Fascinating look at the chicken chain restaurant landscape across the United States! 🇺🇸 Chick-fil-A's stronghold in the Southeast to KFC's prevalence in the Midwest.

It's clear the fried chicken industry is highly competitive, with major chains like Bojangles, Church's, and Popeyes vying for market share. The density of restaurants per 100,000 population also varies greatly, reflecting the differing dining preferences and trends across the country. 🍗💥 #ChickenRestaurants #FoodIndustry

Don’t know about your city/town, but here in New Mexico it seems that the only commercial uses being built lately are car washes, chicken places, and drive-thru coffee shops. The proliferation of these “three c’s” has been insane.

One car wash chain is building a new location just 2.5 miles from what appears to be a fairly quiet site constructed just last year! Meanwhile, another with a noticeably busier car wash is doing the exact same thing just a few miles away. Don’t these closely proximate sites draw from the same customer base?

Below are maps identifying the locations for just two of the car wash chains operating in the Albuquerque area. There are several others with locations across the region.

Meanwhile chicken restaurants are popping up like dandelions. From Chick-fil-A to Raising Canes, to Churchs, to Popeyes, to Slim Chickens, to Chicken Salad Chick, these are becoming more common than burger joints, especially when you throw in KFC. There is even one location in the area where Chick-fil-A and Raising Canes are adjacent to one another and use the same sign two poles – one has Raising Canes on top and the other has Chick-fil-A.

And the coffee shop drive-thrus seem to just appear overnight. A region that was once the bastion of Starbucks  and several local chains has become dotted with Dutch Bros, The Human Bean, Scooters, 7 Brew, and many others. Even Starbucks is putting multiple locations within mere blocks of one another on some major thoroughfares.

• Green – Starbucks
• Blue – Dutch Bros.
• Red – Dunkin
• Burgundy – Scooters
• Orange – Piñon
• Brown – The Human Being
• Purple – 7B’s
• Black – Ziggi’s

Granted, franchising goes through various boom-bust cycles and incarnations, but this retired planner doesn’t recall such a narrow concentration in just three areas.

Is your city/town seeing a similar influx of the three C’s? If so, let us know in the comments. In the meantime, it appears we will be no-doubt be seeing more of them dotting the landscape. 

Perhaps, the franchise industry could just make it easier for all of us by developing an all-in-one chain where you can sip your coffee or munch on chicken fingers while getting your car washed and waxed. At least it would mean only two traffic trips generated (one in and one out) instead of six that are derived from three separate visits.  Small benefit, but better than nothing. 🤔

Peace!

SOURCES:

• personal knowledge
• maps.google.com
• http://www.google.com
• websites for each of the chains shown on the maps above

https://panethos.wordpress.com/2024/08/26/car-washes-%f0%9f%a7%bd-chicken-places-%f0%9f%90%94-coffee-shops-%e2%98%95-oh-my/

#carWashes #chickenRestaurants #cities #coffe #coffeeShops #driveThru #fastFood #geography #landUse #planning #transportation