Special Report: R&I Top 400 Chain Restaurants

The Top 400 chains post a 6.8% sales increase while focusing on repositioning brands in a difficult consumer marketplace.

By Scott Hume, Executive Managing Editor -- Restaurants & Institutions, 7/1/2007

Sales growth again outpaced unit growth among R&I’s 43rd Annual Top 400 Chains ranking, suggesting that many multi-unit restaurant operators have adopted top-dog McDonald’s Plan To Win strategy of seeking to be better rather than bigger.

Aggregate systemwide (global and both company-owned and franchised) sales for this year’s 400 largest U.S.-based chains is $277.2 billion, a 6.8% increase over last year’s Top 400 and below the 9.3% sales gain posted in 2006. This year’s Top 400 chains operate roughly 269,000 total global locations, up 3.9%, which is comparable to last year’s 4% unit-count increase.

The following pages group the Top 400 by core-menu type. Here’s how the list breaks out this year (percentages total more than 100% due to rounding):

• Asian (both full and limited service): 0.9% of total Top 400 sales; 0.6% of total Top 400 units.
• Burgers: 33.7% of total sales; 23.3% of total units.
• Cafeteria/buffet: 2.1% of total sales; 1.5% of total units.
• Casual dining: 9.6% of total sales; 3.6% of total units.
• Chicken: 8.1% of total sales; 8.6% of total units.
• Coffee/tea/doughnuts: 7.1% of total sales; 9% of total units.
• C-stores: 1.5% of total sales; 3.8% of total units.
• Family dining: 5.2% of total sales; 3.7% of total units.
• Ice cream/treats: 2.6% of total sales; 8.6% of total units.
• Italian: 2.7% of total sales; 1.3% of total units.
• Mexican (both full and limited service): 4.2% of total sales; 3.9% of total units.
• Pizza: 8.2% of total sales; 13.2% of total units.
• Sandwich/bakery-cafe: 8.2% of total sales; 16.9% of total units.
• Seafood: 2.2% of total sales; 1.1% of total units.
• Steak/barbecue: 3.6% of total sales; 1.3% of total units.

About the Rankings

These rankings are intended to show how the chains that make up the 2007 R&I Top 400 place in individual menu-type categories. Within each segment, concepts are listed in descending order by systemwide food-and-beverage sales.

• For each segment, average unit volume and average check are calculated using data only for those chains that supplied such information or for which estimates were possible. Not all chains in any given category supplied unit-volume or check information.
• Sales data are for calendar year 2006 or for a fiscal year ended between July 1, 2006, and April 1, 2007. Exceptions are noted in the ranking pages.
• For this report, chains are defined as restaurant concepts with more than five locations operating under the same name. In a few instances, concepts with two or more brand names but a single management team (i.e., Checkers Drive-In/Rally’s Hamburgers) are considered one chain.
• All chain sales are worldwide totals (company-owned, franchised and licensed) and are in US$ millions.
• The notation (*) indicates sales are a company-made estimate; (**) indicates sales have been estimated by R&I.