Chipotle & Cheesecake Factory Snapping up Market Share in Orders from On-demand Food Delivery Apps

Chipotle has almost 40% of the delivery app market share by customer spend, among profiled restaurants

Key Takeaways

• Cheesecake Factory takes second place

• Applebee’s has seen the greatest increase in food delivery growth over the past year

• Average year-over-year increase of sales through delivery apps was a staggering 281%

• Every restaurant researched sees increasing sales coming from food delivery apps

Today, Edison Trends launched our first Insights product, providing on-demand and actionable research about purchase patterns in the food delivery and restaurant market. These insights will allow companies to serve consumers better with immediate and accurate views into trending purchase patterns. The timing of the Insights product is ideal, as all eyes have been on the skyrocketing growth of food delivery services over the past year. The industry remains a hot topic the world over and attention from the press is ramping up. Edison Trends’ food delivery research has been regularly cited in the Wall Street Journal.

In our most recent Edison Trends research, we found that DoorDash edged ahead of its peers to take the lead with 28% market share against on-demand food platform competitors across the USA. Continuing in our research, Edison Trends analyzed more than 175,000 anonymous transactions at some of the most popular restaurants in the United States that have partnered with food delivery applications like Caviar, GrubHub, DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Postmates, in order to investigate how important on-demand food delivery apps have become to their strategy.

Which restaurants partnering with food delivery apps are seeing monthly growth?

Figure 1. Chart shows estimated monthly spend at restaurants via food delivery apps, between May 1, 2018 and May 31, 2019, according to Edison Trends. Data have been scaled so that the highest monthly spend is set to 100. This analysis includes data from over 175,000 transactions from five food delivery vendors. It does not include orders placed directly through the restaurants.


Comparing May 2018 to May 2019, Chipotle has seen the greatest increase in food sales from delivery applications, with 181% more customer spending from food delivery apps in May than was seen by Cheesecake Factory, and 259% more than what McDonald's pulled in. While there are restaurant chains with slower rates of growth, such as Burger King, there are no losers here. Every restaurant chain profiled in the research has continued to grow their customer spending via delivery apps, with the average year-over-year increase at 281%.

Which restaurant has seen the most year-over-year growth in food sales via delivery apps?

Figure 2a: Chart shows estimated year-over-year change in food sales at restaurants via food delivery apps, between May 2018 and May 2019, according to Edison Trends.


Compared to other restaurant sales we examined, Applebee’s saw the highest growth via delivery apps, increasing 734% since last May. The franchise is followed by Wingstop at 364%, McDonald's at 189%, Chipotle at 186%, and Burger King at 127%. Even Cheesecake Factory, which rounds out the list, grew its consumer spend via delivery app by 83%.

Figures 2b. Chart shows estimated average market share between June 1, 2018 and May 31, 2019, based on customer spend via delivery apps, according to Edison Trends.


Looking at estimated market share of consumer spend on food via delivery apps among these restaurants, Chipotle had the largest share, at 40%. They are followed by the Cheesecake Factory at 21% and McDonald's at 13%. Despite the massive growth they experienced this past year, Applebee's comes in at around 12% customer spend. Rounding out the bottom of bunch are Burger King at 9%, and Wingstop at 6% market share.

As the market evolves, we will continue to stay on top of the latest trends. To learn more about how Edison Trends can help your business, contact us at bizdev@edison.tech. For more up-to-date insights in the e-commerce space, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter, and follow us on Twitter at @EdisonTrends.

*The data shown is based on a sample of anonymized and aggregated e-receipts from millions of consumers in the United States.