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Fat Brands Sets April 3 Bid Deadline as 120+ Buyers Circle 18 Restaurant Chains
With a court-ordered sale process now live, more than 120 potential buyers are evaluating Fat Brands' 18 chains and 2,300-plus locations. CEO Andy Wiederhorn is out, the April 3 deadline is set, and franchisees are running out of runway to protect themselves.
Red Lobster Burns Through Cash as Post-Bankruptcy Turnaround Stalls
With $2.1 million in projected net income across 550 locations and results that Bloomberg calls 'little improved from before its bankruptcy,' Red Lobster's celebrated comeback may be more press release than reality.
Chicken Salad Chick's Millennial and Gen Z Franchisee Surge Signals a New Franchise Model Preference
Chicken Salad Chick named Jill Thomas CMO as the brand reports a record 2025 with nearly 100 new franchise deals and a pipeline surpassing 300 units, driven by younger entrepreneurs seeking structured ownership.
Raising Cane's Opens Its 1,000th Restaurant on Hollywood Boulevard
Raising Cane's milestone 1,000th location on Hollywood Boulevard is more than a vanity number. It signals a brand with serious scale ambitions, a World Cup strategy, and a founder finally coming home.
RBI Insiders Dump $32 Million in Stock as QSR Hits 12-Month High
Five Restaurant Brands International executives sold 435,191 shares worth $31.83 million in a three-month window that coincided with QSR stock reaching its highest point in a year. The coordinated selling raises questions investors need to weigh against management's confident 2028 growth targets.
El Pollo Loco’s Q4 2025 revenue and earnings rise
Quarterly revenue was $123.5 million, including an extra operating week.
MCL Restaurant and Bakery Shrinks to Seven Locations After 76 Years of Cafeteria-Style Dining
MCL, once a 30-location Midwest cafeteria institution, is closing five more units this month and citing years of declining sales. What the chain's collapse reveals about America's dying cafeteria format.
Yum Brands After Gibbs: Chris Turner Inherits a 59,000-Restaurant Empire and an Unfinished AI Transformation
Chris Turner stepped into the Yum Brands CEO seat in October 2025 after three decades of operational DNA built by David Gibbs. A financial architect taking the wheel of the world's largest fast food company by unit count raises real questions about execution versus analysis, especially as Yum's AI bet scales toward 60,000 locations and Pizza Hut bleeds stores.
No Tax on Tips: What the Federal $25,000 Exemption Means for QSR Operators
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act introduces a $25,000 federal income tax exemption on tips, triggering a cascade of state copycat bills and mandatory payroll system changes. Here is what QSR operators need to understand about compliance, worker pay, and the long game.
Wonder's $7 Billion Bet: How Marc Lore's Food Hall Model Is Rewriting the Multi-Brand Playbook
Marc Lore's Wonder has raised $600 million at a $7 billion valuation and acquired Grubhub for $650 million, building a food hall concept that promises to solve what ghost kitchens never could. The model is ambitious, the expansion pace is aggressive, and the implications for QSR operators are significant.
Starbucks Workers United: Four Years Without a Contract and the March 2026 Proposal That Could Break the Deadlock
Starbucks Workers United filed a comprehensive contract proposal on March 13, 2026, reigniting stalled negotiations that have dragged on for four years without a first contract. For QSR operators watching from the sidelines, the Starbucks labor standoff is the most consequential union story in the industry's modern history.
McDonald's CosMc's Failed. The Drinks Didn't.
McDonald's shuttered its CosMc's spinoff in May 2025 after 18 months, but the beverages that concept tested are now heading to 500-plus McDonald's locations and a planned national McCafe rollout. The story of how a failed brand became a beverage growth engine.
Chipotle Opens Its First Restaurant in Mexico: A Calculated Gamble on the Country That Inspired It
Chipotle Mexican Grill is entering Mexico for the first time in 2026, selling American-interpreted Mexican food to the nation that invented the original. The irony is obvious. The business logic, though, is worth examining carefully.
The Restaurant CEO Pay Gap: What Top Chain Executives Earn vs. the Workers Serving the Food
When McDonald's CEO Chris Kempczinski earned $19.2 million in 2024, the crew members at the counter made around $14 an hour. That gap is wider than most industries, and it's becoming a real operational problem for chains struggling to hire and retain staff.
White Castle and SoundHound Prove Voice AI Works: 20% Fewer Errors, 90-Second Times
White Castle's deployment of SoundHound's voice AI across its drive-thru lanes produced a 20% reduction in order errors and an average service time of 90 seconds per vehicle. The numbers give the industry the concrete proof point it has been waiting for.
Long John Silver's Shrinks Below 500 Locations: The Quiet Collapse of America's Largest Seafood QSR
Long John Silver's ended 2024 with just 485 locations, down from roughly 1,500 at its early-2000s peak. The chain's 57-year slide offers a case study in structural disadvantage, franchise economics gone wrong, and the limits of turnaround playbooks.
Papa Johns Is the First Restaurant to Deploy Google Cloud's Gemini AI Ordering Agent
Papa Johns has become the first restaurant brand to deploy Google Cloud's Gemini-powered agentic ordering platform, capable of handling complex multi-person orders across voice, mobile, web, kiosks, and in-car systems. The move positions the chain at the forefront of AI adoption even as it simultaneously closes hundreds of locations in a broader turnaround effort.
The Tariff Whiplash: How the IEEPA Ruling and Section 122 Pivot Are Creating New Supply Chain Uncertainty for QSR
The Supreme Court struck down IEEPA-based tariffs in February, then the White House pivoted to Section 122 authority within four days. For QSR procurement teams, the legal ground has never shifted faster.