--- title: "In the restaurant race, steady growth usually wins" url: https://burnaze.com/article/c7ca9d22-0dbe-4285-b1e4-732f3ff9d1fa source: "Restaurant Business" original_url: https://restaurantbusinessonline.com/financing/restaurant-race-steady-growth-usually-wins category: "Restaurants" industry: "Restaurants" published: 2026-10-26T11:00:00.000Z modified: 2026-10-31T14:43:44.898Z image: https://cdn.informaconnect.com/platform/files/public/2026-10/background/Culvers%20shutterstock%202.jpg?VersionId=PYF7N5Y2qz5_s_5EDxP5bvCxnEBZl7D8 --- # In the restaurant race, steady growth usually wins **TL;DR:** Culver's steady growth has allowed it to gain market share, while Crumbl's rapid expansion has led to struggles, including a decline in sales and franchisee closures. Chick-fil-A is cited as a premier example of disciplined growth, with a focus on building sales at existing locations and finding the right operators. *originally published in Restaurant Business on 2026-10-26. [Read the original](https://restaurantbusinessonline.com/financing/restaurant-race-steady-growth-usually-wins).* ## Story Culver's has remained disciplined on growth and it has steadily gained market share. | Photo: Shutterstock We’ve been closely following the challenges at the cookie chain Crumbl, which last week kicked off its first-ever value offer, as it looks to build sales that have cratered this year. The saga is notable, because not long ago Crumbl was the talk of the restaurant industry. It was one of three chains, along with Dave’s Hot Chicken and 7 Brew, that were started in 2017, enjoyed enormous growth and became major, high-value concepts in just a few years. Crumbl’s struggles are a reminder of the risk associated with overly fast growth. Many, many brands grow too fast for their own good. It’s especially common in franchising, where a hot idea can attract a lot of potential investors and brands sell them franchises whether they are really qualified or not. They either aren’t set up to handle all those operators, they get bad locations, unqualified franchisees, or some combination of all of the above. But we’ve also found this at brands with plenty of company operated locations. MOD Pizza, the fast-casual pizza chain, had a ton of money and signed a ton of ill-conceived leases in the process. Brands are better off resisting the temptation. The best restaurant chains remain disciplined when it comes to growth and build their asset base steadily. Chick-fil-A is the premier example of this. The chicken-sandwich chain likely could have grown a lot faster, but it instead grew unit count by about 5% per year and focused on building sales at those existing locations. The company took the time to find the right operators to run its locations, grew only as fast as it could support the units, and over time built one of the most impressive restaurant chains the U.S. has ever seen. A large, national fast-food brand that averages $7 million plus in revenue per unit is impressive indeed. But other chains are doing the same thing. Raising Cane’s appears likely to be a Top 10 restaurant chain by the end of this decade. Panda Express might get there first. And Culver’s is following right on their heels. The incentives in franchising are all in the other direction, however. Many of these franchisors, or their investors, are looking to get a return in a few years, so they promote ultra-aggressive growth even when they really should be more cautious. Crumbl took advantage of a market that got really hot really fast, which enabled its founders to take some cash out of the business with a sale of some equity to a private-equity firm last year. But now franchisees are struggling and closing stores and it’s having an impact on the company itself, which has laid off large numbers of corporate staff. The company, and its operators, would have been better off if it resisted the temptation and grew at a more measured pace. A lot was happening on the Wendy’s front this week. A big franchisee is closing more locations than expected, and then found a buyer for some of its restaurants. Its social media feed hinted at changes well beyond shifting to yellow packaging. And it kicked off a new value menu, at least for a limited time. Dining alone has taken off since before the pandemic and it doesn’t matter the sector. But traditional sit-down restaurants are getting a lot more solo customers these days. This issue is not limited to restaurants. Amazing what adding more people into restaurants and giving them clear directions can do for a coffee chain. Earnings season kicks off this week and here’s what we’re looking for. Well at least Taco Bell is sticking with Pepsi. If a brand ever wants instant sales, there are worse things they can do than a Minecraft partnership. Hey, finally some good news for fast-food pizza. More than one in five fine dining visits are solo, per Technomic, which is insane to me. That has more than doubled since 2019. “It’s true, yellow packaging is back. It’s also true, that’s not enough. Consider this a sign of change to come.” -Wendy’s account on the social media site X. *For questions, comments or story ideas, send me an email at* *jonathan.maze@informa.com**. And follow me on Twitter at* *@jonathanmaze**. And also* *LinkedIn**. And* *TikTok**.* ## Entities - QSR (sector) - Taco Bell (company) - Wendy's (company) - Restaurant Business (publication) - Chick-fil-A (company) - Dave's Hot Chicken (company) - 7 Brew (company) - Raising Cane's (company) - Culver's (company) - Jonathan Maze (person) - value menu (topic) - MOD Pizza (company) --- Originally reported by Restaurant Business (https://restaurantbusinessonline.com/financing/restaurant-race-steady-growth-usually-wins). Summarized by Burnaze (https://burnaze.com/article/c7ca9d22-0dbe-4285-b1e4-732f3ff9d1fa).