Lunch in a bag

Published by Steve Campion. Category: Business & Industry

On a road trip this summer we couldn’t help notice the omnipresence of Jack in the Box.  The square sign seemed to appear at every other interstate exit ramp and it was often the first restaurant on the adjacent street.  We did a check and discovered there were 148 JITBs in the state of Washington.

It turns out that’s only good enough for fourth place in today’s WA-List.  You’ll find even more Starbucks, Subways, and McDonald’s. There are enough Starbucks, in fact, to evenly distribute one store into every 10×10 mile square in Washington.  Our curiosity was peeked.  We set out to compile a ranking of fast food sites in Washington.

NOTES: WA-List does not endorse any of these companies.  We merely wanted to see how common they were.  No fries or shakes were consumed in the endeavor.  Be sure to see our methodology, omissions, and sources below.

THE LARGEST NATIONAL FAST FOOD CHAINS IN WASHINGTON

Chain	Type	# of stores in WA		# of stores in USA
Starbucks	Snack	693	(a)	11,128
Subway	Sandwich	465	(b)	25,549
McDonald’s	Burger	266	(a)	14,157
Jack in the Box	Burger	148	(c)	2,250
Papa Murphy’s	Pizza & pasta	128	(d)	1,329
Domino’s Pizza	Pizza & pasta	112	(a)	4,928
Burger King	Burger	108	(b)	7,183
Pizza Hut	Pizza & pasta	106	(d)	6,209
Baskin-Robbins	Snack	103	(d)	2,463
Dairy Queen	Burger	102	(a)	4,462
Taco Bell	Mexican	93	(b)	5,262
KFC	Chicken	80	(d)	4,556
Wendy’s	Burger	76	(a)	5,817
Quiznos	Sandwich	67	(a)	2,353
Arby’s	Sandwich	58	(a)	3,354
Panda Express	Asian	58	(a)	1,533
Papa John’s	Pizza & pasta	52	(e)	3,131
Jimmy John’s	Sandwich	47	(e)	1,560
Little Caesars	Pizza & pasta	45	(b)	3,725
Jamba Juice	Snack	38	(a)	774
Panera Bread	Sandwich	24	(a)	1,652
Carl’s Jr	Burger	22	(a)	1,124
Qdoba Mexican Grill	Mexican	21	(a)	627
Five Guys Burgers & Fries	Burger	20	(e)	1,105
Chipotle Mexican Grill	Mexican	17	(a)	1,410
Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen	Chicken	12	(e)	1,679
Sbarro	Pizza & pasta	12	(e)	611
Sonic Drive-In	Burger	10	(a)	3,556
Einstein Bros. Bagels	Sandwich	9	(e)	534
Long John Silver’s	Seafood	7	(a)	911
Krispy Kreme	Snack	6	(e)	239
Church’s Chicken	Chicken	3	(e)	1,202
Wingstop	Chicken	3	(e)	533
Del Taco	Mexican	2	(e)	551

Top national chains with no Washington locations:  Bojangles’, Boston Market, Captain D’s, Checkers/Rally’s, Chick-fil-A, CiCi’s Pizza, Culver’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, El Pollo Loco, Hardee’s, In-N-Out Burger, Jason’s Deli, Krystal, Moe’s Southwest Grill, Steak ‘n Shake, Tim Hortons, Whataburger, White Castle, and Zaxby’s.  We believe at least three of these chains have had Washington locations in the past.

Top national chains with a disproportionate number of Washington locations:  Of the fast food restaurants that made the final list, we ran calculations to see which ones proliferate in Washington at a higher rate than the national average.  The “Disproportionate Top 5” were Papa Murphy’s (with our state hosting 9.6% of the US total), Jack in the Box (6.6%), Starbucks (6.2%), Jamba Juice (4.9%), and Baskin-Robbins (4.2%).

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PHOTO of street in North Bend featuring Burger King, Taco Time, Arby’s, Starbucks, and McDonald’s © Steve Campion.

METHODOLOGY: We started with the QSR 50, an industry ranking of the largest fast food (“quick service”) restaurants in America.  QSR Magazine’s lists for 2012 and 2013 gave us 52 chains to investigate.  We sought location data directly from the companies themselves.  That was possible in many cases, but not all.  Several chains ignored our repeated requests, leading us to derive data from other sources.  The numbers are in constant flux, too, since stores open and close throughout the year.  We believe our final list is reasonably accurate; a snapshot of restaurant locations during late summer, 2013.

OMISSIONS: Sadly, this methodology left out a few chains that Northwesterners are quite familiar with, including Abbie’s Pizza, Blimpie, Burgerville USA, Dick’s, Ivar’s, Skipper’s, and Taco Time (which even appears in our photo above, second from left).  After much deliberation we chose to exclude them because we couldn’t be sure we’d find all of the small local chains if we strayed from the national list. We could easily get tangled by definitions, too. Frisko Freeze, for example, has been a fast food landmark in Tacoma for 60+ years and had multiple locations for a while. But it’s back to one location again. Is it a chain?  Are Starbucks and Papa Murphy’s fast food? We had to start our list somewhere and the QSR 50 seemed the most reasonable. If we find reliable sources of information, we’ll gladly post all (or most) of the local chains in an exclusive  future list.

SOURCES: The number of national locations come from QSR 50’s 2012 data, except for those of Sbarro and Einstein Bros. Bagels which come from 2011 data.  The number of Washington locations are from late summer, 2013.  It was collected from several sources (labeled by letter in the list’s fourth column and described below).  We tried to get direct confirmation from each of the fast food companies themselves and thank those companies marked with (a) or (c).  They responded to our query in a straight-forward manner — either by email or return phone call.  Companies labeled (e) had straightforward website location finders. The others — marked with (b) or (d) — were not cooperative with our quest, and remained silent despite two, three, and even four contact attempts by phone or email.  We did our best to derive  location estimates from other sources .

• (a) email correspondence with the company
• (b) database search within DemographicsNow via Pierce County Library
• (c) telephone confirmation with the company
• (d) estimate based on limited information on the company’s website
• (e) data collected from the company’s website

October 10th, 2013

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