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.
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.
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.
Nearly half of all quick-service restaurant visits are now solo occasions, up from 31% four years ago. The chains adapting their menus, store formats, and loyalty tech to single-guest economics are pulling ahead.
From Shake Shack's GLP-1 friendly 'Good Fit' menu to Smoothie King's dedicated drug-user section, chains are engineering menus around a growing cohort of Americans on weight loss medications. Operators who ignore this shift do so at their own risk.
FAT Brands is pushing Fatburger into France with 30 units targeted by 2028, starting with a new location near Paris. The expansion raises a pointed question for the industry: can a financially distressed franchisor build a winning international presence while fighting through Chapter 11 at home?
KFC, the chain that invented fast-food fried chicken in America, has fallen to fifth place among US chicken chains. Consumer spending dropped 4% to $4.34 billion as Raising Cane's and Wingstop surged past the Yum Brands stalwart, exposing structural problems no LTO can fix.
A College Station chicken finger brand that once operated a single restaurant near Texas A&M is now chasing statewide saturation. A 44-unit deal with C5 Restaurants signals Layne's may be on a trajectory similar to Raising Cane's early expansion years. Whether the crowded chicken QSR segment leaves room for another ascent is the central question operators and investors should be asking.
Zaxby's quietly surpassed 1,000 restaurants in January 2026, operating across 22 states with 60+ new openings planned for the year. The brand's Modern Farmhouse prototype and Goldman Sachs-backed expansion push raise a core question for the industry: can a deeply regional chain scale to national relevance without losing what made it work?
Roark Capital paid roughly $1 billion for a 245-unit Nashville hot chicken chain in June 2025. The math only makes sense if you understand the Wingstop playbook Roark has already run once before, and why Dave's Hot Chicken might be the one brand positioned to repeat it.
A California super-premium chicken chain just signed its biggest development deal ever, with a Texas auto dealership empire as the franchisee.