Facts at a Glance

• Sales: $632 billion

• Locations: 970,000

• Employees: 12.9 million — one of the largest private-sector employers

• Restaurant-industry share of the food dollar: 48%

• $1.7 billion: Restaurant-industry sales on a typical day in 2012.

• 1.4 million: Number of positions the restaurant industry will add in the next decade.

• Restaurant-industry job growth has outpaced the national economy in 12 consecutive years, from 2000 through 2011.

• 93%: Percentage of eating-and-drinking place businesses that have fewer than 50 employees.

• 7 out of 10 eating-and-drinking place establishments are single-unit operations.

• 66% of adults say their favorite restaurant foods provide flavor and taste sensations which cannot easily be duplicated in their home kitchen.

• One-half of all adults have worked in the restaurant industry at some point in their lives, and one-third got their first job experience in a restaurant.

• 80% of restaurant owners said their first job in the restaurant industry as an entry-level position.

• $2,505: Average household expenditure on food away from home in 2010.

• 38%: Percent of adults who said they would be likely to utilize a smartphone app if it was offered by a quickservice restaurant.

Get more details in our 2012 Restaurant Industry Forecast.