Coffee chains, counted

Public companies' outlet counts, revenue and sales come from their annual reports and SEC filings. For chains that sell franchises, costs come from the Franchise Disclosure Document, the filing a franchisor must give every buyer: Item 5 sets the franchise fee, Item 6 the royalty, Item 7 the cost to open, Item 19 any sales figures, and Item 20 the outlet tables by year and state. We take these from the franchisor's own franchise pages, which quote its current FDD, and say so beside each value.

Current location counts come from each brand's own store locator, as captured by the open All The Places project or read directly from its location pages, and carry the date they were read. A filing outranks a locator count that falls well short of it, because locators can miss counters inside other businesses.

Menu sizes are counted from each brand's own menu page under one rule for every chain: one item per named drink or dish, with sizes, hot and iced versions and flavour shots folded in. The counted names are listed on each chain's page.

A chain is included when coffee is what it sells first and it has at least ten US shops, however they are run; tea-, bagel- and smoothie-led chains are left out. Nothing here is paid placement, and a ranking measures a number, not quality. The list grows as chains become checkable: a chain whose own site we cannot yet read, or whose shop count we cannot confirm, stays off until we can.