Mellow Mushroom

2016 Top 500 restaurant chains

More than half of the restaurant industry’s $491 billion in sales come from the Top 500 chains. And these giants grew at a modestly stronger rate, both in terms of sales and store counts, than the industry overall. Restaurant Business focused on the leading 250 performers to identify trends for our first-ever special report delivering lessons from Technomic’s annual Top 500 Chain Restaurant Report. This special package includes lessons for all operators from the largest chains by segment, menu category and more.

Top 500 Chains

Mellow Mushroom

The psychedelic-themed pizza chain recently launched a “skinny” menu

The potato has been bashed more often than mashed these last couple of years, as carbohydrate-phobic Americans pushed spuds off their plates and consumption took a nosedive.

Soy sauce is both remarkably complex and extraordinarily simple: complex because it contains more than 300 individual flavor components and amino acids that give it a distinctive flavor and bouquet; and simple because it is made from just four ingredients—water, wheat, soybeans and salt—transformed through fermentation.

Italian heavyweight Olive Garden increased sales by 3%, helping to drive the menu category's 1.9% sales growth, to $8.5 billion.

See which brand beat Denny’s, Applebee’s and others in a new ranking of full-service concepts by the strength of their customer following.

Restaurants traditionally rely on chicken and turkey to be menu profit makers. Usually in good supply and always a good buy in relation to other proteins, operators often turn to poultry to keep costs in check when red meats and seafood skyrocket. But that strategy may be dampened in the months ahead.

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