Living in North America, I’m sure we’ve all been exposed to the following fast food chains:

McDonald’s
Burger King
Starbucks
Subway
Pizza Hut
Taco Bell
Wendy’s

When we’re out all day and need a snack break, many of us tend to end up at fast food restaurants. Whether it’s because of the cheap, tasty and unhealthy food or the fast paced environment, North Americans love their fast food! In a recent study published by Nation’s Restaurant News, the top 100 fast food chains in the United States were listed in terms of sales in millions of dollars (Top 100 Chains: US Sales, 2012).

This article utilizes Google Chrome’s Google Charts software to program and create a visualization to represent the trends in sales over a three year period for the Top 9 Fast Food Chains in the United States. Customers can dive in and literally see how their consumption has led to the success of these Franchises from 2009-2011. They can see how the franchise’s revenue increases or decreases over these years.

Top 9 fast food restaurants in the US ranked by percentage revenue in 2009

Top 9 fast food restaurants in the US ranked by percentage revenue in 2010

Top 9 fast food restaurants in the US ranked by percentage revenue in 2011

From this representation, it is obvious that McDonald’s is the dominant fast food franchise in the United States. Also, it is observed that over the years, McDonald’s, Subway, Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts are showing a consistent increase in percent of overall annual revenue while the rest of the franchises are decreasing or fluctuating.