Top 40 U.S. Restaurant Chains (by # of locations)

[Eliahad]

Taco John's

[Zen]

Jimmy John's

[Tahlvin]

Auntie Anne's (I'll give this a try; seems there's one in nearly every mall and toll road oasis we stop at)

[Kyle]

TGI Fridays

[FlameBlade]

Villa

[FlameBlade]

I propose that we have final round where we just spit out 3 possible places.

[Zen]

[akiva]

Does 7-11 count?

[Mike]

[Zen]

[Mike]

Auntie Anne's is a great out-of-the-box guess! But not the one I was thinking of. It's on the list, but I totally forgot about it, because it was one I had never heard of before this.

But good work.

[Mike]

END OF ROUND 6
21 . Jimmy John's - Zen - 5 pts 6
33 . Auntie Anne's - Tahlvin - 2 pts 6
42 . Outback Steakhouse - buckett - 0 pts 6
46 . T.G.I. Friday - Kyle - 0 pts 6
70+ . Taco John's - Eliahad - 0 pts 6
70+ . Villa - FlameBlade - 0 pts 6

[Mike]

TAHLVIN WINS!!!

[Mike]

Here's what we missed:

10 . Hunt Brothers Pizza - - 8 pts
14 . Orange Julius - - 7 pts
28 . Chester's International - - 4 pts
30 . Church's Chicken - - 3 pts
35 . Quiznos - - 2 pts
36 . Papa Murphy's - - 2 pts
37 . Krispy Kreme - - 1 pts
39 . Buffalo Wild Wings - - 1 pts

Orange Julius was the one you needed. It's tricky, because there is technically an Orange Julius inside most Dairy Queens, so it's kind of cheating, because Julius doesn't have nearly the profile it used to.

Hunt Brothers Pizza is an independently owned pizza chain that only sets up shops inside gas stations and truck stops and college food courts and such. The number 10 food chain in America, and it's never even registered on my consciousness til now.

Chester's International is very similar, but with fried chicken.

Quizno's is on the list, because they had 1500 locations as of 2015 or something, but apparently the company collapsed, and according to my further research, within 10 years, they went from a high of 4500 locations to less than 400 today. Had I known that, they wouldn't have been on the list at all.

The other executive decision I made before starting was to take WingStreet off the list. WingStreet is wholly owned by Pizza Hut, and there are no WingStreets that are not just part of a Pizza Hut. There is nowhere that they have separate seating or independent staff... there's no WingStreet staff that aren't Pizza Hut employees wearing Pizza Hut uniforms. It's a Pizza Hut brand and not an actual restaurant.

[Zen]

[buckett]

For some reason I thought Jimmy John's was regional, had no idea they had that many locations.

[Zen]

[Mike]

This list I have has 70ish restaurants on it and includes anything with 500+ locations. If it made the Top 40, then it has at least 1000.

Off the top of my head, I think the top three are:
Subway 44,000+
McDonalds 38,000+
Starbucks 25,000+

[FlameBlade]

No wonder subway seemed ubiquitous to the point that it's kinda just...there.

[Zombie]

Subway is also one of the cheapest to franchise out of the big ones, hence so many locations.