Biggest fast food chain in the world - (2024)

The advent of the hamburger in American culture developed mainly from the emergence of fast food restaurants in different American states. The first real fast food chain was A&W Restaurants. Founded by Roy Allen and Frank Wright in 1919 it was later followed by Billy Ingram and Walter Anderson’s White Castle two years later in 1921. White Castle is in fact the first American fast food restaurant that can be called by this name. But it was with the advent of McDonald’s and other chains in the following decades that the idea of Fast Food became increasingly popular in American society.

McDondald’s was thus born in 1937 . Starting with a small hot dog stand and capitalizing on the great interest on fast food in the United States, brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald gave birth to one of the world’s best-known brands. A brand that to this day, as we shall see later, still ranks first in the number of stores worldwide. A brand that in 1967 also saw the arrival of the famous mascot: Ronald McDonald. But what are the Biggest Fast Food Chains in the World?

Biggest fast food chains

Market size of the quick service restaurant sector in the United States from 2011 to 2020, with a forecast for 2021.

Let’s start with an initial piece of information. The fast food restaurant market in the United States alone is worth $296.55 billion in 2021. A figure that is up more than $90 billion from the 2021 figure. But what is the biggest fast food chain?

The world’s top fast food restaurant chain is McDonald’s with 40,100 stores worldwide. McDonald’s is also confirmed to be the most popular chain worldwide in 2021 with over 40,000 stores and sales of over 21.07 billion in 2020. Among the top fifteen positions worldwide the brands are all American. Behind McDonald’s in fact we find Subway. The American multinational company that sells sandwiches, piadinas, salads, and drinks and founded by Fred DeLuca (when he was just 17 years old) has 36,800 stores worldwide in 2021. 2020 revenues stand at $16.1 billion. In third position is another giant: Starbucks. The famous coffee and cake chain has a total of 33.833 stores worldwide and 26.7 billion in revenue. In addition to McDonald’s, Subway and Starbucks in the top positions are KFC, Burger King, Domino’s, Pizza Jut, Dunkin’, Hunt Brothers Pizza and Taco Bello with 7.791 stores on the planet.

Biggest fast food chains in america

But if McDonald’s is the top fast food restaurant chain worldwide, what are the U.S. figures? What are the top fast food chains in the U.S.? In first place among fast food chains is Subway. In fact, with 24,798 units throughout the U.S., it ranks ahead of Starbucks, which has a total of 14,825 stores throughout the United States. McDonald’s, which is first in the world, has a total of 13.914 stores in the United States.

California is the first state in the U.S. in terms of the number of fast food restaurants. In total in the state west of America, the number of limited service restaurants is 30,867. The figure is a livele decline from 2020 where there were 30,867 fast food restaurants. The decline can also be explained by the covid-19 pandemic that brought economic damage. In second place among the states with the most fast food restaurants is Texas with 20,779 restaurants and New York in third with 16,917. Closing the list of states with the most restaurants is Wyoming where there are 356 fast food restaurants. According to data published by the U.S. Bureau of labor statistics in total more than 4 million people work in this industry and the average weekly wage is $349 dollars.

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