Au Bon Pain is a fast casual restaurant, bakery, and café chain operating 175 locations in the U.S., and Thailand. The company is currently owned by AMPEX Brands. Au Bon Pain serves baked goods such as bread, pastries, croissants, and bagels as well as tea, coffee and espresso beverages, breakfast foods such as egg sandwiches, and lunch items such as soup, salads, and sandwiches. The company also offers catering services.

Chick-fil-A is one of the largest American fast food chain restaurants and the largest restaurant company whose specialty is chicken sandwiches. The restaurant’s other chicken entrees are also very popular among its clientele. Chick-fil-A was originally founded in 1946 as the “Dwarf Grill”, later changing it’s brand name to “Dwarf House” until ultimately rebranding as Chick-fil-A in the late 1960s. The company operates 2,400+ restaurants, primarily in the US with locations distributed across 48 states. The restaurant offers breakfast items in the mornings, and then switches over to its lunch and dinner menu around noon. Chick-fil-A also provides catering services with special bulk item food pricing. The company’s core values were deeply influenced by the Christian beliefs of its late founder, S. Truett Cathy, who was known to be a committed Southern Baptist. As an example reflecting these values, Chick-fil-A restaurants are all closed on Sundays, and for Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. The company’s financial support of charitable organizations opposed to same-sex marriage has been the subject of public controversy, but the company recently announced in 2019 that it would only focus philanthropic activities around organizations devoted to issues involving education, hunger and homelessness.

Dickey’s Barbecue Pit is a fast-casual restaurant that is known for serving hickory-smoked beef brisket, pulled pork, pork ribs, sausages, and chicken. Dickey’s is the nation’s largest barbecue chain, having over 500 locations, and has won many awards and acknowledgements, including being listed by QSR Magazine on its list of Best Franchise Deals. The Dickey’s Barbecue Franchise business was founded upon reproducing the restaurant business’s successes through an established tradition of slow-smoked meats and southern-style side dishes, served in an unpretentious atmosphere.

The significant advantage provided by Dickey’s BBQ Pit Franchise over many other restaurant concepts is its 6 revenue streams that provide a variety of ways each restaurant may gain customers and sales. A Dickey’s Barbecue Pit Franchise may be licensed with a reasonably low franchise fee, and the company then delivers franchisees their formal training to set them up with the experience, practices, and tools for success.

A Dickey’s Barbecue Franchise owner and operator is provided with the Smoked On-Site brand philosophy, advantageous national and local advertising and promotions, various franchise support services from the headquarters, and intensive training in the company’s “Barbecue U”, a three-week curriculum developed for the franchise business.

McDonald’s Corporation is an American fast food company, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechristened their business as a hamburger stand, and later turned the company into a franchise, with the Golden Arches logo being introduced in 1953 at a location in Phoenix, Arizona. In 1955, Ray Kroc, a businessman, joined the company as a franchise agent and proceeded to purchase the chain from the McDonald brothers. McDonald’s had its original headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois, but moved its global headquarters to Chicago in early 2018.[5][6][7] McDonald’s is the world’s largest restaurant chain by revenue,[8] serving over 69 million customers daily in over 100 countries[9] across 37,855 outlets as of 2018.[10][11] Although McDonald’s is best known for its hamburgers, cheeseburgers and french fries, they also feature chicken products, breakfast items, soft drinks, milkshakes, wraps, and desserts. In response to changing consumer tastes and a negative backlash because of the unhealthiness of their food,[12] the company has added to its menu salads, fish, smoothies, and fruit. The McDonald’s Corporation revenues come from the rent, royalties, and fees paid by the franchisees, as well as sales in company-operated restaurants. According to two reports published in 2018, McDonald’s is the world’s second-largest private employer with 1.7 million employees (behind Walmart with 2.3 million employees).

Restaurant Brands International Inc. (RBI) is a Canadian multinational fast food holding company. Formed in 2014 by the $12.5 billion merger between American fast food restaurant chain Burger King and Canadian coffee shop and restaurant chain Tim Hortons, and expanded by the 2017 purchase of American fast food chain Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, the company is the fifth-largest operator of fast food restaurants in the world behind Subway, McDonald’s, Starbucks and Yum! Brands (KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell). The company is based alongside Tim Hortons in Toronto (previously Oakville, Ontario), but Burger King and Popeyes retain their existing operations and headquarters, both in Miami. The 2014 merger focused primarily on expanding the international reach of the Tim Hortons brand, and providing financial efficiencies for both companies. The company is majority-owned by the Brazilian investment company 3G Capital—the previous majority owner of Burger King—holding a 51% stake. The remainder of the company is publicly traded on the New York and Toronto Stock Exchanges, and owned by the prior shareholders of Burger King and Tim Hortons. The deal was approved by Tim Hortons’ shareholders on December 9, 2014, and the company began trading on December 15, 2014. In January 2019, Jose Cil was named the CEO of Restaurant Brands International and Schwartz was named the executive chairman of the company.

Yum! Brands, Inc., or Yum! and formerly Tricon Global Restaurants, Inc., is an American fast food corporation listed on the Fortune 500. Yum! operates the brands Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut, and WingStreet worldwide, except in China, where the brands are operated by a separate company, Yum China. Prior to 2011, Yum! also owned Long John Silver’s and A&W Restaurants. Based in Louisville, Kentucky, it is one of the world’s largest fast food restaurant companies in terms of system units. In 135 nations and territories worldwide, they operate 43,617 restaurants, including 2,859 that are company-owned and 40,758 that are franchised.