The Most Popular Fast Food In The US, Visualized
Are pizzas the most popular fast food in the US, or is it burgers? And which fast-food chain made the most money in 2019?
Using data from QSR Magazine, financial data site Visual Capitalist made this graph that visualizes the 50 most popular fast-food chains in the US. Per the legend, the restaurants are split into six categories, including burger, chicken, pizza, sandwiches, snacks and global, and the chains with the highest US sales in 2019 are placed closer to the center of the graph. The "global" category encompasses fast-food chains such as Taco Bell and Panda Express, while "snacks" also covers a broad variety of food, from Dunkin's donuts to Starbuck's coffee and snacks.
According to the graph, McDonald's is the most popular fast-food chain in the US, raking in $40.4 billion in sales last year. Coming in second place is Starbucks, which made a little more than $20 billion in 2019.
You can also see a ranking of the top 10 fast-food chains here:
| Rank | Company | Category | 2019 US Sales, Billions |
| 1 | McDonald's | Burger | $40.41 |
| 2 | Starbucks | Snack | $21.55 |
| 3 | Chick-fil-A | Chicken | $11.00 |
| 4 | Taco Bell | Global | $11.00 |
| 5 | Burger King | Burger | $10.30 |
| 6 | Subway | Sandwich | $10.00 |
| 7 | Wendy's | Burger | $9.87 |
| 8 | Dunkin' | Snack | $9.22 |
| 9 | Domino's | Pizza | $7.10 |
| 10 | Panera Bread | Sandwich | $5.93 |
With McDonald's being the top fast-food chain last year, it's not surprising that burgers, the fast-food category that McDonald's has been slotted into, is also the most popular fast-food category in the US. In fact, 14 of the 50 chains on the QSR list are categorized as burger joints, and together they brought in over $80 billion.
[Read more at Visual Capitalist]
