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By
Sarah Ward

Best Restaurant Franchise Businesses: 10 Inspirational Spots

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The best restaurant franchise businesses are a source of inspiration and goal orientation for up and coming restaurant franchises. Maybe you’re just writing up your franchise restaurant business plan and learning about risk assessment for a restaurant. Perhaps you’re well into the restaurant management of your hospitality franchise or franchise restaurant. Either way, you’re in the right place. 

In this BinWise blog, we’ll walk you through some of the best restaurant franchise businesses, ones you might expect to have table d’hote menus. From food and beverage truck franchising building to cafe franchises to hotel franchises, we’ve got you covered. 

Read on to learn where you’ll likely find the best restaurant franchise businesses. There are some defining characteristics of locations that most attract and support these businesses. From there, we’ll look at some of the best of the best, and check out their shared qualities as well!

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Where are the Best Restaurant Franchise Businesses?

Later on in this blog post we’ll take a look at some of the key qualities that restaurant franchises share with each other. Before we get there, we’re going to examine the qualities of the locations that are most amenable to restaurant franchises. 

They share many qualities of tourism, high levels of diversity, and more. The full list is vast, considering how many places can be highly suitable for franchise restaurants. These are some of the most common qualities:

  • Demographics that suit a variety of age ranges, to cover all the people who enjoy different types of restaurant franchises
  • A fair amount of people living there, to keep businesses booming
  • Accessible areas for the franchises, so they can always bring in customers
  • A healthy amount of competition, to keep the market moving
  • Synergy with other businesses in the area, to avoid rivalries as compared to healthy competition

These qualities showcase the best of the locations where you should open a franchise restaurant. If you’re looking to expand, keep these in mind in your business plan research.

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10 Best Restaurant Franchise Businesses

When it comes to this list of the best restaurant franchise businesses, you’re going to recognize these names. That’s the thing about great franchises, they’re recognizable worldwide because of their branding and reach. Even if you haven’t eaten at these places, you’ve seen them around in person or in advertising. 

These 10 places have taken over the world of restaurant franchises. They cover everything from breakfast to lunch to sit-down dinners on their restaurant menus. Overall, these spots showcase how varied successful restaurant franchises are.

10. Subway: Subway has made a name for themselves as the sandwich place with consistent branding through the years.

9. Arby’s: Arby’s has been quietly but consistently staying in their lane of the fast food game, finding a loyal customer base.

8. Dairy Queen: Dairy Queen rides the line of dessert and general fast food, with a strategy of banking on their best menu items for constant exposure.

7. Buffalo Wild Wings: Buffalo Wild Wings leans into the sports bar and grill theme, reaching a unique customer base that keeps coming back for more.

6. Baskin-Robbins: Baskin-Robbins has been consistently winning in the ice cream theme of restaurant franchises for years, with consistent branding and product quality.

5. McDonald’s: McDonald’s rules the world as the most popular restaurant franchise, with consistent branding, quality of meals, and a similar atmosphere.

4. Burger King: Burger King is often framed as a competitor of McDonald’s, and that’s true, but they’ve been trucking on as their own successful business for ages.

3. Panera Bread: Panera Bread is a more recent ruler of the restaurant franchise world compared to others on this list, but it’s been gaining consistent popularity.

2. Denny’s: Denny’s is another long-standing addition to this list, with a consistent record of quality that brings back regulars year after year.

1. Taco Bell: Taco Bell is a key player in the world of fast food, with differences from other fast food spots that sets it apart.

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Elements of the Best Restaurant Franchise Businesses

These best restaurant franchise businesses all have many traits you can trace to their success. From perseverance in the early days to peak brand recognition, they all have played their cards well in the industry. They have a variety of strategies that have gotten them to this point.

They also share many specific traits, including:

  • Excellent branding and marketing, to increase brand recognition and get people visiting franchises all around, because they’re all similar
  • Coordination from the top management all the way down, to keep things running smoothly
  • Consistency in quality across the various franchise locations, so people always know they can expect something comforting and familiar

These three qualities are the key pillars of creating the best restaurant franchise businesses. When you focus on these goals, you’ll find that the rest of your business falls into place.

"Key Takeaway:  The thing about great franchises is they’re recognizable worldwide because of their branding and reach. Even if you haven’t eaten at these places, you’ve seen them around in person or in advertising."

Frequently Asked Questions About the Best Restaurant Franchises

The best restaurant franchise businesses tend to inspire questions among the restaurant owner community. They are a showcase of some of the all-around most successful restaurants around the world. The questions they inspire are as vast and varied as they are. Our answers to these frequently asked questions will get you started in the direction of learning more about these spots.

What Is the Most Popular Restaurant Franchise?

The most popular restaurant franchise, across the map, is McDonald’s. McDonald’s has been ruling the fast food scene for many years. With their unique locations around the globe, they have some of the widest reach of all restaurant franchises. The sheer quantity of McDonald’s locations showcases how successful this franchise has been over the years.

How Profitable are Restaurant Franchises?

Studies show the average salary of a restaurant franchise owner is around $120,000 a year, after two years of growth. Overall, this is a pretty solid profit. Franchises have the potential to bring in huge amounts of profits. Their business branding as a familiar place no matter what positions them to be huge drivers of profits.

Can a Franchise Make You a Millionaire?

A franchise has the potential to make you a millionaire as the owner of the franchise plan and original work. Once you franchise your restaurant business, you can build up your franchise with many, many locations. Once you’re off the ground, the more locations you have, the more of a profit you’ll see coming in. 

Is Franchising Good For Beginners?

Franchising, from the side of buying into a franchise business, is great for beginners. It’s a way to ease into owning a business with support from the franchise parent company. For the parent company or franchise owner, franchising isn’t often something to do right away with your restaurant. It’s best explored after a few years of work in the industry.

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The Best Restaurant Franchises: Find Your Inspiration 

Learning from the best restaurant franchise businesses helps to set you up for success. When you learn the skills and tricks of these spots, you’ll be able to emulate them in your restaurant franchise. You can lean on their marketing campaigns, learn from their managing teams, and study their skills in the industry. You can also lean on BinWise and BlueCart for support.

The BinWise Pro beverage inventory program, paired with the BinScan app, gives you peace of mind when you take inventory. BlueCart’s order management software smoothes out the process of your order management system. Reach out today to get started with these two programs that will elevate your restaurant franchise business to the best of the best. 

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