A fast food restaurant, also known as a quick service restaurant (QSR) within the industry, is a specific type of restaurant that serves fast food cuisine and has minimal table service. The food served in fast food restaurants is typically part of a "meat-sweet diet", offered from a limited menu, cooked in bulk in advance and kept hot, finished and packaged to order, and usually available for take away, though seating may be provided. Fast food restaurants are typically part of a restaurant chain or franchise operation that provides standardized ingredients and/or partially prepared foods and supplies to each restaurant through controlled supply channels. The term "fast food" was recognized in a dictionary by Merriam–Webster in 1951.
Popeyes is an American multinational chain of fried chicken fast food restaurants that was founded in 1972 in New Orleans, Louisiana and headquartered in Miami, Florida. Since 2008, its full brand name is Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, Inc., and it was formerly named Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits and Popeyes Famous Fried Chicken & Biscuits. It is currently a subsidiary of Toronto-based Restaurant Brands International. According to a company press release dated June 29, 2007, Popeyes is the second-largest "quick-service chicken restaurant group, measured by number of units", after KFC. Popeyes has 3,102 restaurants, which are located in more than 40 states and the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and 30 countries worldwide. About thirty locations are company-owned; the rest franchised.
Del Taco Restaurants Inc. is an American fast food restaurant chain which specializes in American-style Mexican cuisine as well as American foods such as burgers, fries, and shakes. Del Taco is led by CEO John D. Cappasola, Jr., and is headquartered in Lake Forest, California.
The Cheesecake Factory Incorporated is an American restaurant company and distributor of cheesecakes based in the United States. The company operates 220 full-service restaurants: 206 under The Cheesecake Factory brand, 13 under the Grand Lux Cafe brand, and one under the RockSugar Southeast Asian Kitchen brand. The Cheesecake Factory also operates two bakery production facilities—in Calabasas, California, and Rocky Mount, North Carolina—and licenses two bakery-based menus for other food service operators under The Cheesecake Factory Bakery Cafe marque. Its cheesecakes and other baked goods can also be found in the cafes of many Barnes & Noble stores.
Bojangles is an American regional chain of fast food restaurants that specializes in cajun-seasoned fried chicken and buttermilk biscuits that primarily serves the Southeastern United States. The company was founded in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1977 by Jack Fulk and Richard Thomas.
Chicken Licken is a South African fast-food fried chicken restaurant chain. The company had a 5% share of South Africa's fast food market in 2010, tying with McDonald's. According to a case study published by the Henny Penny Corporation in 2011, Chicken Licken is the "largest non-American-owned fried chicken franchise in the world".
A&W Food Services of Canada, Inc. is a Canadian fast food restaurant chain. The chain was originally part of the U.S.-based A&W Restaurants chain, but was sold to Unilever in 1972, and then bought by its management in 1995. It no longer has any corporate connection to A&W operations outside of Canada.
Ezell's Famous Chicken is a Seattle fast food restaurant. The first restaurant was opened on February 3, 1984, in Seattle's Central District neighborhood, near Garfield High School. The restaurant chain has 12 other locations in the Puget Sound region, including a location on the Microsoft campus in Redmond that opened in 2006. In 2015, the chain opened its Spokane location, its first restaurant outside of Western Washington. The first international location for Ezell's opened in June 2015, in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. The Sharjah location has since closed.
Dixie Lee is a regional franchised fried chicken fast-food restaurant founded in Belleville, Ontario in 1964 by Ramon Leon Walmsley. The company is currently based in Kingston and Bruce Mines, Ontario. Its largest group of franchise operators is Dixie Lee Maritimes, a New Brunswick-based company with 38 locations in two provinces. The parent organization is the direct franchisor of ten restaurants in various Ontario locations.
A fried chicken restaurant is a fast food restaurant, often a chain, that serves (mainly) fried chicken—usually chunks of chicken, battered or breaded and deep-fried.
Tantalizers is a leading Nigerian fast food restaurant chain. It opened its first location around 1997 in Festac Town, Lagos. This first location was initially a small neighborhood restaurant serving hamburgers. Success at this first location led to an expansion that has seen the company and its franchisees open additional locations in cities such as Lagos, Ibadan, Abuja, and Port Harcourt. As of 2015, the restaurant has 50 outlets across Nigeria. Tantalizers serves Nigerian fast food staples such as meat pies, scotch eggs, chicken, jollof rice, fried rice, cakes, and hamburgers.
Bush's Chicken! is a fast food restaurant serving fried chicken. The company is headquartered in Waco, Texas and has over 90 corporate and franchise locations in Central, South, and West Texas, as well as in Arizona and Colorado. Fare includes fried chicken, fried okra, fries, mashed potatoes, corn nuggets, jalapeño poppers, yeast rolls and macaroni and cheese. Bush's Chicken also sells sweet and unsweet iced tea by the gallon jug.
Lady Kehinde Kamson, KJW, is a Nigerian entrepreneur, business leader, and philanthropist. She is one of the pioneers in the fast food sector and an outstanding female business leader in Nigeria. She is best known as the Founder and CEO of Sweet Sensation Confectionery Limited – one of the strongest brands in the fast food industry in Nigeria which she started from a backyard shed and a tiny converted security house with just two used air conditioners and a few other refurbished scrap equipment, after giving up a lucrative accounting career. She is one of those credited with changing the competitive outlook of the Quick Service Restaurant industry in Nigeria thereby leading to the astronomical growth seen in the industry in the 90s and first decade of the 2000s.
Chicken in the Rough, also known as Beverly's Chicken in the Rough, is a fried chicken restaurant chain and former franchise. It was one of the earliest restaurant chain franchises in the United States. Chicken in the Rough was founded by Beverly and Rubye Osborne in 1936 in Oklahoma City, and the restaurant's specialty half a fried chicken dish was also created in 1936. The dish itself was also referred to as "Chicken in the Rough", and consisted of half a fried chicken, shoestring potatoes and a biscuit with honey. Three restaurants presently serve the dish today, located in Oklahoma City, Port Huron, Michigan and Canadian neighbor Sarnia, Ontario. The chain's logo was an image of a rooster smoking a cigar and carrying a golf club. The chain also used a logo of "Chicken's Caddie", which depicted a chick acting as a golf caddie, stating "I'll gladly be fried for Chicken in the Rough".
Chicken Republic is a Nigerian quick service restaurant chain and franchise that specializes in chicken recipes, especially fried chicken.
El Pollo Loco, Inc., is a restaurant chain based in the United States, specializing in Mexican-style grilled chicken. Restaurant service consists of: dine-in, take-out, with some locations offering drive through options. The company is headquartered in Costa Mesa, California, and operates about 500 company-owned and franchised restaurants in the Southwestern United States.
