For the past 11 years, Chick-fil-A has beat out every other fast food chain in the United States and has been ranked the number one fast food chain in the country. That’s quite impressive. There’s a lot of competition out there, and it’s inevitable that the chain would eventually lose that top ranking spot.
Yahoo! reports that this is the year that Chick-fil-A has been dethroned. According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index report, the chain is no longer number one. But who took the top spot? A burger chain? Perhaps a Mexican or Chinese chain? What about a quick service deli?
If you guessed the last option, you’re correct. The top fast food chain in the United States is now Jersey Mike’s.
While Chick-fil-A is no longer number one when it comes to the overall fast food category, the chicken chain did still rank number one when it comes to chicken restaurants. They beat out competitors including KFC, Popeyes, Wing Stop and Raising Cane’s.
It’s also interesting to note the Chick-fil-A didn’t actually go down in their customer satisfaction ranking. They had a ranking of 83, which is the same as last year. Instead, Jersey Mike’s increased their ranking to 84 to take the top spot.
In other categories, Culver’s and Burger King tied for the top spot. Uber Eats beat out Grubhub by one point and DoorDash by two points. Meanwhile, in the sit-down restaurant category, Longhorn Steakhouse and Texas Roadhouse tied for the top spot with Olive Garden trailing by one point.
Forrest Morgeson, Associate Professor of Marketing at Michigan State University and Director of Research Emeritus at the ACSI, explained, “Restaurant industry-level scores are stable, but there’s real movement underneath.” He continued, “New brands are entering our rankings and immediately competing at the top, which tells you something about where consumer expectations are headed. Price still matters, but it’s no longer enough on its own. Consistency across the full experience is what separates the leaders right now, and that’s showing up clearly in the data. The challenge going forward is sustaining that as costs continue to rise and competition intensifies from outside the traditional restaurant space.”
Watch the video below for more about this shakeup in restaurant rankings.
