Tired of all the Christmas dinners? Here are 13 maps about the American fast food industry

Author: Phillip Reich

With more than 20,000 locations, Subway is the largest system catering chain in the US: at the end of 2021, the sandwich manufacturer operated a total of 21,147 restaurants, more than 5,500 more than the coffee chain Starbucks in second place. place with McDonald’s the first burger producer. Domino’s and Pizza Hut are in a neck-and-neck race for pizza chains, with Domino’s currently on top.

While Subway is the largest fast food chain in the United States, McDonald’s is the most popular in each of the 50 states. The starting point for this study was the average number of restaurant visits per month. The 13,348 McDonald’s locations are therefore much more visited than the 21,147 Subway stores.

While we’re at McDonald’s, it’s worth taking a quick look across the Atlantic. In Europe, each country has its own nickname for the American fast food giant. In Switzerland we usually just call the hamburger chain “Mac”. Similar abbreviations have become common in the rest of Europe – except in Sweden, where McDonald’s is called “Donken” for short. It is not entirely clear where this term comes from. It is believed to be the short form of the former nickname “Mackedonken”.

McDonald’s is at home in almost all European countries – only Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia, Albania, Russia and Iceland have no “Mac” outlets, according to the following map from a Reddit user. The hamburger giant withdrew from Russia because of the war in Ukraine, and from Iceland after the 2008 financial crisis. Tacos and burritos are available.

Back to the US: Here comes the question of which fast food restaurants attract the second most customers per month after McDonald’s. The answer is much more diverse: in the north that is sandwich giant Subway, in the so-called Bible Belt hamburger chain Sonic and chicken producer Chick-fil-A.

The map below shows the fast food chain with the most visited individual establishment in each state. It is no longer the size of the brand that matters, but the location of the restaurant. McDonald’s is losing significant ground, Chick-fil-A dominates the South and In-N-Out dominates the West. With Charley’s, Church’s and White Castle, a few small burger chains have also seized probably the best restaurant location in some states.

In addition to burgers, Americans also love fried chicken. In terms of number of restaurant visits, however, there is no clear favorite. KFC, Cane’s, Popeyes, Church’s, Zaxby’s and Bojanges each take first place in different states.

The country is similarly divided when it comes to Tex-Mex chains. Although Taco Bell and – despite significantly fewer locations – also Chipotle dominate in the number of restaurant visits per month, Moe’s and Qdoba also grab a few states. With Del Taco taking the top spot in Oklahoma and Utah, there is even a fifth franchise involved.

Restaurant visits are definitely the most telling metric, but which fast food chain is the most popular online? In most states, McDonald’s generates the most searches. In the West, Starbucks seems to be attracting the most interest, while in the Great American West (Wyoming, Montana, Idaho) and South it’s pizza maker Domino’s.

The following map shows how popular fast food is in the US. A system catering chain is headquartered in each of the 50 states.

The fast food capital of the US is Orlando, Florida. There are no less than 18.4 fast food restaurants per 10,000 inhabitants. Of the states, Alabama tops the list, with rural areas having significantly more fast food restaurants per capita than urban centers on the East and West Coasts.

The next two maps show how the fast food chains’ locations are distributed across the US. While the big chains have spread a network of branches that covers almost everything, the smaller ones still clearly show where they started their campaign through the fast food nation.

A different version of the map with slightly smaller dots for each store, as well as a different franchise selection.

Last but not least, the most important: the burgers. The online magazine Mental Floss used a ranking from the polling platform ranker.com to create a map of the most popular fast-food burgers in all 50 US states. Striking here: in the west the double-double of In-N-Out dominates, otherwise the various burgers of Five Guys seem to be particularly popular. Burger King’s Whopper is the most popular burger in three states, while McDonald’s is empty-handed in this ranking.