Every year, Nation’s Restaurant News and Datassential partner to present The Top 500, the definitive sales ranking of restaurants in America.
We also look at unit and estimated sales per unit (ESPU) data in this report.
Three of the restaurants with the fastest-growing ESPUs in 2022 were also among the 10 biggest brands by this metric, but many chains grew without hitting the very top rankings. The highest ESPU among the bunch is $12.1 million, and the lowest is $1.2 million — showing that a chain of truly any size or type can achieve huge growth on the unit level.
Three chains on this list grew ESPU by over 51% from 2021, and all of them grew by at least 18.7%. Seven of these chains are full service — not surprising as those brands continued to climb out of a COVID hole. Three chains on this list are limited service, specifically fast casual.
Last year we assessed average unit volumes, and none of the fastest-growers from 2022 appear on this list, showing that huge growth can be difficult to achieve over longer stretches of time.
Click through this gallery to see the 10 U.S. restaurants that grew estimated sales per unit the most in 2022.
Read more:
- Restaurants ranked No. 50 – No. 1
- See the largest restaurant chains in America ranked by sales, units and more
- 12 things to be learned from the 2023 Top 500 report
- How these 9 restaurant chains thrived in 2022
