Restaurants Established from 2018 to 2020 in North America

We are certainly feeling the effects of the pandemic regarding grand openings of newly established independent and chain restaurants. Brizo FoodMetrics, an analytics company that provides actionable analytics for companies in the foodservice industry, ran searches on restaurants that were established in 2018, 2019, and 2020 that have avoided permanent closure. This is directional data focused on 33,000 active restaurants since not every restaurant provides the year established on their website.

The data shows that 56% of the restaurants were established in 2018, 41% in 2019, and a truly unfortunate 3% for the 11 months of 2020. Independent Restaurants are considered those with 1 to 4 locations. They make up 75% of the newly established restaurants that remain active in North America from 2018-2020.

New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago make up the top three metros for the newly opened restaurants that remain open in this 3-year time frame. The next largest metropolitan areas are Dallas, Miami, Houston, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Boston, and Seattle.

The chains with the most store openings are Taco Bell, Domino’s Pizza, Burger King, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, Wendy’s, Little Caesars, Charley’s Philly Steaks, Papa John’s, Jack in the Box, Marco’s Pizza, Hardees, MOD Pizza, Panera Bread, Subway, Dickey’s Barbeque Pit, Five Guys Burgers, Bojangles, and Arby’s.

The independent restaurants’ top Cuisines are American, Mexican, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Mediterranean, Thai, Indian, Greek, Spanish, Southern American, Vietnamese, Korean, Caribbean, Tex-Mex, Cajun, Taiwanese, Creole, Hawaiian, and French. American Cuisines makes up 41% of the newly opened Independent restaurants between 2018 and November 15, 2020, and French make up 1%.

The Brizo FoodMetrics data also shows that 75% of the independent and chain restaurants in this time frame show customer reviews within the last 6 months which is exceptional and great to see the flurry of activity from guests providing reviews of their dining experiences. When looking at population sizes, 18% were opened in areas with populations of 50,000 to 100,000 and 17% with populations sizes of 5,000 to 10,000. A quick check into the newly formed establishments and their social media presence, 66% can be found on FaceBook, 38% on Instagram, and 21% on LinkedIn. Keep in mind that a restaurant can be found on all, some, or none of these too.

Over the last 9 months, Delivery remains a constant hot topic, so of course, we checked with the delivery data highlights and found 71% are using at least 1 delivery app. That breaks down to 35% are using 3 or more delivery apps, 18% are using 2 delivery apps, and 20% are using 1. The remaining 28% of newly formed restaurants in this time period have not identified with a major delivery app. Starting with the most popular for this group are GrubHub, DoorDash, Postmates, Seamless, UberEats, ezcater, and Slice.

If you would like to learn more about North America’s newest establishments, or if you are looking for data on the restaurant industry, click the free trial button to sign up for a free trial.15