Zagat, the New York-based inventor of crowd-sourced restaurant reviews, has turned its attention to small fast-casual chains.
The publisher of numerous Zagat Surveys, which tabulate reviews by the public on a 30-point scale, asked its audiences in 15 U.S. cities and Toronto to rate chains selected by its editors.
Rather than ask about large, national fast-casual chains such as Chipotle Mexican Grill and Panera Bread, the editors honed in on restaurants with between two and 50 locations and that focused on a specific meal, such as lunch or dinner, rather than snacks. They excluded coffee, doughnut and ice cream shops. They defined fast-casual chains as those with counter service that offer higher quality food with less frozen or processed ingredients than “fast food” chains.
Participants in the survey were asked to rate those restaurants’ “Overall Appeal” on a scale of 0 to 3. The scores were then averaged and the top five chains were ranked in each city.
Zagat surveyed 6,671 people online between June 25 and July 20, all of whom eat in fast-casual restaurants more than once a year.
See the top five chains in each of the cities surveyed:
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