Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2022 March 13

= March 13 =

What is the largest American restaurant chain that presently does not have any branches outside the United States?
In terms of either revenue or number of locations, what is currently the largest American restaurant chain that at present does not have any international presence; that is, they do not have any branches outside the US? I am aware that I asked this question back in 2017 but I was wondering if anything has changed since then or if a more definite answer could be found.  Naruto love hinata 5 (talk · contributions) 10:44, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Google is not making this easy to search for. Largest I have found is Sonic_Drive-In with 3500 locations and 4 Billion dollars revenue.  The category Category:Restaurant_chains_in_the_United_States is not US-only chains, but there are only around 250 pages so you could check through there and see what you can find.  RudolfRed (talk) 21:07, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
 * They no longer qualify, but Chick-fil-A was almost certainly the answer multiple times over the past two decades. They periodically opened international restaurants (only to close them) and currently have annual sales of about 11.3 billion. But we have a few of them infesting Canada again these days, so they're not the current champs. Matt Deres (talk) 23:56, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
 * At least they only infest for six days of the week. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:47, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Eh? We're just as godless as anybody else. Sunday shopping is the norm now. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:01, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * But Chick-fil-A, founded by "a devout Southern Baptist", observe Sunday Sabbatarianism and do not open on Sundays. Is this not the case for their Canadian branches also? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.209.122.108 (talk) 07:57, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * As late as Sunday 21 November 2021, they were all closed. --Lambiam 08:04, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
 * The current largest is Sonic Drive-In. But, that is temporary. As of 2021, they are devloping locations outside the United States. That does assume that you do not consider convenience store "restaurants" as part of the list. There is also an issue with multi-branding. For example, Carl's Jr. and Hardees (which have foreign locations) is the same restaurant. It just has two differently branded names. But, do you consider them to be two restaurants or one? If so, how do you handle conglomerate brands that often share locations like Long John Silvers and A&W. Very different restaurants, but often housed together. And, finally, just to make it more complicated... is a restaurant on an American military base in another country a "foreign" restaurant? There are branded restaurants on some bases inside the commissary. They are not open to the general public. They are only there for the American military to use. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 14:38, 14 March 2022 (UTC)


 * After Sonic it appears to be Jimmy John's at 2,754. As far as sit-down restaurants go, the leader seems to be Waffle House at 2,100 (pretty impressive given that they don't even have locations in half of the states).  Pinguinn     🐧   21:11, 16 March 2022 (UTC)