Restaurant research · Historical archives
From Restaurant Rankings to Company Profiles
With 175 company profiles in the Restaurant Enterprise Index, readers can follow familiar names from historical rankings into current company and ownership research.
The Restaurant Enterprise Index™ connects restaurant brands, parent companies and franchise organizations. For readers of RestaurantChains.net, its company profiles provide a way to continue researching names encountered in historical rankings.
Five company profiles at a glance
| REI Company Profile | Research question |
|---|---|
| Penn Station | How can a historical listing lead to current company research? |
| Chipotle Mexican Grill | When does an archive link lead to the brand’s own profile? |
| Kahala Brands | Which parent company is associated with an archived brand? |
| Yum! Brands | How do related brands connect to a parent organization? |
| Flynn Group | How does a franchise operator differ from the brand owner? |
Start with the original reporting period
The Top 300 Restaurant Concepts from 2018 archive preserves a ranking from that reporting period. Its company links help readers move from the historical list to available REI Company Profiles.
The 2009 fast casual archive provides an earlier view of the industry. Penn Station East Coast Subs, Chipotle and Baja Fresh are among the entries with links to current REI research. Some links lead to a brand’s own profile; others lead to a parent company associated with the brand.
The archived rankings retain their original research periods. Adding a current profile link does not update historical sales or location figures, or assign today’s ownership relationships to an earlier year.
Five company profiles, different research questions
Penn Station: follow a name across research periods
Penn Station East Coast Subs appears at number 36 in the 2009 archive. Its linked Penn Station REI Company Profile gives readers a current starting point for researching the company. Any comparison of location totals should retain the date and geographic scope of each source.
Chipotle: begin with the brand’s own profile
The archive’s Chipotle entry links directly to the Chipotle Mexican Grill REI Company Profile. This provides a straightforward route from a historical ranking to the company’s current research page.
Kahala Brands: identify the parent behind an archived name
Baja Fresh’s archive link leads to the Kahala Brands REI Company Profile. That profile identifies Baja Fresh within Kahala’s concept portfolio and MTY Food Group as Kahala’s ultimate parent. The relationship adds company context to a name that appears separately in the historical ranking.
Yum! Brands: distinguish a brand from its parent
The Yum! Brands REI Company Profile is a starting point for researching the parent organization behind multiple restaurant brands. Parent-level research helps a reader identify related companies while keeping each brand’s operations and franchise structure in view.
Flynn Group: examine the franchise operator
The Flynn Group REI Company Profile introduces the operator side of restaurant research. A franchise operator can run restaurants under multiple brands. The operator, franchisor and brand owner represent different relationships to investigate when researching a company or an individual restaurant.
Read the company relationship alongside the figures
The Restaurant Chain Data Dictionary explains the brand, operator, franchisee, ownership and unit-count terminology used in RestaurantChains.net reporting. It helps readers distinguish the company being discussed and the scope of the figures being compared.
For the underlying definitions used across REI, Atlas and other RestaurantData research, consult the Restaurant Data Dictionary. The chain dictionary adapts those definitions for interpreting restaurant-chain reports.
Check the profile’s review date and the scope of its figures. A parent-company total may cover several concepts, while an archived entry may describe one brand. A parent profile also does not establish who operates every restaurant or who makes purchasing decisions for a particular location.
Continue the research
Use the Restaurant Enterprise Index to explore company profiles and ownership relationships. Atlas by RestaurantData provides further company, concept and location research.
Readers following emerging restaurant concepts and growing chains can also explore the Expansion Pressure Index™. Its coverage extends across company-size cohorts, from early multi-unit businesses through companies approaching 100 locations and beyond.
