Bay Area has among lowest number of chain restaurants

The Bay Area has one of the lowest shares of chain restaurants in the U.S., according to data collected by Friendly Cities Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Just 28 percent of restaurants in the San Francisco-OaklandBerkeley metropolitan area are chain restaurants, about the same percentage as the New York area and just below Honolulu with 27.5 percent. That compares to 46 percent for the average metropolitan area.

To measure the presence of chain restaurants, researchers Clio Andris and Xiaofan Liang used the data collected by LeadsDeposit in April 2021 which contains 705,621 restaurants across the United States. The researchers classified as chains restaurants with more than seven locations.

Although chain restaurants are relatively uncommon in San Francisco and its surroundings, they make up the majority of restaurants in some California counties.

In Merced and Kings County, they represent almost 60 percent of restaurants.

Subway is the most common chain business across the United States with 24,000 locations. This is also the case in the Bay Area, where the company has 243. Starbucks, 7-Eleven, McDonald’s and Taco Bell are the other most common chains in the bay.

In San Francisco, three of the five most prevalent chains are

Food service includes restaurants, bars and special food services, such as caterers. Neighborhoods in gray had insufficient data. coffee shops. Starbucks has 56 locations, Peet’s 17 and Philz Coffee 14. The other two are Subway and 7-Eleven.

Since 2014, San Francisco’s planning code defines chains as businesses with more than 11 locations in the world and a common appearance across multiple establishments. The rules vary by neighborhood and by zoning district.

San Francisco only allows chains in the Financial District, Civic Center, Bayview and North Beach. The city requires special authorization for long avenues such as Mission Street and Divisadero Street.

As a result, chains in San Francisco are concentrated in the Financial District and other parts of downtown.

To protect the image of the neighborhood, the city says chains must be aesthetically compatible with the neighborhood. That’s why coffee shops like Philz in the Mission look like local coffee shops with plants, art and old furniture.