6 companies · median 20 of 36 checks · prices as of 2026-10-23
Restaurant stocks.
Sorted by how many checks each one passes. Sort by any column to see who is cheapest, who is growing, or who has the strongest balance sheet - and how that compares with what is normal for the industry.
Ranked by checks passed
6 companies in this sector→The restaurant companies we cover are not one trade: Yum! Brands (YUM) passes 24 of its 36 checks and Sweetgreen (SG) passes 11, with a median of 20.
→MCD, SBUX, YUM are 89% of the $373.8B we cover here, so a sector average says more about them than about the rest.
| Save | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Yum! BrandsYUMFranchises KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut worldwide.Report | -3.1% | +3.5% | 4 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 24/36 | |
 McDonald'sMCDFranchises most of its restaurants and earns rent and royalties from them.Report | -1.7% | -17.8% | 3 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 6 | 2 | 22/36 | |
 ChipotleCMGRuns Chipotle, a fast-casual chain that owns rather than franchises its restaurants.Report | -2.2% | -33.9% | 3 | 2 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 21/36 | |
 StarbucksSBUXRuns and licenses coffee shops worldwide, and sells packaged coffee.Report | -1.1% | +20.9% | 1 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 18/36 | |
 CAVACAVARuns a fast-growing Mediterranean fast-casual restaurant chain.Report | -2.2% | -16.9% | 2 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 17/36 | |
 SweetgreenSGRuns a chain of fast-casual salad restaurants across the US.Report | -3.9% | +24.3% | 0 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 11/36 |
The filings behind this table close between 2026-06-28 and 2026-07-12, because these companies do not share a fiscal calendar; prices are the close of 2026-10-23. Each name links to its full report; every score is a count of pass-or-fail checks read from that company's own filings.
Where the sector falls short
median score per axis→Value is where the restaurant companies we cover come up short most often, at a median of 2.5 of 6, while Quality runs at 4.5.
| Value | ●●●○○○ | 3 of 6 |
| Growth | ●●●○○○ | 3 of 6 |
| Quality | ●●●●●○ | 5 of 6 |
| Financial health | ●●●○○○ | 3 of 6 |
| Shareholder returns | ●●●●●○ | 5 of 6 |
| Trend | ●●●○○○ | 3 of 6 |
What a normal margin looks like here
sector percentiles · 42 filers→Operating margin clusters among restaurant companies, from 1% to 10% across the middle of the field, with a midpoint of 4% measured over 42 filers.
| Metric | Bottom third | Midpoint | Top third |
|---|---|---|---|
| Operating margin n=42 | 0.9% | 4.3% | 9.8% |
| Net margin n=44 | -0.0% | 2.9% | 5.4% |
| Return on equity n=29 | 3.1% | 9.1% | 16.0% |
Who grows, and who keeps it
every company in the industry→CMG, YUM, CAVA do both: growing faster than this industry's middle and keeping more of each sale than it does. The industry's middle is 4% growth on a 4% margin. SG does neither.
A year of price
not a fact about the business→3 of 6 are up over twelve months and the median move is -6.7% - Sweetgreen (SG) at +24.3% against Chipotle (CMG) at -33.9%. Price is not a fact about a business, and the Trend chapter of each report says what it is measured on.
Head to head
3 pairsThe table above gives the order. These put two of them in one column each, so you can see where the difference actually is.