TL;DR
2025 was a tough year for restaurant chains, according to Technomic's Top 500 Chain Restaurant Report. The report highlights notable trends, including growth in the beverage sector and shifts in market share in the sandwich sector.
It was another tough year in 2025.
This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Joe Pawlak, the managing principal with Technomic.
Pawlak provides our annual look at the data firm’s annual Top 500 Chain Restaurant Report, which provides the best look at the state of the country’s restaurant chains.
That state was relatively weak. Pawlak discusses why last year proved to be so difficult. We also talk about some notable trends in the numbers.
The beverage sector was big and there were some surprising numbers in that. The sandwich sector saw more shifts in market share. There was some notable movement in the Top 10 and a lot of growth was concentrated in just a few chains.
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In this story
This story was originally published in Restaurant Business on April 23, 2026. Burnaze summarizes and links to the original reporting.
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