The QSR Pro editorial team covers the quick service restaurant industry with in-depth analysis, data-driven reporting, and operator-first perspective.
Primary Coverage
Showing 261–280 of 861 articles
DoorDash's Dot robot made its first delivery in Fremont, California on March 5, 2026, joining Serve Robotics, Grubhub, and Zipline in a live deployment race across U.S. cities. Here is which platforms are operating where, what the unit economics look like, and what QSR operators need to do now.
Starbucks cut earning rates for base-tier members by at least 25% on March 10, 2026, and the backlash was immediate. With 34 million U.S. members watching, every QSR chain running a loyalty program just got a live case study in what not to do.
Burger King's brand president gave out his personal work phone, fielded 30,000 customer messages, and aired a 90-second Oscars spot to nearly 20 million viewers. The result: restaurant visits up 7.4% year-over-year. Here's how the campaign worked and what other operators can learn from it.
New York PE firm 4X4 Capital acquired Bob Evans Restaurants from Golden Gate Capital in a deal announced February 5, 2026, closing the book on an unusually long 8-year hold for a private equity owner.
Who runs restaurants, funds locations and records sales.
White Castle will open its first-ever Texas location at Grandscape in The Colony this summer, marking only the chain's seventh outpost outside the Midwest and a calculated bet on the nation's most competitive QSR battleground.
A humanoid robot's \"crazy dance\" at a Haidilao hot pot location in Cupertino sent dishware flying and required three employees to restrain it. The incident is a useful reality check for operators who have been told automation is ready for the dining room.
The International Pizza Expo returns to Las Vegas this week with 10,000 professionals, 500 exhibitors, and a competitive landscape that mirrors the industry itself: winners pulling away while weak operators struggle to survive.
Beef hit $9.64 per pound in February, the highest price ever recorded. Eggs are projected to fall 27.4% this year. The widest protein cost gap in decades is forcing operators to rethink menu engineering, daypart strategy, and pricing architecture.
The nearly 30-year-old Italian casual dining chain is debuting a 6,000 square foot bar-forward prototype in Laredo, Texas. With 20 draft beers, craft cocktails, and fire pits, it's a bet that beverage-driven traffic can reverse casual dining's structural decline.
For the first time in its history, Applebee's is spending more on digital and social marketing than television. TikTok reach is up 760%. The casual dining chain is rewriting the restaurant marketing playbook.
Black Box Intelligence data shows 9% of full-service restaurants are at risk of closure in 2026, with 3% already past the point of no return. The format divergence between fast casual and traditional sit-down dining is accelerating.
New EY-Parthenon data shows one in four consumers feeling worse off financially. Circana forecasts sub-1% traffic growth for 2026. The gap between winning and losing chains is accelerating.
Americans aged 65 and older will account for 18% of all restaurant spending by 2030, nearly double their share from 2025. With 73 million seniors controlling $78 trillion in assets, operators who ignore this demographic shift risk leaving billions on the table.
Starbucks posted Q1 fiscal 2026 revenue of $9.9 billion, up 6%, with global comp sales rising 4%. CEO Brian Niccol says the 'Back to Starbucks' strategy is ahead of schedule, but a union standoff and growing competition from drive-thru coffee chains add complexity to the recovery.
Chipotle's Q4 2025 results tell a split story: revenue grew 4.9% to $2.98 billion on the strength of new unit openings, but same-store sales fell 2.5% and traffic declined for a fourth consecutive quarter. The chain now projects flat comps for 2026.
CAVA crossed $1 billion in annual revenue for the first time in 2025, growing 22.5% year-over-year while opening 72 new restaurants. With 76 more planned for 2026 and a 1,000-store target by 2032, the Mediterranean chain is rewriting the fast-casual growth playbook.
Wendy's posted its worst quarterly same-store sales performance in years, with U.S. comps down 11.3% in Q4 2025. Interim CEO Ken Cook is betting on Project Fresh, a new value menu, and hundreds of closures to reset the brand.
Roy Rogers Restaurants has selected Qu as its technology partner to unify ordering, kitchen execution, and menu management across all 38 locations. The move is a case study in why legacy regional brands can't afford to keep running fragmented tech stacks.
A New York-based private equity consortium is betting nearly $300 million that California Pizza Kitchen's brand equity can survive a long decline from 250-plus units to 120. The deal puts multi-brand operator Convive in charge of turning the iconic casual-dining chain around.