US Cities With the Most Chain Restaurants

Published: April 2, 2024 by Colman Andrews

Restaurant chains have been around for more than a century in America. The first one, in fact, traces its origins back to the 1870s. This was Harvey House, a group of restaurants and hotels established by a British-born railway agent named Fred Harvey, who recognized the need for hospitality businesses along the nation’s railroad lines.

Harvey opened his first three places, cafes with inns attached, in 1876 — two in Kansas and one in Colorado. The chain eventually grew into more than 80 locations, not counting 30 Harvey-branded dining cars. The chain shrunk along with the decline in railway travel, but Harvey’s company was bought in 1968 by the Xanterra Travel Collection, which is the country’s largest national and state park concessionaire.

The oldest restaurant chain that still exists debuted with a roadside root beer stand opened in California’s Central Valley in 1919 by one Roy W. Allen. The stand gave birth to the A&W restaurants (the name drawn from the initials of Allen and his business partner, Frank Wright), now a 506-unit operation in 36 states. The first hamburger chain, White Castle — famed for its sliders — appeared just two years later, in Wichita, KS, and now has 350 locations.

A&W and White Castle were just the beginning, of course. According to the food business digest site FoodIndustry.com, as of 2023, there were about 349,000 chain restaurant businesses around the country, constituting almost half of the total number of restaurants. Almost 21,000 of those chain businesses are Subway stores; it’s the nation’s largest chain in number of units, followed by McDonald’s with about 13,500.

Some U.S. cities have a much larger proportion of chain restaurants than others. To determine those cities where the most restaurants are chains, 24/7 Tempo reviewed data from “Measuring McCities: Landscapes of Chain and Independent Restaurants in the United States,” a project of the Friendly Cities Lab at Georgia Tech University.

All the cities on this list of places with the most chains compared to their total restaurant population count more than 58% of their eating places as chains — and in the No. 1 city, Jackson, TN, you might have to do some looking to find an independent restaurant, as almost 70% of its restaurants are chains.

To determine the cities where the majority of restaurants are chains, 24/7 Tempo reviewed data on over 750,000 restaurants from “Measuring McCities: Landscapes of Chain and Independent Restaurants in the United States,” a project of the Friendly Cities Lab at Georgia Tech University. Cities were ranked based on the number of chain restaurants as a percentage of all restaurants within their boundaries. Chain restaurants were defined as those with more than five similarly named restaurant establishments nationwide. Raw data on restaurant locations came from LeadsDeposit in April 2021 and were geocoded using the Google Geocoding API.

Restaurant locations were then aggregated to the city level using spatial place boundaries from the U.S. Census Bureau. Supplemental data on median household income, median home value, and total population are from the Census Bureau’s 2022 American Community Survey and are five-year estimates. Only cities with at least 150 geocoded restaurant locations were considered. (Click here to see the most popular fast-food chains in all states.)

50. Bossier City, LA

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Chains as share of all restaurants: 58.2% (tie)
Median household income: $54,100
Median home value: $187,000
Total population: 62,971

49. The Woodlands, TX

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Chains as share of all restaurants: 58.2% (tie)
Median household income: $142,384
Median home value: $456,400
Total population: 118,402

48. North Little Rock, AR

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Chains as share of all restaurants: 58.2% (tie)
Median household income: $49,166
Median home value: $165,600
Total population: 64,454

47. McKinney, TX

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Chains as share of all restaurants: 58.4%
Median household income: $113,286
Median home value: $400,400
Total population: 196,160

46. Fayetteville, NC

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Chains as share of all restaurants: 58.5%
Median household income: $53,424
Median home value: $158,500
Total population: 208,697

45. Killeen, TX

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