It’s a familiar refrain by now: Fast-casual is, yet again, the restaurant industry’s fastest growing segment.
The darling of the foodservice world continued its impressive climb in 2013, with sales for fast-casual concepts on Technomic’s Top 500 Chain Restaurants list (ranked by U.S. system-wide sales) rising 11% last year to $27 billion. That slightly lags behind the 13% increase recorded by the fast-casual segment in 2012. Still, 11% sales growth—and fast-casual’s 8% unit growth to more than 21,000 stores—beats the performance of every other restaurant segment in 2013.