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Chain restaurants

Casual restaurant chains like Olive Garden see declining sales

by Kristin Schwab
Mar 26, 2024
Darden Restaurants, which owns chains like Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse, had its first same-store sales decline since the pandemic.
Casual chains like Olive Garden don't typically lure in higher-income customers, but also aren't the most affordable option for lower-income households.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
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On McDonald's Investor Day, more data on how its small format restaurants are doing

by Meghan McCarty Carino
Dec 6, 2023
With changing patterns of dining, how are small format restaurants, like McDonald's CosMc, shaping up?
CosMc, a new concept restaurant by McDonald's, is based on a McDonald's character of the same name from outer space.
Shammi Mehra/AFP via Getty Images
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"Endless shrimp" and other deals can backfire on restaurants

by Kristin Schwab
Dec 1, 2023
If bargain hunters skimp on the add-ons, the business may have to eat a loss. For Red Lobster, it was $11 million last quarter.
Red Lobster had to eat a loss because its shrimp promotion was too big a bargain for diners.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
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Want to make friends from a different economic class? Try your local Applebee’s

by Esther Yoon-Ji Kang
Oct 20, 2023
Full-service chain restaurants attract people from different income brackets and represent a way to break down class barriers, research shows.
James Williams enjoys a lunch date with his wife at an Applebee's near Chicago. A recent working paper titled "Rubbing Shoulders" says chain restaurants are among a handful of places in the U.S. where people from high-income and low-income neighborhoods encounter one another.
Esther Yoon-Ji Kang/WBEZ
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Franchises are big business, but they're adjusting to economic headwinds

by Matt Levin
Sep 22, 2023
Franchisees get help with marketing and branding, but the corporate parent can’t do much about high interest rates and labor costs.
McDonald's royalty fees will rise from 4% to 5% for some franchisees, according to a company email viewed by Marketplace.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
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How the buyer of Subway could turn around the struggling sandwich chain

by Henry Epp
Aug 25, 2023
A private equity firm has agreed to buy Subway. It may need to close stores in the U.S., but expand overseas.
Subway has struggled for the past decade. The chain has suffered from a scandal with its longtime spokesperson, tough competition, and an excess of franchise locations.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
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Why big brands like Chipotle are heading to Small Town, U.S.A.

by Kristin Schwab
Jul 19, 2023
Restaurant chains are following people who've left cities since the pandemic, but the expansion presents challenges.
Brandon Bell/Getty Images
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Wendy's turned an old restaurant into a test lab

by Marielle Segarra
Nov 9, 2017
With sales under pressure, the chain is looking at new ways of doing business.
The Wendy's in the Clintonville neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio, has a flat screen TV, an outdoor patio, printed menus and electronic ordering kiosks.
(Marielle Segarra/Marketplace)
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I went to the world's largest Applebee's to figure out why chain restaurants are dying

by Peter Balonon-Rosen
Oct 20, 2017
The decline of chain restaurants coincides with the growth in income disparities.
The second floor dining room at an Applebee's Neighborhood Grill & Bar in Manhattan.
Peter Balonon-Rosen/Marketplace
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