CHICAGO, November 20, 2025 — In a sharp illustration of how channels are blurring in the public's mind, the convenience-store chains Buc-ee's and Kwik Trip have bested usual top finishers In-N-Out and Chick-fil-A in a ranking of quick-service brands by their consumer appeal.
Buc-ee's, whose big-box c-stores have made it a cult favorite, topped the listing, which was compiled by researcher newcomer Dunhumby. Kwik Trip finished second, followed by In-N-Out, Raising Cane’s and Chick-fil-A.
The ranking extends to 58 chains. Included are seven c-store operations.
Even the retailers’ rankings relative to one another were a break from tradition. Sheetz and Wawa, two concepts that say they’re as much quick-service restaurants as retail outlets, are widely regarded as setting the bar for c-store foodservice. Yet they finished sixth and seventh, respectively.
Rounding out the Top 10 were Culver’s, El Pollo Loco, and Starbucks, giving traditional quick-service restaurants six slots overall.
“This underscores the point that the traditional QSR space is ripe for disruption from convenience store chains that go all-in on blurring these lines and do it with the right areas of focus,” states the report.
Dunnhumby said its goal was not to rank grab-and-go brands by their popularity but by their public perceptions—specifically, how “overall customer value propositions position them for future-looking, long-term, sustainable market share growth,” the researcher explained.
Instead of being asked to name their favorite chains, 10,400 consumers were each instructed to evaluate two c-store brands and two limited-service restaurant concepts that they frequent. The field extended to 92 brands overall.
The participants were asked to grade each of their four evaluated brands on 34 characteristics.
Dunnhumby then crunched the data to get a gauge of what appealed to the public, both generally and brand by brand. It found that six criteria were of greatest importance to consumers evaluating their food-away-from-home options: Affordability, quality, lack of friction in transactions, visibility, product variety, and speed of service.
The researcher also considered measures from other sources of emotional connection to each of the evaluated brands, and overlayed the perception-related data with six years of traffic metrics from a specialist in analyzing transaction volume, Placer.ai.
The analysis yielded what Dunnhumby is calling the Retail Preference Index, or RPI.
The report is intended to “cover which chains are best-positioned to win in the long-term in this space and, more importantly, why,” the study’s executive summary concludes.
The research is the latest and perhaps strongest indication to date of how the lines between traditional quick-service restaurants and c-stores are blurring.
Previous data indicate that the convergence is less than complete. According to the National Association of Convenience Stores, or NACS, 28.7% of c-store shoppers followed up their visits last year with a food purchase from a quick-service restaurant no more than 30 minutes later.
That number is up from the 27.5% who went from c-store to QSR in 2024.
As Managing Editor for IFMA The Food Away from Home Association, Romeo is responsible for generating the group's news and feature content. He brings more than 40 years of experience in covering restaurants to the position.