2017 Top 500: Specialty LSR

The specialty LSR category includes barbecue, salad, seafood, snacks, smaller ethnic cuisines and other small niches. Together, they increased sales by 8.6%, to $6.9 billion, and units by 5.2%, to 11,070. The fastest sales growers illustrate there's plenty of opportunity in the "etcetera" space: Zoes Kitchen, up 21%; Tropical Smoothie Cafe, up 20%; Dickey's Barbecue Pit, up 17%; and Wetzel's Pretzels, up 16%.