Olive Garden, Pizza Hut top national restaurant index

Olive Garden, Pizza Hut top national restaurant index
By Steve Cavendish

Diners at national chain restaurants are most satisfied with Olive Garden and Pizza Hut according to a newly-released portion of the American Consumer Satisfaction Index, and they're much happier with pizza than burgers.

The ACSI is an annual survey of roughly 80,000 Americans across a wide variety of consumer services. Among diners, the index rated satisfaction with a number of national full-service and limited service restaurants on a 100-point scale. 

Full (Overall sector score: 82)

• Olive Garden, 82
• Red Lobster, 82
• Outback, 81
• Chili's, 79

Limited (Overall sector score: 79)

• Pizza Hut, 81
• Little Caesars, 80
• Starbucks, 80
• Papa John's, 79
• Domino's, 77
• Wendy's, 77
• Taco Bell, 76
• Burger King, 75
• KFC, 75
• McDonald's, 72

National full-service restaurants have been measured since 2007 while fast-food places have been part of the index since the original 1994 survey. Both indexes are up over last year's scores. Here are some of the highlights:

– McDonald's jumped almost 8 percent, from a 67 to a 72, the biggest gain in the index. It remained last among any restaurant measured.

– Wendy's was the highest rated of the national hamburger chains and has been in every year of the survey. The gap among the big three, however, has narrowed.

– A difference of three points in the index, the authors say, is a significant difference. So while there may be only a little distinction in the satisfaction among the full-service restaurants, the gap between top and bottom of the fast-food chains is big.

The Stew asked David VanAmburg, ACSI's managing director, to provide a little context for us.

What does it mean that the numbers for fast-food restaurants are higher than they've ever been?

We're seeing a big change in the value proposition and I think the economy is helping that along to some extend. You know, fast food is one of those categories that, if they're playing their cards right, and the data shows that they are, should benefit in a down economy. 

It's interesting that limited service restaurants are closing the gap with full-service restaurants in terms of satisfaction.

Who does this mean more to among the burger places?

I think they do all want satisfaction to a point, but satisfaction matters much more to a Wendy's than a McDonald's.

Why is that?

Satisfaction isn't really the key driver for McDonald's business. It's much more about value and their demographic, which is, relative to other burger chains, a bigger portion of the kids demographic with the Happy Meals and so on. They really do have that attraction that the others lack to some extent. And they certainly play on that very successfully. At a point, raising their satisfaction numbers (to catch up with Wendy's) may not be right for them economically.