Fast food, “casual” dining, most forms of retail shopping, hotel accommodations, and a host of other industries have at least one nationwide chain representing them. Which industries remain strictly (or mostly) local?
The ones I can think of are:
Fine Dining: I am currently unaware of any chain dining establishments that are strictly shirt-and-tie, high-dollar, haute cuisine. One or two celebrated chefs may own eateries in several cities (such as Gordon Ramsay), but it’s unlikely that there will ever be a black-tie, table-service, fine-dining establishment with the same name and same menu in every city the way there is now with Applebee’s, Ruby Tuesday’s, etc.
Construction and Related Industries: Construction, and also peripheral industries such as electrical work, concrete pouring, plumbing, etc. are strictly local as far as I can tell. RotoRooter is a notable exception, but as far as I know even Roto Rooter only performs one or two specialized services and isn’t an all-around plumbing service on par with what a local contractor can provide.
There are some expensive steakhouse chains that may meet your criteria - Ruths Chris, Smith and Wollenski, etc. There’s also McCormick and Schmick’s Seafood, which isn’t cheap.
Fine Art doesn’t seem to have a national presence, unless you consider Thomas Kincaide fine art.
Many of the upper level contractors for heavy construction work may only have one office but may have projects in several states if not several countries at the same time. Granted they hire local contractors to do the actual work but it the big company has its name and money on the project. Until fairly recently my biz (computer repair) was pretty much all independent or BB/CompUSA but over the last few years a few chain outfits have popped up like Computer Troubleshooters and Computer Geeks.
As someone else mentioned, there are a few of these.
RotoRooter provides tons of services to commercial and residential clients. I also believe both Home Depot and Lowe’s also provide installation and repair on many of the products they sell. For some of the other things you mention, there are many regional chains, and umbrella organizations that connect multiple local providers. Here is an example of a nation electrician.
Zip’s and OXXO Cleaner’s are two that come to mind that are in the DC area.
Brothels. AFAIK all legal brothels in the US are in Nevada (& Rhode Island ) and they’re all independently owened and operated. I don’t know what the situtation is in countries with withspread legalized prostitution is. Does Australia for example have a chain of multiple brothels operating under the same name? Ditto for escort agencies.
Supermarkets are a surprising exception to national chains. There are a lot of big regional chains and some chains like WalMart that sell groceries along with other commodities. But no supermarket chain like Krogers or Publix or Safeway or Wegmans has achieved the kind of market penetration that chains like Blockbuster or Best Buy or NAPA has.
) and they’re all independently owened and operated. I don’t know what the situtation is in countries with withspread legalized prostitution is. Does Australia for example have a chain of multiple brothels operating under the same name? Ditto for escort agencies.