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Map Of The Most Popular Fast Food Chain In Every State Has People In A Tizzy

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Utilizing data from Foursquare, Business Insider posted a map of the most popular fast food chain in every state. It didn’t go over well. There was so much controversy over the controversial fast food study that Business Insider deleted the tweet of the polarizing map. There was one chain that dominated the map – Chick-fil-A.

Here’s the map of the U.S. of Chick-fil-A.

But people were bewildered by the map since they allegedly had never been to or even seen the restaurants that were said to be the most popular in their state. Californians asked, “What the F is a Raising Cane’s?” Texans stood up to demand why Whataburger was not the most popular chain in the Lone Star state. It turns out that the map is seriously flawed.

Here’s the problem with the method that Business Insider used for the map. Business Insider used Foursquare data to determine “which chains received the most visits on average in every state based on the total number of visits to each chain divided by the number of locations in that state.” That really hurts chains that have hundreds and even thousands of locations in a state such as McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Subway. However, fast food chains that only have a handful of restaurants in the state are going to have more people swarming to those few locations, making it busier than one that has two or three locations within a few miles of one another.

For instance, there are 1,492 McDonald’s in California competing against one another compared to only five Raising Cane’s in the state, all of which are in Los Angeles County and Orange County. There are 35 In-N-Out Burgers in Texas, compared to 669 Whataburger locations. Chick-fil-a was declared the most popular fast food chain in Oregon despite only having three locations, and the popular fried chicken purveyor only have two spots in Montana and Wyoming. This methodology allows popular chains with fewer locations, but are busier throughout the day, to be overrepresented. Not to say that Chick-fil-A’s glorious chicken sandwich or Raising Cane’s tangy sauce and Texas Toast are not worthy of being applauded.