Starbucks Corp. has sprinted past Burger King Holdings Inc. and Wendy’s/Arby’s Group to become the third-largest U.S. restaurant chain by sales, said industry tracker Technomic Inc.
Seattle-based Starbucks passed the milestone last year when sales increased 8.7 percent to $9.07 billion, according to an estimate by the Chicago-based firm. Technomic data include sales from company stores and from store licensees.
In 2009, Starbucks was the fifth-largest U.S. restaurant chain, Technomic says. Starbucks has about 11,000 stores in the U.S. and about 5,600 international locations.
“There is no doubt that Starbucks has made a tremendous comeback from a couple of years ago, when they were struggling quite a bit,” said Jack Russo, an analyst at Edward Jones & Co. in St. Louis.
McDonald’s Corp. was the biggest restaurant chain, with $32.4 billion in sales, and Subway came in second with $10.6 billion, according to a Technomic report this month. Bloomberg News
