The RestaurantData Research Center is the central resource for RestaurantData’s restaurant industry research, market analysis, and proprietary indexes.
Every report published here is built from the same verified database: restaurant openings, operator companies, franchise systems, ownership hierarchies, headquarters, executive contacts, and market activity across the United States and Canada, researched continuously since 1998. Rather than publishing isolated news stories, RestaurantData organizes verified market activity into ongoing research programs that help suppliers, operators, investors, manufacturers, distributors, recruiters, and service providers understand how the restaurant industry develops.
Following Restaurant Companies Through Their Life Cycle
RestaurantData’s research began in 1998 with a straightforward objective: document new restaurant openings as they occurred. A research process built from newspapers, trade publications, permits, and public filings has since grown into a database covering more than 1.1 million restaurant and foodservice locations across the United States and Canada.
What makes the research different is that it does not stop once a restaurant opens.
A proposed location becomes a new opening. An independent operator may expand into a two-unit company, grow into a regional chain, develop into a franchise organization, acquire additional concepts, or become part of a larger parent company through acquisition. At every stage, RestaurantData continues following the business, preserving the ownership relationships that connect individual locations, operating companies, franchise organizations, and parent companies.
The result is a record of restaurant companies throughout their business life cycle, not a snapshot of a single moment in time.
Research at a Glance
| Research Dimension | Coverage |
|---|---|
| Geography | United States and Canada |
| Research History | Continuous since 1998 |
| Restaurant & Foodservice Locations | More than 1.1 million |
| Restaurant Company Headquarters | More than 5,200 |
| Headquarters Executive Contacts | More than 27,000 |
| Restaurant Openings | Hundreds of verified developments published each week; more than 24,000 each year |
| Ownership Structure | Independent restaurants, franchisees, franchisors, chain headquarters, parent companies, ultimate parent companies, and multi-concept operators |
| Verification | Corporate research, franchise disclosure documents, government filings, permits, direct research, and multiple independent sources |
Research Library
The Research Center currently includes the following ongoing research programs.
Weekly Restaurant Opening Alerts
Each week RestaurantData verifies hundreds of restaurant openings, pre-opening developments, ownership changes, and foodservice projects throughout the United States. Subscribers receive searchable data through Atlas together with downloadable files published 49 weeks each year. These weekly observations provide the foundation for much of the research published throughout the Research Center.
Expansion Pressure Index™
The Expansion Pressure Index™ is a business prioritization tool that identifies restaurant companies demonstrating concentrated expansion activity over defined periods of time. Rather than ranking companies by size, the index prioritizes operators based on recent expansion behavior, operating thresholds, and verified development activity.
Restaurant Enterprise Index™ (Launching August 2026)
The Restaurant Enterprise Index™ will examine larger restaurant companies, franchise organizations, multi-concept operators, and enterprise ownership groups, generally covering operators with 100 or more units. The index combines organizational scale, ownership structure, verified development activity, and other operating characteristics to provide a broader view of larger restaurant enterprises.
Restaurant Opening Analysis
RestaurantData verifies more than 24,000 new restaurant and foodservice developments each year. This ongoing research supports analysis by operator size, geography, cuisine, service segment, ownership structure, and development characteristics, revealing long-term patterns that are difficult to identify from isolated observations or periodic surveys. Published studies appear in the Insights section as they are completed.
Restaurant Industry Insights
The Insights section publishes ongoing research examining restaurant expansion, ownership trends, market movement, operating thresholds, development activity, and executive changes.
Historical Research Archive
The Historical Research Archive preserves years of RestaurantData expansion studies, market analysis, and industry reports. Because the same research methodology has been applied continuously for decades, the archive supports meaningful comparisons across changing restaurant markets and economic cycles.
What Makes RestaurantData Different
Most restaurant databases organize information around restaurant brands.
RestaurantData organizes the industry around the companies operating those brands.
Every location can be viewed within its operating company, franchise organization, parent company, and ultimate parent company when applicable. This ownership-first approach provides a more accurate view of who actually makes expansion, purchasing, leasing, investment, and operational decisions.
Instead of simply showing where restaurants exist today, RestaurantData documents how restaurant companies evolve, so users understand not only who operates restaurants now, but how those organizations developed and where they are headed.
Atlas Research Platform
Atlas is the platform where RestaurantData’s research and analytical modules reside. Subscribers can search the full location database alongside chain headquarters, ownership hierarchies, executive contacts, POS system information, and verified market activity.
Atlas also provides access to Weekly Restaurant Opening Alerts, the Expansion Pressure Index™, geographic analysis, saved searches, custom exports, and additional research tools built from the same database used throughout the Research Center.
Research Methodology
RestaurantData applies a consistent methodology across every research program. Research begins with continuous observation of restaurant openings, development activity, franchise filings, corporate records, permits, ownership changes, and other publicly available information.
Each record is verified through multiple independent sources before entering the database, with emphasis on original public records and primary-source documentation whenever possible.
Verified observations accumulated over time reveal measurable patterns of business behavior. Those observations become the foundation for the reports, indexes, and analytical studies published throughout the Research Center.
Using the Research
Research published throughout the Research Center is publicly available. The underlying datasets, Atlas platform, Weekly Restaurant Opening Alerts, executive contact database, restaurant company directory, and ownership hierarchy research are available to subscribers.
Questions regarding methodology, coverage, or subscription access may be directed through the RestaurantData Contact page.