How Many Restaurants Are in the US? #
The United States had 618,476 restaurants with paid employees (Census CBP, 2023). Counting the 148,626 restaurant businesses that operate with no paid employees (Census Nonemployer Statistics, 2023) raises the total to 767,102.
The employer count has risen since 2017 and was higher in the latest count than before the pandemic. Restaurants with paid employees employ about 11.4 million people (Census CBP, 2023).
Restaurants by Type #
Census sorts restaurants into four types. Limited-service restaurants, where customers order and pay before eating, are the largest group. Full-service restaurants, with table service, are close behind.
| Type | With paid employees | No paid employees |
|---|---|---|
| Limited-service restaurants | 270,088 | 52,005 |
| Full-service restaurants | 258,626 | 61,909 |
| Snack and nonalcoholic beverage bars | 85,140 | 19,974 |
| Cafeterias, grill buffets and buffets | 4,622 | 14,738 |
| All restaurants | 618,476 | 148,626 |
Sources: Census County Business Patterns (2023) for restaurants with paid employees; Census Nonemployer Statistics (2023) for the rest. Snack and nonalcoholic beverage bars include coffee shops, juice bars and ice cream parlors.
One row behaves unlike the others. Cafeterias, grill buffets and buffets are the only type where businesses without employees outnumber staffed locations, and it is also much the smallest category of the four. The other three types show the pattern you would expect, with staffed locations well ahead.
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What Counts as a Restaurant in Federal Data #
The count covers NAICS 7225, restaurants and other eating places. Census separates the four types by how the customer is served and when they pay, not by cuisine, price or size.
Full-service restaurants (722511) provide food services to patrons who order and are served while seated, and who pay after eating. They may also sell alcoholic beverages, provide carryout, or present live entertainment without changing the classification.
Limited-service restaurants (722513) are those where patrons generally order or select items and pay before eating, with food consumed on premises, taken out or delivered.
Cafeterias, grill buffets and buffets (722514) use cafeteria-style or buffet serving equipment, where patrons select from a continuous line or from buffet stations.
Snack and nonalcoholic beverage bars (722515) prepare or serve a specialty snack such as ice cream, frozen yogurt, cookies or popcorn, or serve nonalcoholic beverages such as coffee and juices.
Bars and other drinking places (NAICS 7224), caterers (NAICS 72232) and food trucks (NAICS 72233) are classified as separate industries and are not included in any figure on this page.
Why There Is No Federal Fast Food Count #
Fast food is not a category in federal statistics. It sits inside the limited-service group, alongside fast casual restaurants, delicatessen restaurants, takeout sandwich shops, pizza delivery shops and limited-service family restaurants, all of which Census lists as examples of the same code.
The reason is that the classification turns on the service model rather than on the food. An establishment where you order at a counter and pay before eating is limited-service whether it sells burgers for a few dollars or a composed bowl for three times the price. A restaurant where you are seated and pay afterwards is full-service whether it is a white-tablecloth dining room or a neighbourhood diner.
Locations, Brands and Franchises #
Restaurant counts disagree with each other more than almost any other industry, and the cause is nearly always the unit being counted.
Census counts establishments: individual places of business that had payroll during the year. A national chain with four thousand outlets contributes four thousand establishments to the total.
Industry sources more often count units or franchise agreements, and consumer research counts brands. A single franchisee operating twelve outlets is one company, twelve establishments and twelve units, and could be reported as any of those three numbers.
A further difference is timing. County Business Patterns uses the pay period including 12 March as its reference, so a location that opened in June or closed in February is treated accordingly. Restaurant openings and closures are high in both directions every year, which means a point-in-time count and a whole-year count of the same industry will never match.
Restaurants Without Employees #
148,626 restaurant businesses operate with no paid employees (Census Nonemployer Statistics, 2023).
Nonemployer Statistics is built from business tax records rather than a survey, so it captures businesses too small to appear in an employment program. In food service that group is largely owner-operated: single-owner establishments where the proprietor and unpaid family members do the work, seasonal and concession operations, and businesses trading part of the year.
Because these businesses have no payroll, they add to the business count and nothing to the employment figure. Adding them to the staffed locations gives a total of restaurant locations and owner-run restaurant businesses together, which is a different quantity from either source on its own and should be labelled as such whenever it is used.
How We Counted #
Restaurants with paid employees come from County Business Patterns, which counts each location that had payroll during the year, across the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Restaurants with no paid employees come from Nonemployer Statistics, which Census builds from tax records.
The two sources count different units. County Business Patterns counts locations; Nonemployer Statistics counts businesses, and some of those may not run a storefront. The combined 767,102 is therefore a count of restaurant locations and owner-run restaurant businesses together. The two releases use different editions of the industry classification (2017 and 2022), and the restaurant codes are the same in both.
The two programs do not overlap, because a business with any payroll is excluded from the nonemployer file, which is what makes them addable. Both suppress figures that would disclose an individual business, and suppression is heaviest at detailed geography, so a national total is more complete than the sum of the county figures beneath it.
What the National Count Does Not Show #
A national total does not show where restaurants are, what they sell or what they earn.
| Question | On this page | In the report |
|---|---|---|
| How many restaurants are there | Yes | Yes |
| Breakdown by service type | Yes | Yes |
| Industry receipts and trend | No | Yes |
| Employment trend across years | No | Yes |
| Location counts across years | No | Yes |
Get the reports: Restaurants and other eating places → · Snack and nonalcoholic beverage bars →
Receipts, the industry's growth rate and its employment trend are in our eating-places reports, built from the same federal data with the dataset and year printed beside every figure. The state-by-state breakdown and the published concentration ratio are in the Standard Restaurants and Other Eating Places report specifically.
For the economics of running one, see restaurant profit margins, restaurant startup costs and what restaurant owners earn.