In a sluggish burger business, volumes matter

Culver’s has quietly become a force in the burger space. | Photo: Shutterstock.

The burger business has been sluggish over the past two years, victims of an economy in which many consumers are unable to afford to dine out as much as they have in the past. 

U.S. consumers spent $115 billion at limited-service burger chains in 2025, according to data from Technomic. That represents nearly a quarter of all restaurant chain sales. As that sector goes, in other words, so goes the chain restaurant business. And over the past two years that business has been sluggish. 

Sales among fast-food and fast-casual burger chains have averaged 1.5% growth over the past two years, based on Technomic Top 1,500 data. The bulk of that growth has come from fast-casual chains, which have largely outpaced their quick-service cousins over the past few years. 

But that sector hasn’t exactly lit the world on fire, either, growing 3.5% last year, which was roughly in line with pricing, and fueled in part by unit growth. 

It makes sense that burger chains would hit something of a wall. They have the most share to give. Many of the brands in the fast-food sector are older, legacy brands that have been making way for newer upstarts, in and out of the burger business. 

In an environment in which the restaurant industry is largely saturated, they have the most to lose, though they do not face the existential challenges of, say, the pizza business. 

Still, there are a few lessons we can glean from the past five years, the first of which is that unit volumes matter. A lot. 

Among fast-food burger chains with unit volumes of $2 million or more, just nine of 54 such chains, median growth over the past five years was 46%. Among those with less than $2 million unit volumes, that median was 1.71%. 

The difference is even starker in the fast-casual world, where the median five-year sales growth for $2 million-plus chains was 44%, compared with a median decline of 1% for those with under $2 million. 

To be sure, brands that grow unit volumes naturally generate stronger sales. But it is also cyclical. Restaurant chains that can grow unit volumes have more money to spend on marketing to further grow those volumes. And their restaurants can better afford more workers and improved equipment and more technology, which also helps unit volumes. 

Simply look at the large, legacy burger chains. Among the big five burger chains, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, Sonic and Jack in the Box, McDonald’s easily has the best unit volumes, at just over $4 million. It has grown sales nearly 20% over the past five years.

The other chains average between $1.5 million and $2 million in unit volumes. And they’ve averaged five-year growth of 2.4%.

The two chains with the highest average-unit volumes in the burger business are In-N-Out ($6.1 million) and Culver’s ($4.2 million). Those two chains have grown sales by 56% and 75%, respectively.

As a side note, Culver’s has very quietly become the Chick-fil-A of the burger world, a brand that simply grows in the teens every year with a combination of measured unit growth and strong volumes. It has a franchisee model that emphasizes franchisees working out of their stores. 

The Wisconsin-based chain finished last year as the 24th largest restaurant chain in the U.S. It may be the biggest single challenge for a brand like Wendy’s, which no longer has the market cornered on fresh beef fast-food burgers. Culver’s has already leapfrogged Jack in the Box and could soon do the same with Sonic to become the fourth-largest burger chain, and then it will eye Burger King and Wendy’s.

The fast-casual world is no different. Shake Shack, which boasts the strongest unit volumes in that sector, at just under $4 million, has nearly doubled in size over the past five years. Contrast that with Five Guys, the sector’s leader, which has volumes of just $1.5 million, and grew sales by 10.5%.

Consumers have been gravitating toward burger chains with stronger quality reputations, which has driven the success of the fast-casual sector as a whole, along with concepts like Culver’s, Whataburger and In-N-Out.

Chains that want to keep pace need to focus on unit volumes, product and service quality. Because that is exactly what the consumer is looking for these days.