From its humble beginnings in California and its first franchise locations in Illinois to its current status as one of the world’s leading food service brands, McDonald’s has come a long way. According to a recent analysis, the golden arches are still America’s favorite place to eat fast food under.
PriceListo, a site that offers updated information about restaurant menu prices, shared the analysis results with Eat This Not That! To determine the popularity of 250 chain restaurants in the U.S., PriceListo looked at average monthly search volumes on Google.
Here are the chains that landed in the top 10 spots:
1. McDonald’s
2. Domino’s
3. Chick Fil-A
4. Taco Bell
5. Pizza Hut
6. Chipotle
7. Subway
8. Burger King
9. Wendy’s
10. Texas Roadhouse
“McDonald’s led every other chain by a landslide in the analysis,” said Eat this Not That! “It receives 22.9 million searches on average each month, while all of the other chains’ average monthly searches haven't even cracked 16 million.”
There are 36,000 McDonald’s locations across the globe, including 14,300 in the U.S., and an estimated one in eight Americans have worked at one of those locations at some point in their lives. Earlier this year, McDonald’s announced plans to open 2,100 new locations worldwide, including 500 in the U.S.
“To see McDonald’s dominate the top spot is not too surprising. After all, it continues to reign supreme in profits and number of customers globally,” a PriceListo spokesperson said in a statement on the research findings, as quoted by Eat This Not That!
In the second-place spot, Domino’s had an average of 15.8 million searches and Chick-fil-A wasn’t far behind with 15.4 million searches. Audacy reported last summer that Domino’s had a 15% increase year-over-year for the first quarter of 2023.
Last December, we reported that Chick-fil-A was ranked the best business for customer service in the U.S. by UPS. Audacy also reported last month that Chick-fil-A fans should expect the company to start using a new type of chicken this year.
While McDonald’s faces its steepest competition offering different types of food – pizza from Domino’s, chicken from Chick-fil-A and Mexican-inspired dishes from Taco Bell – other burger-centric chains (Burger King and Wendy’s) are much further down the list. Recent reports have found that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is a fan of McDonald’s and that Indonesian McDonald’s locations even offer a wedding package from the fast food giant.