Inside America’s Biggest Fast-Food Restaurants

How restaurant companies performed last year, the coronavirus pandemic has upended marketing plans, expansion trajectories, and brand momentum, leveling the playing eld in many ways by forcing chains to pivot to primarily oT-premises business and think way outside the box to capture sales. And while the worse is hopefully behind us, plenty of uncertainty remains on when the threat of coronavirus is in the rearview mirror and business can return to some sense of normal.

So instead of reading this year’s QSR 50 as purely a status report on the industry, consider it more like a baseline for everything that comes next. Restaurants will forever bear the scars of 2020, but in many ways, they’ll also be stronger for
what they’ve gone through this year.

Whether they sink or swim depends largely on how they can learn and adapt from the biggest crisis since at least the Great Recession. Here’s what brands had been up to pre-pandemic, and how they’ve repositioned themselves for the new reality.