The ownership map
Who owns America’s menus?
Of the 48 chain menus we have graded, 17 answer to a single Atlanta private-equity firm most diners have never heard of. Ownership is invisible at the counter, but it shows up in the menu: in the value tiers, the app-gated deals, the limited-time calendars, and, we would argue, in the grades.
17
graded menus under Roark Capital
B+
their average menu-craft grade
A-
founder and family held average
The quiet empire
Roark Capital
An Atlanta private-equity firm most diners have never heard of, holding the largest single collection of menus in this catalog through two platform companies, one twin-brand operator, and two direct deals.
Inspire Brands
The flagship platform, built from Arby's outward.
GoTo Foods (formerly Focus Brands)
The mall-and-snack platform: the smells, scoops, and sweet tea.
Held directly
Subway (2023, about $9.6 billion) and a majority of Dave's Hot Chicken (2025, about $1 billion).
Read the 17 breakdowns side by side and a house style emerges: a named-price value tier at the bottom of the board, a premium anchor at the top, deals migrating into the app where they can be targeted and repriced, and a limited-time calendar doing the advertising. None of it is unique to Roark brands, but the consistency across banners that share nothing else, a pretzel counter and a wing bar and a sub shop, is the tell that menus are being run as a portfolio discipline.
The other consolidators
Private equity and holding companies each carrying one graded menu here.
The public multi-brand platforms
Stock-market conglomerates running portfolios of banners.
Public, one banner
Single-brand public companies, answerable to shareholders but not to a portfolio playbook.
The holdouts: founder and family held
Still controlled by the people whose names are on the door, or close to it.
The pattern
What ownership does to the menu in your hands
The grades tell the story. The founder and family held menus in this catalog average A-: In-N-Out sells three burgers, Raising Cane’s sells one product, Chick-fil-A keeps a short board with charm-priced discipline. Focus is a luxury of owners who answer to nobody, and focus is most of what earns an A from us.
The Roark portfolio averages B+. The craft is real, Cinnabon’s aroma machine and Arby’s Meat Mountain are two of the sharpest plays we have graded, but the portfolio playbook also carries its own tax: value numbers that churn quarter to quarter, deals gated behind apps, and boards that sprawl as every banner chases every daypart. Subway, the biggest acquisition of them all, carries the lowest grade in the catalog.
None of this is a verdict on the food, and ownership is not destiny. It is a reminder that a menu is a managed asset, and that whoever manages it is making behavioral choices about what you order before you walk in. That is the whole premise of this site.
Sources: each brand’s ownership is documented, with citations, on its own breakdown page.