Jersey Mike's Ends Chick-fil-A's 11-Year ACSI Reign

Customers are spending more selectively. Quick-service brands face traffic declines as diners question whether the experience justifies the price. Some customers are trading down to convenience stores and supermarkets, the report showed. Full-service restaurants, by contrast, are finding some stability. Diners consolidate visits into fewer occasions where the higher check feels worthwhile.

Forrest Morgeson, director of research emeritus at the ACSI and a marketing professor at Michigan State University, said the stable industry scores hide real shifts underneath. New brands enter the rankings and immediately compete at the top, which signals where consumer expectations are heading. Price alone no longer drives satisfaction, Morgeson said. Consistency across the full experience is what separates the leaders now. The challenge going forward is sustaining that consistency as costs continue rising and competition intensifies from outside the traditional restaurant space.

The ACSI surveyed 16,464 customers randomly contacted by email between April 2025 and March 2026. The study covers more than 400 companies across 40 industries based on roughly 200,000 annual interviews.