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A look at which chains stood out in 2021

A Deeper Dive: The podcast features Technomic’s Joe Pawlak, talking about how big chains were able to recover so quickly from the pandemic. By Jonathan Maze on Apr. 13, 2022

What chains recovered the most from the pandemic?

This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast “A Deeper Dive” features Joe Pawlak, managing principal with RB sister company Technomic, to talk about the latest Top 500 Chain Restaurant Report.

The 500 largest restaurants grew sales by 18% in 2021—and more than 8% over 2019, effectively recovering from the pandemic. They generated $361.2 billion in total sales.

Pawlak talks about why they’ve been able to grow more quickly than anybody anticipated.

He talks extensively about what sectors did best, notably fine dining along with some of the biggest chains in the U.S.

Among the companies featured in this podcast are McDonald’s, Burger King and, of course, Chick-fil-A.

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A Deeper Dive  News  Top 500 2022 
Restaurant Business Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Maze is a longtime industry journalist who writes about restaurant finance, mergers and acquisitions and the economy, with a particular focus on quick-service restaurants.
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