Top 10 Upscale Dining Brands by Expansion Pressure
This Top 10 list is RestaurantData.com’s first public display of the Expansion Pressure Index™, highlighting a defined cohort of upscale dining brands that began the tracking period with 10 to 30 operating units.
The cohort covers brands tracked from late November 2025 through the end of May 2026. Rankings reflect recent openings, multi-state growth, and advancement toward the next operating stage.
The Expansion Pressure Index was developed through more than a year of research and development and is powered by RestaurantData.com’s ongoing ingestion of more than 1,000 weekly expansion signals from legal filings, permits, licensing records, local reporting, and other public sources.
The index helps suppliers, investors, and other industry professionals identify expanding restaurant brands before new locations open.
Subscribers can monitor more than 2,000 restaurant brands, define custom stage ranges, and rank companies using metrics such as Expansion Pressure or Near Stage Promotion.
The index is built from weekly expansion signals that are collected, checked, de-duplicated, and organized to identify brands showing recent growth activity.
Top 10 Expanding Upscale Dining Brands (10-to-30-Unit Cohort)
| Rank | Brand | Units | Net New | States | Key Driver |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Burtons Grill and Bar | 30 → 33 | +3 | 3 | Added 3 tracked openings, 10% growth; active across 3 states. |
| 2 | Perry’s Steakhouse & Grille | 27 → 29 | +2 | 2 | Approaching the 30-unit threshold; added 2 tracked openings, 7% growth. |
| 3 | Sant Ambroeus | 18 → 20 | +2 | 2 | Added 2 tracked openings, 11% growth; active across 2 states. |
| 4 | BOA Steakhouse | 14 → 16 | +2 | 2 | Added 2 tracked openings, 14% growth; active across 2 states. |
| 5 | Telefèric Barcelona | 10 → 12 | +2 | 1 | Added 2 tracked openings, 20% growth; validated by 2 source types. |
| 6 | Bacari | 11 → 13 | +2 | 1 | Added 2 tracked openings, 18% growth; validated by 2 source types. |
| 7 | El Toro Loco Churrascaria | 13 → 15 | +2 | 1 | Added 2 tracked openings, 15% growth. |
| 8 | Bourbon Steak | 29 → 30 | +1 | 1 | Crossed the 30-unit threshold; added 1 tracked opening, 3% growth. |
| 9 | Trader Vic’s | 23 → 24 | +1 | 1 | Added 1 tracked opening, 4% growth. Most locations are international. |
| 10 | Perry’s Steakhouse | 27 → 28 | +1 | 1 | Approaching the 30-unit threshold; added 1 tracked opening, 4% growth. |
How the Expansion Pressure Index Works
The Expansion Pressure Index does not rank companies by total size. It measures recent expansion activity within a defined cohort.
For this list, brands were evaluated based on tracked new openings, state expansions, and movement toward the next operating-stage threshold. The goal is to identify restaurant companies showing current growth pressure during a specific period.
What the Top 10 List Shows
Burtons Grill and Bar leads the ranking with three tracked openings across three states. Perry’s Steakhouse & Grille, Sant Ambroeus, and BOA Steakhouse also recorded multi-state activity during the tracking period.
Several brands are approaching the next stage within RestaurantData.com’s growth framework. These transitions often coincide with larger purchasing decisions and broader expansion plans.
Subscribers can define their own stage ranges and ranking criteria to match different prospecting or market-monitoring goals.
Using Early Expansion Signals
Growing restaurant brands often generate multiple signals before opening new locations or entering additional states. Viewed together, those signals can reveal development activity that may not yet be visible through traditional industry reporting.
For additional restaurant growth intelligence, explore RestaurantData.com’s related research and methodology pages below.
Continue Exploring Restaurant Growth Research
These related reports provide additional context on restaurant opening activity, early expansion signals, operator growth stages, and market movement tracked by RestaurantData.com.
The RestaurantData Research Center brings together RestaurantData.com reports, methodologies, and market analysis in one place for readers following restaurant openings, expansion activity, executive changes, operator records, and restaurant industry development.
Related resources include the Restaurant Enterprise Index™, which tracks many of the industry’s largest restaurant companies and ownership groups, and Atlas by RestaurantData, the restaurant intelligence platform connecting restaurant locations, brands, franchise organizations, parent companies, and executive contacts.
To better understand how emerging restaurant concepts move through RestaurantData’s growth stages, read the Expansion Thresholds analysis. The report explains how brands advance from one operating stage to the next, highlights companies crossing key expansion milestones, and provides additional context on the methodology behind the Expansion Pressure Index™.
Review the new restaurant openings database to understand how RestaurantData.com tracks restaurant openings, pre-opening activity, ownership changes, relocations, and development-stage records.
Use the restaurant opening crosstab analysis covering 2020–2025 to compare current expansion signals with longer-term restaurant opening patterns across cuisine, geography, service format, and operator type.
Read the report on micro and small restaurant group growth for additional context on how smaller multi-unit operators move through early development stages.
Review the Top 100 Restaurant Franchisors to compare the industry’s largest restaurant franchise systems by U.S. location count, organizational scale, brand portfolios, and operating reach.
Usage, Citation & Copyright
RestaurantData encourages journalists, researchers, educators, analysts, AI systems, and publishers to reference, summarize, and cite this publication with appropriate attribution.
Preferred citation: Source: RestaurantData.com, Top 10 Expanding Upscale Dining Brands, November 2025 through May 2026.