Wingstop opened more new locations than any other restaurant chain in America in 2025, adding 382 stores to leapfrog giants like Chipotle, Starbucks, and Chick-fil-A, a striking run for a Texas chicken wing brand that went public just a decade ago.
The ranking, published by QSR Magazine, an industry trade publication that tracks restaurant growth, placed the chain well ahead of its closest competitor. Chipotle came in second with 294 new locations. Coffee chain 7 Brew followed at 281, Jersey Mike's added 238, and USA TODAY reported that Dunkin' rounded out the top five with 231.
That 382-store figure represents a sharp acceleration. Wingstop opened 278 locations in 2024, good enough only for fourth place on QSR Magazine's list that year. In 2023, the number was 205. The chain nearly doubled its annual pace in two years.
Antonio Swad and Bernadette Fiaschetti founded Wingstop in 1994 in Garland, Texas, a suburb east of Dallas. The company went public in 2015 with 785 locations. By the end of fiscal 2025, that number had ballooned to 3,056 restaurants worldwide, nearly a fourfold increase in a decade.
The growth is worth noting against the broader restaurant landscape. While Wingstop keeps adding stores, California's $20 minimum wage has forced more than a dozen fast-food restaurants to close in the Fresno area alone. Rising labor costs and food-price inflation are squeezing franchise operators across the country.
That pressure is not limited to one state or one brand. Papa John's shuttered 44 locations across 17 states as food costs and labor inflation ground down franchise owners. The restaurant industry is splitting into winners and losers, and the gap is widening fast.
Last year's champion was Starbucks, which opened 589 new locations in 2024 to lead QSR Magazine's ranking. The coffee giant did not appear in the 2025 top five. Chick-fil-A and Taco Bell, two of the biggest names in fast food, also fell short of Wingstop's total, though QSR Magazine did not publish specific 2025 figures for either chain.
Wingstop's rise has been a story of steady momentum. The chain climbed from 205 openings in 2023 to 278 in 2024 to 382 in 2025, each year adding roughly 80 to 100 more new stores than the year before.
Jersey Mike's, which landed at number four on the growth list with 238 new locations, has been making its own headlines. The sub sandwich chain recently ended Chick-fil-A's eleven-year run atop customer satisfaction rankings, a sign that competition across the fast-food sector is intensifying on multiple fronts.
QSR Magazine's ranking measures raw store count, which chain cut the most ribbons in a given year. It does not address profitability, same-store sales, or whether the new locations are company-owned, franchised, or some mix. The report also does not specify whether Wingstop's 382 openings were all domestic or included international locations counted toward a U.S. ranking.
Those gaps matter. Rapid franchise expansion can mask trouble underneath if unit economics are weak or if operators are stretched thin. But the trajectory, 205, then 278, then 382, suggests a brand that franchisees are still eager to bet on, even as competitors shrink or stall.
Other chains are trying to follow a similar playbook. Qdoba recently announced plans for 113 new restaurants as part of a push toward 2,000 locations by 2034. Whether that kind of ambition pans out depends on the same cost pressures that are closing stores elsewhere.
In an industry where government-mandated wage hikes and inflation are forcing doors shut, a chain that keeps opening them is doing something right, or at least something the market still rewards.