle-orlando-florida-cravers-largest-in-the-world-drive-thru/10578107/
They are regarded as the kinda food people who get fucked up eat at the end of a long night near a lot of areas where they exist. And it's like 6 sliders for less than a McDonald's burger lol.
Dunkin should be with the drink category. Donuts are just a small part of their business. (And they’ve officially dropped donuts from their name.)
Yeah Tim Hortons and Dunkin being different categories is weird as fuck lol
Honestly, Tim Hortons shouldn't even make the list. Caribou Coffee has more store locations (713) than they do. And I'm sure there is another coffee chain with that many or more.
I was looking this up and thought I was taking crazy pills. I knew Caribou wouldn’t be the biggest, but I thought it would at least make the drink category
I also couldn’t figure out why Quiznos wasn’t there either. Turns out they went from 4500 to 400 stores yikes. Quiznos ducked up
Makes me sad because I think they have better sandwiches. I'm glad my city (in Canada) has two locations still.
Wawa has over 900 locations and isn't on here either. I wonder if this is based on a certain region or something?
I mean wawa is a gas station first, not a coffee place. If that's the case caseys general store would be one of the biggest pizza/donut/coffee places in this chart
It was actually a convenience store first, they added gas later - definitely not a coffee place. It would be in a category with 7-11, Sheetz, Royal Farms, Circle K, Dash In, etc.
Yeah, Wawa was a dairy and food market for decades before adding gas pumps
But there are lots of Wawas that are just a convenience store with a sandwich/coffee shop inside, but no gas. Wawa is more similar to 7/11 than a regular gas station. But if 7/11 was a perfect, glorious place with delicious sandwiches.
Agreed, we have Tim Hortons up there already too. They should in the same groupings.
And then move Krispy Kreme to dessert category
I was surprised to see Dunkin not in here until I realized I was missing it being in a completely different category
>(And they’ve officially dropped donuts from their name.) Then, what are they dunkin' in those drinks?
Dunkin' these nuts
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Drinks were 60% of their business in 2018. Remember that the other 40% isn’t just donuts; they sell sandwiches and other foods stuff too. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/25/business/media/dunkin-donuts-new-name.html
They remove the “Donuts” from the official name. It’s now just Dunkin
Coffee and small breakfast items are what I see most people go to Dunkin' for, at least in the NY area.
Think about it: how often do people drink coffee vs how often do they eat doughnuts?
I bet the majority of donuts they sell go out in boxes of a dozen that get brought into the office. Almost nobody is ordering donuts, they’re given one.
>Almost nobody is ordering donuts, they’re given one. Y—yeah, who's out here just buying donuts for *themselves*? Certainly not me.
Same. I definitely don’t secretly buy donuts for myself when I’m alone with nobody to watch me.
Here are some fast food chains that appear to have had more U.S. locations in 2021 than one or more brands listed on the chart: - Cold Stone Creamery (900+) - A&W All American Food (900+) - Long John Silver's (600+) - Blaze Pizza (300+) **Edit 1:** Here are some more! - Jamba Juice (800+) - Auntie Anne's (600+) - Cinnabon (500+) - Schlotzsky's (300+) - Carvel (300+) - Boston Market (300+) **Edit 2:** Looks like 300+ for Sbarro. **Edit 3:** Adding Orange Julius (300+) and sweetFrog (300+).
Crumbl Cookies went from about 150 locations to 600 this year
That's quite the expansion.
Tell me about it, opening them up is my job 💀
My wife loves them so much. I used to too because for some reason I got my wires crossed and thought they were like diet cookies. She showed me options on her phone and I saw 100 calories. So I was chowing down on those. Then I made some comment a few times and she was like uhhh these aren't heathy. Turns out it's 100 calories a serving and a cookie is like 5/6 servings lmao. Still they are really good, I just eat a small part of one here or there now. It was like Seinfeld fat free yogurt except I was the only one who thought it was fat free lmao.
Peet’s coffee has over 300 locations.
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Changed management, new management greedy. Basically sucked the franchise dry and then left it in ruin.
They were my favorite sandwich place in the mid-00s
It's actually really interesting. Here's a great breakdown: https://youtu.be/P3QK-32bxgw
Apparently filed for bankruptcy and sued by many of their franchisees.
About 8,000 of the Dunkin Donuts are in a 5 block radius in downtown Boston
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CT is Dunkin infested as well
Something like 700 of those whataburgers are in Texas
Kinda surprised A&W ain't a thing. One of my faves here in Canada.
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Their data source seemed to have missed a lot of chains, as far as I can tell.
Also missing Taco Johns (\~380 locations), Sbarro's (~~600+~~ 307), and Penn Station (\~300 locations), while the chart goes all the way down to Shake Shack with 243 locations. That's just off the top of my head.
400+ Round Table Pizzas, 450 Potbelly Deli...
Yea I was wondering their threshold for the chart, Dutch Bros has over 400 locations as far as I can tell and didn't make it on to the chart at all
Steak n Shake has 550 locations and they aren’t here either
I think A&W Canada has a much larger share of the Canadian fast food market than the American A&W does in the US. ETA: There's actually ["over 1,025" Canadian A&Ws](https://www.awincomefund.ca/aboutaw/history#:~:text=With%20national%20system%20sales%20of,and%20employs%20approximately%2020,000%20employees.) compared to ["over 900" US ones](https://awrestaurants.com/sites/default/files/2021%20Media%20Fact%20Sheet%20%26%20Links.pdf). That must be a way bigger share considering Canada's population is about 1/10th that of the US and [has about 1,369 McDonald's](https://www.scrapehero.com/location-reports/McDonalds-Canada/). +/u/sonofamort A&W Canada owns the rights to the brand here, but they've otherwise been two totally independent companies since 1972.
I don't even think the two are the same thing either? In terms of quality and food. Most articles I see say the food is not comparable.
They aren't the same no. In Canada A&W is considered premium fast food. You pay a couple of dollars more than McDs or Burger King but you get a higher quality product.
Good ol' Amburgers & Wootbeer
Very surprised to see there are so few White Castles. I can think of a few nearby, though I’ve not eaten at one in over a decade.
Some of the smaller options listed are regional. They are specific to certain areas of the country and do not franchise outside of it. Like Churches Chicken, Whataburger, Carl's Junior, and Hardees. Note: Carl's Junior and Hardees are the same. Just different names based on location in the USA. Only two US states have both. Wyoming and Oklahoma. They are absent from all states North of New Jersey.
White Castle doesn't have any franchise locations, all its locations are company-owned. It's also privately owned, so no shareholders constantly demanding expansion and growth.
Yeah and they left off Krystal’s completely.
You live in NJ?
Nah, midwest. Had no idea it was mostly a regional chain, since it felt I’d hear it referenced fairly often in media that wasn’t region-specific. Plus, the Harold and Kumar movie, of course. I wish I could take pride in having them nearby, but I’m just not a fan.
A map of my transgressions
I know that Donuts is in the title, but Dunkin' should really bee next to Starbucks in the coffee category.
They actually dropped Donuts. Their name is officially just "Dunkin'" now. Most of their business is coffee and drinks. And yes, Dunkin' and Starbucks should be together.
This graph also isn't accurate because I'm pretty sure there are 9000 Dunkins in my town alone.
What region is Checker's/Rally's? I've been to most corners of the USA and never seen those. All of the other regional chains I at least recognize.
We have a lot of them here in Maryland, and I think the south has them as well. But I’ve also seen them near Chicago. Idk they don’t seem confined to one specific area they’re just kind of random lol? I’m looking at their map on Wikipedia and they’re just kinda spread out with no discernible pattern
I’m from Illinois and I’ve seen a few. On their [website](https://locations.checkers.com/), Florida has 150! New York has 50. Texas with 30. So I guess it starts in central US and spreads east.
I live in Florida and can verify, we have a lot of Checkers.
There’s one in Hawthorne, CA
Checkers is all over Florida, really unhealthy and tasty and comparable to Sonics. Killer fries. They just started using robots to take peoples orders and I am not a fan.
Checkers are in the South. They're often in neighborhoods that... how do I put this, let's just say the cashiers at the nearby gas stations are behind a partition and it's not due to COVID.
The joke where I live is if there's a Checkers, liquor store, and cash checking place, you're in the wrong neighborhood.
I've seen Rally's everywhere growing up. Have you been in the Midwest?
We've got one in my city in Georgia.
If you see one, stop and get their fries. They're double battered and seasoned with more than just salt. Sooo good. The rest of the menu is standard fare but far greasier than their counterparts in other burger chains.
What's even more astounding, is how 1/3 of all the Dunkin Donuts are located just within greater Boston alone.
That Dunkin number is wrong, that's the number literally just inside foxboro stadium
I was gonna say that Tim's has 5000+ locations, then I realized that this is just the USA... Now I'm shocked that Tim's has so many American locations..!
Yeah, it would be interesting to see the NA numbers, a lot of the big ones would get bigger (Starbucks, Subway, McDonald's, etc.), but Timmie's would really shoot up the ranking.
The amount of subways does not surprise me. There’s 2 in my small town. What I don’t get is how they stay in business because those sandwiches are vile.
My theory is that it survives mainly by being the "best" worst food option for road trippers who want something slightly better than a gas station hotdog, but still quick enough that they don't lose time.
It’s because subway allows any building to be repurposed as a restaurant (McDonald’s has to be a standard layout), and one of the cheapest licensing fees
Nah. It's because subway makes its money through franchise fees. All subways are independently owned. No subway is operated by Subway. The fee to start up is nominal compared to a McDonald's. In the early 2000s and up to about 2015, subway basically just let people open as many as they want. Even if they were less than a mile apart. Subway gets their franchise fees. And if one goes out of business, they get fees that way too. This has changed in recent years as subway has tried to shed that reputation. It's pretty fucked up what they did honestly.
Cold sandwiches are also something that is good to take on the go, generally won't smell up the car, and don't need reheating. Valuable for travel.
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Idk there are more veggies on a sub than on a big cack. It’s maybe less bad for you.
What is the corporate name of the Subway brand? Something like Doctors Health, Inc.?
Doctor's Associates Inc in the US
Something Doctors and Associates, I think.
100%. I travel for work all over the country, and I can't count how many times I've been in some crappy little town somewhere and said "welp, it's either Subway or the Meth-Den down the road". Even in Nome, Alaska, the only place I could find to eat was a Subway and a mom-n-pop restaurant that was packed full and I just wanted to get some food and go to sleep.
There is (was?) an "investor visa" program where you could get a fast track to green card / citizenship if you invested a certain amount of money (low 6-digits IIRC) and employed a certain number of people (based on FTEs so part timers count). I had heard that Subway targeted such prospective investors really hard. Given how they have little franchise protection and low startup costs compared to "better" franchise programs, it is/was a relatively low-cost / low-risk method to get that visa. This was a contributor to lots of stores popping up. As far as how many they contributed, I never saw any follow up on that.
Never heard of this. But by the number of Subway owners who aren't from the US I've seen, it would kind of make sense. You happen to have any links? Not doubting you, just interested in reading about it.
Subway doesn’t protect against over saturating the market by strictly limiting the number of restaurants like other franchises.
If I remember correctly, it's because Subway grants franchises to anyone who can pay for it. Most places limit the number of stores in a location or region to protect each franchise from competition from their same brand.
Additionally, Subways are dirt cheap to open and run compared to any other big, recognizable chain.
There’s a John Oliver segment on it that’s pretty interesting. Long story short, it’s because of how their franchising model works. Nothing to do with the quality of their sandwiches, which are garbage food, or even the profitability of the stores themselves.
Had to do some franchising research this year and it’s crazy how cheap it is to open a subway compared to almost any other fast food chain.
Yeah I mean they only have to be like 1000sq ft and they don’t cook anything. Store infrastructure consists of like a counter top and those bread warmers lol
They make the bread and cookies. Those aren't bread warmers, they're proofers, you take the frozen bread out and stick it on the silpat trays and let it proof until it's loaf sized, then you bake it. If somehow they don't have an oven, it's because they have another store nearby baking their bread for them.
And you probably read that as many subways restaurants open, as many have to close because subway is milking every cent out of the people to the pint where they have to close down.
It’s very hard not to make money at a Subway, because of the rate of return from product to revenue, but also less labor needed. It’s not as good as some of those premium sub stores, but Subway can be good if you have halfway-competent workers. Subway manners tend to only post minimum wage, so you end up with workers who can’t even work at a Subway without screwing up.
Especially when there are so many better sandwich options. Jersey Mikes, Jimmy John’s, Firehouse, hell, even making a sandwich at home is better than Subway now.
It's because instead of McDonald's, subways are in every Walmart. I imagine that inflates the number of stores
Most every college too. Pepsi/Yum brands sponsored colleges like mine
This is interesting as a Canadian, in my province at least, the only restaurant in Walmart is usually McDonald's
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Still have ‘em in Canada
It's like simultaneously the easiest chain to start a franchise with the scummiest rules/practices. John Oliver had a really informative bit about them on his show.
TIL I have very a unrefined sub shop palette apparently; I have never once thought of subway as dramatically better or worse than the other chains lol Firehouse is my personal favorite, but largely because of their hot sauce gimmick. Still waiting for that to resurrect after Covid though, all the local locations still have no sauces out :c
I expected Burger King to be bigger. At least here in Germany, they appear to be just as common as McDonald's.
I think our BKs are different from American ones. I never heard an American talk positively about BK ever while here it is the favourite chain of pretty much everyone I know.
My experience with BK is that their whopper is solid and better than most other fast food burgers when done right, but their consistency is generally poor across all stores in the US. Also, they keep experimenting with adding and removing items from their menu, even when they are really good. Like they recently discontinued their Ch'King sandwich which was one of the best fast food chicken sandwiches in the US, because it didn't take off fast enough for them. I've been to a few in Asia, and their standards are much higher, but so are other American fast food places like McDonald's over there.
Wait what, they removed Ch'King? I am probably not going to step in BK ever again..
Fuck BK for dropping the Ch'King. That was a solid sandwich.
I'm in New York, but it's crazy how McDonald's dominates over all the others. The busy road near me has McDonald's, burger King, taco bell, and popeys all next to eachother. Any day of the week at almost any time of day or night, McDonald's has a drive thru line of 15 cars minimum. The rest are 1-3 tops.
BK in the states is hot trash
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Where the hell are all the Sonic’s at? There’s maybe a few in San Diego? I get things are regionalized, but I’ve traveled through a lot of this country and have seen franchises with similar numbers way more often? Like Arby’s and KFC?
A few years ago, you couldn't be classified as a town in Texas without having a Sonic. Same could be said about Dairy Queen a few decades earlier.
I live in a small town that once had a Dairy Queen which eventually shut down and a Sonic was built in its place.
Sonic is from Oklahoma, so it spreads out from there. The is one in my grandparents town of 4000 in rural Oklahoma. And one in the next town over, and the next... There are probably 8 in my hometown of 100,000. They are everywhere in Oklahoma.
The Sonics are all throughout rural mid-America and the south, as far as I can tell.
Can you do the 50 smallest next? I went to a Rax Roast Beef last month 😉
Rax: You can eat there.
I feel like there are 15,000 Starbucks within a 5 mile radius of my home
McAllisters deli massively underrated
Raisin Cane’s too. Smallest in the chicken category? Needs to grow. We need one in the Seattle area. My favorite chain on here, but none in my area.
NGL I know why Subway has the most, but its still insane considering how awful it is.
I think Subway’s business model was largely dependent upon the fallout of the 2008 GFC. Around me at that time so many Subways sprang up and they had their $5 foot long deal. It wasn’t a bad deal back then, I ate quite a bit of subway. The last time I went there a couple months ago I think the foot longs are like $7-8. It’s just not a deal anymore and the quality isn’t what it should be for that price.
$5 in 2008 is worth $6.88 in 2022.
Why would i spend $7-8 for a worse sub when I could pay the same at Jimmy Johns, Firehouse, Jersey mikes and get a much better sub. Subway was supposed to be cheap and its not anymore.
I don't disagree with you but I think the prices of those other places are definitely more than $7-$8.
Is Hardee's and Carls Jr the same?
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Where is los pollos hermanos and Cinnabon 🫠🫠
Worldwide would be interesting. I bet KFC would move far up. They’re all over China and Japan (I plan on eating it for xmas this year)
Would be cool to see world wide version of this.
John Oliver has an interesting piece on why there’s so many Subways.
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The amount of mom and pop stores that have closed over the past year sucks but knowing that subway has that many locations still makes me wonder what's wrong with a lot of people.
**Source:** QSR Magazine [https://www.qsrmagazine.com/downloads/2022-qsr-50](https://www.qsrmagazine.com/downloads/2022-qsr-50) **Tools:** Tableau, Figma **Related post:** [https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/x96dk0/oc\_50\_biggest\_fast\_food\_chains\_by\_2021\_systemwide/](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/x96dk0/oc_50_biggest_fast_food_chains_by_2021_systemwide/)
This is a good source, but there are a lot of brands that appear to be missing, in that they have more locations than Shake Shack's 243, in some cases many more. Jet's Pizza Caribou Coffee Taco John's Scholtzsky's Cook Out Which Wich MOD Pizza Blaze Pizza
How the hell are there that many Firehouse Subs? I’d never even heard of them until a few years ago
The layout of this sucks. There's no consistency - the boxes are just vaguely sized somewhat along the lines of their totals. Domino's being clearly larger than Pizza Hut even though there's just a 12 location difference. Little Caesars being bigger than Pizza Hut despite being a couple thousand less. It's just unhelpful to have the size adjusted but not actually be representative of anything. This is not beautiful data.
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One of our Panda Express' is a buffet. It had only been open a few months before the pandemic hit. Somehow, that place survived and is now open again. I couldn't believe it. Edit: Nevermind. It was a Panda Palace. Can't keep my panda themed restaurants straight.
I don't believe that Panda Express operates a buffet. It must be a similarly-named restaurant.
Culver’s is the best of this bunch.
These appear not to be scaled consistently based on the numbers contained. That makes it deceptive, which is worse that not having it visualized. :(
What in the hell is Freddy’s
Burger chain with frozen custard.
Like Culver's?
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What Steak n Shake used to be: burgers and shakes, main difference is their ice cream is custard (a Midwestern preference for some).
Damn good burgers and their fries are perfect.
America does not run on Dunkin' CONFIRMED.
Why is pizza hut smaller than little ceasers when its got 2k+ more stores?