Chicken proved that it wasn’t just a flash in the pan in 2021, with eight of the 10 biggest limited-service chicken restaurant chains growing sales year-over-year.
In the annual Top 500 report, powered by Datassential, Nation’s Restaurant News breaks down the 500 biggest restaurant chains in the U.S. by systemwide sales, domestic units and average unit volumes. The full data also identifies chains by segment, so here we’ve broken out the 10 biggest limited-service chicken restaurants by U.S. systemwide sales, out of 38 that appear on the full list.
Of these 10 chains, the seven biggest grew sales year-over-year — from a pandemic year during which limited-service and chicken both thrived, and those that declined were by less than 4%.
Within the Top 10 LSR chicken chains, one is new to the list while another — El Pollo Loco — has fallen out. Of the mainstays, Raising Cane’s has leapfrogged three restaurants with its 38% growth.
Click through the gallery to see the 10 biggest limited-service chicken restaurants in the U.S.
