Company lists · Data refreshed September 2026
Top 25 Southern restaurants based in the United States
RevenueBase identified 2,049 southern restaurants headquartered in the United States as of September 2026 and tracks 122,511 professional contacts across them, including 5,871 with verified work emails. Atlanta is the largest hub.
This list covers southern restaurants headquartered in the United States, matched on what each company actually does as described in its own words. Ranked by team size, largest first. Every row shows the company's own description, its RevenueBase Smart Search rating, and when it was last checked. Data refreshed September 19, 2026.
Published by RevenueBase, a B2B data infrastructure company. This list was built with RevenueBase Smart Search, the natural-language company search RevenueBase customers use to build their own targeted lists and unlock verified emails and direct dials at the companies on them. How these lists are built and judged.
The 25 largest southern restaurants based in the United States
Ranked by team size| # | Company | Contacts | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 17,539 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Founded in New Orleans in 1972, POPEYES® has more than 45 years of history and culinary tradition.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 2 | 17,175 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “We're America's Diner and we love to feed people - body, mind and soul.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 3 | 7,258 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “Founded in 1990, Zaxbys® is committed to serving delicious Chicken Fingerz™, Zalads®, wings, and signature sauces with Southern hospitality and a modern twist.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 4 | 6,722 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Founded in 1977 in Charlotte, Bojangles, Inc.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 5 | 3,641 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “Founded in San Antonio, Texas, in 1952, Church's Texas Chicken® and Texas Chicken® is a globally recognized brand in the Quick Service Restaurant industry and one of the largest…” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 6 | 2,746 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Pollo Campero started in Guatemala with a prized chicken recipe that has been delighting friends & families since 1971.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 7 | 2,506 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Bringing friends and family together over delicious food served from the heart.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 8 | 1,948 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 9 | 1,930 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “For over 50 years, Long John Silver’s has been serving up golden, crispy seafood and creating treasured moments for families worldwide.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 10 | 1,892 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “Even with excellent people, you cannot build the best restaurant company overnight.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 11 | 1,599 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “In 1960, Jack’s fired up its very first grill in Homewood, Alabama.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 12 | 1,542 contacts → | ||||
Strong evidence “Chicken Salad Chick, the nation’s only southern-inspired, fast-casual chicken salad restaurant concept, was founded in 2008 in Auburn, Alabama by Stacy and Kevin Brown.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 13 | 1,509 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Famous Dave’s of America, Inc.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 14 | 1,467 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “Rooted in the agricultural heritage of founder Bob Evans, whose humble Farmhouse Kitchen laid the foundation for our restaurants over 70 years ago, Bob Evans continues to embody…” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 15 | 1,398 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “It was on October 24, 1932, when the nation’s first Krystal restaurant opened its doors on the corner of Seventh and Cherry Streets in downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee amid the…” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 16 | 1,350 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “Lazy Dog Restaurants serves made-from-scratch American food and drink with seasonally inspired ingredients.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 17 | 1,319 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Our roots run deep in the Delta where the food is honest, meals are social, and the door is always open.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 18 | 1,265 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “About CKE Restaurants Holdings, Inc.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 19 | 1,255 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “Luby's Restaurant Corporation” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 20 | 1,178 contacts → | ||||
Strong evidence “With nearly 100 locations throughout the southeast, Sonny’s BBQ® is one of the largest and most popular barbecue restaurant companies in the country.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 21 | 882 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Jim ‘N Nick’s started cooking pork “low and slow” in 1985 when Nick, along with his dad Jim, reclaimed an old pizza parlour on Clairmont Avenue in Birmingham, AL where they opened…” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 22 | 766 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “Bill Miller Bar-B-Q is a family restaurant In 1950, on a $500 loan from his father, Bill Miller opened a small poultry and egg business.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 23 | 684 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Cotton Patch Cafe was born in Nacogdoches, TX in 1989.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 24 | 662 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Established in 1996, Another Broken Egg isn't your typical breakfast, brunch and lunch place.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 25 | 617 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “For over 50 years, Biscuitville has been a local, family-owned company known for serving up authentic Southern breakfast food made fresh daily from locally sourced ingredients.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 19, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
RevenueBase Smart Search
RevenueBase Smart Search assesses information from a company’s LinkedIn profile, information supplied directly by the company, its website, and other publicly available sources. It uses that information to rate how closely the company relates to this list’s category: southern restaurants. Every row carries its rating and the description the rating was read from, so each one can be checked rather than taken on trust.
- Strong evidence
- The company's own public description of its business names southern restaurants.
- Partial evidence
- Its own public description names part of southern restaurants, so it works in or next to the category without describing itself that way.
- Indirect evidence
- The description shown does not name southern restaurants. The match rests on the rest of the company's public profile rather than the one sentence quoted here, so this is the rating to check first.
RevenueBase Smart Search is how these lists are built: RevenueBase's data engine and AI assemble the companies that match a category defined in a user's own words, so a list can be about what companies actually do rather than about whichever industry code they were filed under.
Showing 25 of 2,049 southern restaurants based in the United States
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Southern restaurants based in the United States at a glance
As of Sep 19, 2026Companies by employee count
Email recency for this list is measured worldwide rather than for United States, so it is reported there. Company counts and contact totals on this page are exact for United States, over 2,049 companies.
How this list was built
Company categories are rarely black and white. RevenueBase reads each company's own description of its business to decide whether it belongs among southern restaurants, so some rows will be adjacent to the category rather than pure plays. The description and RevenueBase Smart Search rating on every row are there so you can check each match yourself.
- Source
- The RevenueBase company graph: 60 million companies and 398.9 million professional contacts resolved from primary sources, queried with RevenueBase Smart Search, the natural-language company search available to every RevenueBase user.
- What qualifies
- Companies headquartered in the United States whose own description of what they do matches “southern restaurants”. Matching reads each company's description, not its industry code or its name.
- RevenueBase Smart Search
- RevenueBase Smart Search is how this list is assembled and how each row is rated. RevenueBase's data engine and AI assess a company's LinkedIn profile, information supplied directly by the company, its website and other publicly available information, then relate it to a category defined in a user's own words. Each row is rated strong evidence (its own description names southern restaurants), partial evidence (it names part of the category) or indirect evidence (the description shown names none of it and the match rests on the rest of the company's profile). The description supporting each rating is quoted on the row.
- What we exclude
- Companies whose own description does not clearly place them among southern restaurants, and records with no verified work email. Companies headquartered outside United States are excluded even when they keep an office there.
- Match quality
- In blind human judging of this matching method, 86% of matched companies were on target. Expect roughly 1 in 7 rows to be adjacent to the category rather than a pure play. Every row shows the company's own description and its RevenueBase Smart Search rating so you can judge each match yourself. Read the full methodology: how the lists are built, how the judging worked, and what the figure means.
- Ranking
- Team size, largest first: companies are ordered by the number of professionals RevenueBase tracks at each one. Employee ranges shown are reported bands, for context.
- Verification
- Every listed company carries at least one verified work email, 5,871 across the full list. Contacts re-verify on a rolling cadence, and each contact's own verification date is shown inside RevenueBase.
- Refresh
- This page's figures were pulled from the company graph on September 19, 2026. Lists refresh periodically as the graph is re-checked.
- Corrections
- Wrong category, wrong headquarters, or a company that has closed? Use “Report an issue” on any row. Reports go to the RevenueBase Data Team and feed back into the company graph.
Southern restaurants by metro
- Southern restaurants in Atlanta50
- Southern restaurants in New York39
- Southern restaurants in Houston33
- Southern restaurants in Nashville33
- Southern restaurants in Chicago28
- Southern restaurants in Charleston26
Frequently asked
What is RevenueBase Smart Search?
RevenueBase Smart Search is how RevenueBase decides which companies belong on this list and how strongly each one fits. Its data engine and AI assess a company's LinkedIn profile, information supplied directly by the company, its website and other publicly available information, then relate it to the category the list is about. Each row is rated strong evidence when the company's own description names southern restaurants, partial evidence when it names part of the category, and indirect evidence when the description shown names none of it and the match rests on the rest of the company's profile.
How many southern restaurants are there based in the United States?
RevenueBase identified 2,049 southern restaurants headquartered in the United States as of September 2026, matched on each company's own description of what it does rather than its industry code.
What is the largest company on this list?
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, headquartered in Miami, tops this list with the largest team on record.
Which city has the most southern restaurants?
Atlanta leads with 50 headquartered companies, followed by New York (39) and Houston (33).
How do I get contact information for these companies?
A free RevenueBase account lets you run this exact search and work the top results, verified emails and direct dials included. Upgrading unlocks all 5,871 verified decision-maker contacts tracked across these 2,049 companies.
How current is this list?
The list refreshes periodically as the company graph is re-checked. This page's figures were pulled on September 19, 2026.
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Southern restaurants by geography
- Southern restaurants based in Atlanta, United States
- Southern restaurants based in Charleston, United States
- Southern restaurants based in Houston, United States
- Southern restaurants based in Nashville, United States
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- Southern restaurants based in Canada
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About this data
RevenueBase is a B2B data infrastructure company. Its company graph covers 60 million companies and 398.9 million professional contacts, with emails verified on a rolling cadence rather than scraped once and left to decay. These company lists are generated directly from that graph with RevenueBase Smart Search, the same natural-language company search every RevenueBase user has: describe a market in plain words, get the companies that match, and add verified emails and direct dials for the people at them. It is the same data that powers RevenueBase's B2B data products, and a free account includes 500 credits to start. How these lists are built and judged.
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- Southern restaurants based in Atlanta, United States
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- Southern restaurants based in Houston, United States
- Southern restaurants based in Nashville, United States
- Southern restaurants based in New York, United States
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