The Most Popular Fast Food Brands in America
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Ever since the McDonald brothers created the concept of fast food in 1940, the restaurant’s golden arches have continued to beckon customers to its quick, cheap, and tasty meals. McDonald’s is still the most popular fast food brand in America today—with $46 billion in systemwide sales last year.
This graphic uses data from a report on America’s top 50 fast food chains by Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) Magazine. The popular brands are sized by their 2021 systemwide sales and broken down into six broad categories: Burger, Chicken, Snack, Pizza, Sandwich, and Global.
The Most Popular Fast Food Companies
It’s indisputable that McDonald’s is America’s favorite fast food restaurant, if not the world’s. McDonald’s sales are almost double the second the place restaurant’s, Starbucks—totaling $46 billion compared to the coffee shop’s $24 billion.
Most of the top 20 restaurants are extremely well known, like Chick-fil-A in third place and Taco Bell in fourth. Some of these chains, however, will be unrecognizable depending on which part of the U.S. you live in. While Bojangles is ubiquitous in the Southeast, for example, many on the West Coast may have never heard of it.
Some of the lower ranking restaurants include Shake Shack (#45), White Castle (#50), and the Canadian-founded Tim Hortons (#47).
See an expanded version of this article on visualcapitalist.com
Dataset
Rank | Company | Systemwide Sales (2021) | Category |
---|---|---|---|
#1 | McDonald's | $46.0 billion | Burger |
#2 | Starbucks | $24.3 billion | Snack |
#3 | Chick-fil-A | $16.7 billion | Chicken |
#4 | Taco Bell | $12.6 billion | Global |
#5 | Wendy's | $11.1 billion | Burger |
#6 | Dunkin' | $10.4 billion | Snack |
#7 | Burger King | $10.0 billion | Burger |
#8 | Subway | $9.4 billion | Sandwich |
#9 | Domino's | $8.6 billion | Pizza |
#10 | Chipotle | $7.5 billion | Global |
#11 | Sonic Drive-In | $5.8 billion | Burger |
#12 | Panera Bread | $5.7 billion | Sandwich |
#13 | Pizza Hut | $5.5 billion | Pizza |
#14 | KFC | $5.1 billion | Chicken |
#15 | Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen | $4.8 billion | Chicken |
#16 | Dairy Queen | $4.5 billion | Snack |
#17 | Arby's | $4.5 billion | Sandwich |
#18 | Panda Express | $4.5 billion | Global |
#19 | Little Caesars | $4.2 billion | Pizza |
#20 | Jack in the Box | $4.1 billion | Burger |
#21 | Papa Johns | $3.5 billion | Pizza |
#22 | Whataburger | $2.7 billion | Burger |
#23 | Culver's | $2.5 billion | Burger |
#24 | Raising Caine's | $2.4 billion | Chicken |
#25 | Jimmy John's | $2.3 billion | Sandwich |
#26 | Wingstop | $2.3 billion | Chicken |
#27 | Zaxby's | $2.2 billion | Chicken |
#28 | Jersey Mike's | $2.2 billion | Sandwich |
#29 | Hardee's | $2.1 billion | Burger |
#30 | Five Guys | $2.1 billion | Burger |
#31 | Carl's Jr. | $1.6 billion | Burger |
#32 | Bojangles | $1.5 billion | Chicken |
#33 | In-N-Out Burger | $1.2 billion | Burger |
#34 | Firehouse Subs | $1.0 billion | Sandwich |
#35 | Krispy Kreme | $996 million | Snack |
#36 | Pel Pollo Loco | $973 million | Chicken |
#37 | Tropical Smoothie Cafe | $948 million | Snack |
#38 | Del Taco | $931 million | Global |
#39 | Checkers/Rally's | $931 million | Burger |
#40 | Marco's Pizza | $899 million | Pizza |
#41 | McAlister's Deli | $869 million | Sandwich |
#42 | Qdoba | $835 million | Global |
#43 | Papa Murphy's | $809 million | Pizza |
#44 | Church's Chicken | $776 million | Chicken |
#45 | Shake Shack | $775 million | Burger |
#46 | Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburger | $759 million | Burger |
#47 | Tim Hortons | $687 million | Snack |
#48 | Baskin-Robbins | $686 million | Snack |
#49 | Moe's | $661 million | Global |
#50 | White Castle | $615 million | Burger |
Data sources
Note: a number of these figures are estimates from QSR. Unofficial figures are noted in the graphic with an asterisk.