Stay gold: McDonald's still reigns over US fast food
August 20, 2023
Chart R
Pecking Order
There remains, however, a clear stand out in the fast-food sales-per-store space: even as newer chains vie to carve out their own niche in the chicken game, Chick-fil-A continues to post some of the most mind-boggling numbers in the industry, with the average store selling $6.7m worth of food and drink every year. That’s more than any of the top 50, roughly 5x the ~$1.3m that a typical KFC franchise brings in, and nearly double what McDonald’s manages to sell per store — and Chick-fil-a rules the roost with only 6 days per week.
Even if McDonald’s doesn’t quite match the per-store sales of Chick-fil-A, the company’s enormous footprint still makes McD’s the industry heavyweight. Indeed, with ~13,500 US stores and each branch raking in over $3.6 million a year on average, the golden hue of the arches gleams on some 80+ years after the first restaurant opened. Indeed, QSR put the burger giant’s US systemwide sales at a staggering $48.7 billion last year, highlighting its Accelerating the Arches overhaul as a key factor in the chain’s renaissance.
Advancin’ it
As its brainstormed-within-an-inch-of-its-life moniker suggests, Accelerating the Arches is all about moving McDonald’s forward. First unveiled in 2020, the plan aims to modernize the organization, while keeping core menu items at the heart of the business, and McDouble down on the 4 Ds — Delivery, Digital, Drive Thru, and (Restaurant) Development. So far, at least as far as those first 3 Ds are concerned, the overhaul might be working a little too well…
We’ll get that to-go
Indeed, the WSJ recently reported that dine-in customers now represent less than 10% of visitors to most McDonald’s franchises — and it’s not just Casa del Clown where customers are skipping eating in: data from Circana found that just 14% of fast-food orders were eaten on site in June 2023, compared with 22% in 2015.
In short, the vast majority of people who buy fast food today now want to grab it, (hopefully) keep it hot, and eat it somewhere else. We could blame COVID, call this newsletter done, and let you enjoy your Sunday, but the trend is more interesting than that. The rise of apps like Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Postmates have made convenience an even bigger priority — and it’s played into the hands of the chains that have invested in drive-thrus and pick-ups. Chick-fil-A is experimenting with 4-lane drive-thrus, overhead conveyor belts, and chutes that deliver the food straight to you, while Starbucks is teaming up with Target to roll out curbside food & drink pickup across the US.
Appy meals
However — although the predictability of this next sentence makes it almost painful to write — it’s McDonald’s that’s dominating the digital landscape and switch-to-app ordering that’s driving the off-site trend. As we charted only last month, the chain extended its already-huge lead in the fast-food app market, with 127 million global downloads in 2022, which is twice as many as Uber Eats, the second most downloaded food & drink app. It seems that, even as the arches go McDigital, we’re all still lovin’ it.
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