What business under a single name has the most U.S. locations?
(Business being defined here as a location open to the public where a commodity is sold)
McDonalds? Starbucks? Walgreens? Amoco?
(All have to have the same name even though owned by the same company, i.e. Chevrons, Texacos, & Caltex’ have to be counted seperately).
I don’t have the answer.
Guesses or factual answers welcome.
I believe Subway locations outnumber McDonalds locations. My guess would certainly be a gas station chain like Texaco.
United States Postal Service?
Probably not. While each town usually has 1 post office they often have more than 1 McDonalds.
But many towns have post offices by no McDonald’s. In Southold town, NY, there are 9 post office branches and only one McDonald’s.
McDonald’s wins in urban areas, but the USPS wins in rural ones. There are 17,500 post office branches. McDonald’s has 29,000 worldwide, so it’s possible they have fewer branches in the US, and probably have fewer overall if you include all international post office (or the local equivalent) branches.
US sytemwide (franchise & company owned) units at the end of 2006:
Subway: 20,755
McDonald’s: 13,774
Starbucks: 9,401
Pizza Hut: 7,532
Burger King: 7,530
However, from the USPS jobs website here:
Probably yes. According to that other thread, Subway was the winner for most ubiquitous chain, with some 20,496 restaurants in the US. On the other hand, in 2006, the Post Office had 27,318 post offices, as well as another 9000 “classified branches,” “classified stations,” “carrier annexes,” and “contract postal units,” whatever those mean. Still, 27K > 20K.
[Beaten by Big_Norse, but I got a better cite, so nyeah.]