Original RestaurantData research on restaurant openings, closures, expansion, ownership, franchising and industry trends across the United States and Canada.
What Is the Restaurant Research Center?
The RestaurantData Research Center brings together the company’s alerts, research, indexes, definitions and reports for the United States and Canada in one place. It helps readers trace a restaurant business from its first documented development signals through opening, early growth and mature company ownership. Readers can follow a finding back to its methods, then use Atlas to identify the underlying company and location records for their own research and CRM workflows.
Research at a Glance
Published Atlas and Dictionary coverage figures as of August 2026. A development record may describe a planned location; it is not necessarily a confirmed opening. Counts change as records are added, resolved and reverified.
Core Research & Methodologies
RestaurantData studies the companies operating restaurant locations as well as the concepts they represent. Its research connects a location to the operating company, franchise organization and parent entities when evidence supports those relationships. The resources below define the terms and ongoing methods behind the reports.
Restaurant Data Dictionary
Definitions for locations, development stages, operating cohorts, entities, ownership hierarchies and verification. Use this reference when interpreting a RestaurantData count or classification.
Restaurant Opening Analysis
How RestaurantData interprets verified opening and development activity by operator type, market, service format and other characteristics. A planned opening, confirmed opening and ownership transfer are distinct events.
Expansion Pressure Index™
An ongoing framework for identifying concentrated, documented expansion by emerging and growing restaurant companies. EPI helps users prioritize research; it does not predict financial performance.
Restaurant Enterprise Index™
Connected research on larger restaurant enterprises, franchise organizations, multi-concept operators and parent companies, including ownership and development relationships.
Underlying research platform: Atlas by RestaurantData connects location, company, franchise, contact and development records. Public findings on this page draw on that research; access to the underlying searchable records is available to subscribers.
Latest Restaurant Research
These three selected articles show different kinds of RestaurantData research: growing companies, expansion pressure and closures. For every post in date order, visit Industry Insights.
Published September 19, 2026
Summer 2026 Growing Restaurant Companies and Emerging Concepts
RestaurantData examined documented development activity among multi-unit operators and emerging concepts, identifying named companies within a defined summer research file.
Published September 1, 2026
Biscuit Belly and Maman: Expansion Pressure
A comparison of documented growth in two operating-size cohorts, showing how the Expansion Pressure Index follows activity across periods and states.
Published July 21, 2026
First-Half 2026 Restaurant Closure Report
RestaurantData’s review of documented closure activity in the United States and Canada, with definitions and the January–June 2026 research period.
Restaurant Industry Data & Reports
These studies turn connected RestaurantData records into findings about ownership, franchising, openings and closures. Tables in the reports can be cited with the source, period, geography and definitions shown on each report page.
Multi-Concept Restaurant Operators
RestaurantData’s analysis of 1,339 operators connects concepts, locations, company size and geography in a dated research extract.
Top 100 Restaurant Franchisors
Year-end 2025 U.S. franchise-system outlet counts and 2022–2025 changes, using disclosed franchise information and stated count definitions.
Summer 2026 Restaurant Opening Cross-Tab Analysis
Tables of 4,382 verified U.S. locations expected to open June through September 2026, analyzed by operator tier, geography, service style, cuisine and other characteristics.
Weekly Restaurant Opening Alerts
Verified location and development observations issued in weekly subscriber files and searchable through Atlas. These records also support published analyses; an alert is not the same as a confirmed opening.
Historical Research
The Historical Research Archive preserves earlier RestaurantData and RestaurantChains.net studies for comparison across research periods. Historical rankings, outlet counts and sales estimates retain the dates and definitions of their original publications; they should not be read as current company counts.
How RestaurantData Conducts Research
- 1. DiscoverResearchers find legal and license filings, permits, local reporting and company disclosures. AI can help locate raw source material.
- 2. VerifyResearch systems flag potential matches and conflicts; human researchers check the evidence and determine what it supports.
- 3. Resolve entitiesResearchers use the Restaurant Data Dictionary to classify locations, concepts, operators, franchisees and parent organizations consistently.
- 4. Connect recordsAtlas links supported child, parent, grandparent and ultimate-parent relationships. Unsupported connections remain unassigned.
- 5. AnalyzeResearchers compare verified activity by period, geography, operator size and ownership, separating planned locations from confirmed openings.
- 6. Publish and put to workDated reports explain the findings. Sales, marketing and investment teams use Atlas records to identify operators, build market segments and populate Salesforce or HubSpot through exports or API connections.
- 7. ReverifyContacts and decision makers are checked multiple times a year, with verification dates recorded for each person and record. Companies receive scheduled reviews once or twice a year for operating status and expansion, including changes among small and midsize groups; new evidence can prompt additional updates.
The findings retain their stated research periods, coverage, definitions and limitations. For more detail on classification and evidence, see the Restaurant Data Dictionary and Restaurant Opening Analysis.