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Jersey Mike's might IPO before your lunch order is ready
Andy Moore
April 24, 2026
Hello!
This week we’re talking:
Jersey Mike’s future IPO
The state of chain restaurants in 2025
And White Castle vending machines
Read on…
3 Numbers
105
Net openings for Panda Express in 2025, its largest year of growth since 2016. The closely-held brand remains somewhat of an underrated powerhouse — it ended 2025 with over 2,600 locations (and has added 1,600 locations in the past 20 years).
2,000
Number of employees that Starbucks plans to staff at its new $100M Nashville headquarters. Despite some pushback (including on Reddit), when the office is completed in 2027, the brand plans to relocate some teams that are currently housed in Seattle.
9%
Percentage of orders in 2025 that were large-group, off-site catering orders. The number has been growing — driven in part by office orders in the return-to-work movement — and dine-in-centric brands like IHOP and Cracker Barrel are investing heavily in their catering programs, adopting specialized packaging and even buying fleets of vans
The Big Story
The foodservice data platform Technomic released its Top 500 Chain Restaurant Report, finding that sales in 2025 grew at the slowest rate since the Great Recession. Via Restaurant Business:
Total U.S. sales generated by the 500 largest restaurant chains grew just 3% to $451.5 billion. That was lower than the 3.8% menu price inflation last year, and it was lower than the 3.5% growth in 2024, as the industry encountered a host of challenges, from weak consumer confidence to the growing use of weight-loss drugs to bad weather and an immigration crackdown.
Even that might overstate the industry’s performance. A lot of the growth last year was driven by high-performing restaurant chains in specific sectors, notably chicken, coffee, beverages and snacks.
Median sales growth last year among the Top 500 chains was just 2.5% so, when adjusted for menu-price inflation, the typical chain last year saw a 1.3% decline in sales on a real-dollar basis.
“It was a very, very weak year for the Top 500 overall from a sales perspective,” said Joe Pawlak, managing principal with Technomic, a sibling company of Restaurant Business and Nation’s Restaurant News.
Unit count among the top 500 chains grew by 1.4%, but that number is a bit misleading — high-growth chains like 7 Brew and Jersey Mike’s drove most of the growth, and 48% of chains didn’t add any new restaurants last year. To put a finer point on it, Restaurant Business shared this crazy stat: “The largest 500 restaurant chains added a net of 3,400 locations last year. But 45% of those locations came from just five brands: Wingstop, Cinnabon, Chipotle, 7 Brew and Jersey Mike’s.”
(Really, I should be talking about 7 Brew every chance I get — it’s not even a decade old and is now a top 60 chain at $1.3 billion in system sales.)
It’s worth reading a full breakdown on the report.
In the Headlines
Jersey Mike’s has confidentially filed to go public — just a year after Blackstone bought a majority stake in the chain at an $8 billion valuation. Timing of the IPO is still TBD.
McDonald’s grew its unit count by 1.1% in 2025 — not a huge number overall, but some of the most new-store development from the Golden Arches in the past 20 years. The chain ended the year with 13,706 U.S. restaurants.
Dairy Queen is testing a drive-thru chatbot built by Presto, joining a not-insignificant number of chains that are now experimenting with the technology, including Wendy’s, Taco Bell, and Carl’s Jr.
Little Caesars rides global rearmament wave and is deploying “high-capacity drone delivery.”
After franchisee ARC Burger filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy this week, Hardee’s has reopened 20 of the franchisees’ shuttered locations and says it expects to assume ownership of more than 20 more.
White Castle is deploying 1,000 automated kiosks that will allow customers to buy sliders in non-traditional markets like airports and hospitals — perfect for celebrating the birth of your first child.
I want to test the limits of Buffalo Wild Wings’ all-you-can-eat appetizer deal.
Name That Chain!
You’ve got three guesses to name this week’s mystery chain:
Founded in 1978 in San Antonio after the owner bought an abandoned Dairy Queen across the street from his bar — originally just to use as overflow parking
Pioneered the "patio café" concept in chain Tex-Mex dining; the open-air design came from the existing DQ structure, not a grand plan
Breakfast makes up 30% of its sales — unusually high for a Tex-Mex concept — and it now has nearly 150 locations, almost all company-owned and all in Texas
Find the answer at the bottom of the email…
Power Moves
Here are some notable C-suite moves from the past week:
Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams hired former Ben & Jerry’s head David Stever as its new CEO. In addition to a pretty robust retail business, Jeni’s is now franchising as it looks to grow its scoop shop footprint.
Kevin Armantrout has been promoted to CEO of the 11-unit Bagels & Co.
“Steak ‘n Shake hires first ‘Chief MAHA Officer’”
What’s New at FS Supply
We've been rolling out branded paper bags for a few chains lately — rope-handle shopping bags, SOS bags, the works.
It's one of the lowest-cost, highest-visibility branding touchpoints in a restaurant, and it's almost always an afterthought. If your guests are walking out the door carrying a plain brown bag, that's free marketing leaving the building every time the door swings open.
Thanks for reading! I’ll see you next week.
NAME THAT CHAIN ANSWER: Taco Cabana
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