---
title: "Chick-fil-A Flies Past Competition to Become 3rd Largest Restaurant Chain in US"
url: https://burnaze.com/article/2d10fc8c-91ee-4a20-909a-3b267b760afc
source: "1851 Franchise"
original_url: https://1851franchise.com/chick-fil-a-flies-past-competition-to-become-3rd-largest-restaurant-chain-in-us-2710272
category: "Chicken"
industry: "Restaurants"
segment: "Chicken"
published: 2019-06-18T20:15:01.000Z
modified: 2026-11-01T02:31:55.246Z
image: https://newimage.1851franchise.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=85,format=webp,width=1280,height=720/story/featureImage/54f496e7d88babe107283959059722fa9446.jpg
---

# Chick-fil-A Flies Past Competition to Become 3rd Largest Restaurant Chain in US

**TL;DR:** Chick-fil-A has become the 3rd largest restaurant chain in the US, with systemwide sales growing 16.7% to $10.46 billion in 2018. The chain jumped past Wendy's, Burger King, Taco Bell, and Subway in the rankings, coming in after Starbucks and McDonald's.

*originally published in 1851 Franchise on 2019-06-18. [Read the original](https://1851franchise.com/chick-fil-a-flies-past-competition-to-become-3rd-largest-restaurant-chain-in-us-2710272).*

## Story

Nation’s Restaurant News has released its annual Top 200 analysis, and the results are in: Chick-fil-A is doing something right. According to Business Insider, the chicken franchise jumped to No. 3 on the ranking of the largest restaurant chains in the U.S. after growing systemwide sales 16.7% to $10.46 billion in 2018.

Chick-fil-A was named the No. 7 largest chain last year, flying past Wendy’s, Burger King, Taco Bell and Subway to come in after No. 2 Starbucks and No. 1 McDonald’s this year.

"I would be surprised if they didn't double that in the not-too-distant future," Kalinowski Equity Research founder Mark Kalinowski told Business Insider last month. "Can they reach $30 billion? I think that's also a realistic goal if you give them enough time. And that should put them ahead of Starbucks."

## Entities

- 1851 Franchise (publication)
- Restaurants (sector)
- McDonald's (company)
- Nation's Restaurant News (publication)
- Taco Bell (company)
- Wendy's (company)
- Starbucks (company)
- Burger King (company)
- Subway (company)
- Chick-fil-A (company)
- systemwide sales (topic)
- restaurant rankings (topic)

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Originally reported by 1851 Franchise (https://1851franchise.com/chick-fil-a-flies-past-competition-to-become-3rd-largest-restaurant-chain-in-us-2710272). Summarized by Burnaze (https://burnaze.com/article/2d10fc8c-91ee-4a20-909a-3b267b760afc).