Which City Really Does Have The Most Restaurants Per Capita?
by Kevin Fields
Travel to most city websites around the net and you’ll be surprised by how
many purport to have more restaurants per capita than anywhere else. This
is claimed by San Francisco; Madison, Wisconsin; Washington DC; and
Shreveport, Louisiana. At least Canadian cities stake the same claim.
So which cities do have a legitimate claim to the title of “Most
Restaurants Per Capita?” The National Restaurant Association (NRA) does
publish a list of restaurants per capita per state. According to the
Association, California has by far the most restaurants with a staggering
87,225 dining establishments. New York State comes in at a paltry 58,027.
The top five is rounded out by Texas (53,631), Florida (41,901)
Pennsylvania (31,466).
In terms of per capita per state, Washington DC tops the list according to
NRA. The US capital region boosts some 0.4 restaurants per 100 people.
Second is, surprisingly, Montana at .354 restaurants per 100 people.
Rounding out the NRA’s top five are Rhode Island (0.304 per 100) Vermont
(.303 per 100) New York (.301 per 100). If you are a little hungry you
might want avoid the three states with the fewest restaurants Mississippi,
Kentucky and Utah.
In terms of North American cities, it is a little harder to ascertain who
can claim the title of city with most restaurants per capita.
Here are ten cities with more than 100,000 people that have made the
claim. But who has the real claim? Who offers the cuisine searcher or just
plain hungry shopper the most choice? Who can claim the title of The
Restaurant City.
The city of San Francisco is a city of 744,230 people and claims to have
2,662 restaurants within the city boundaries. There is no doubt that the
standard of restaurants in the city of the bay is exceptional. If you just
include San Francisco properly your density is 279 people per restaurant.
But because costs of housing the number of people living in the city
proper has declined while the number of businesses including restaurants,
San Francisco is a distorted number. If you count the metro area, the
number of restaurants climbs to 4,300 restaurants (we won’t include
hundreds more in the nearby wine country of Napa and Sonoma). If you
consider the metro area population of 7,168,176 and divide by 4,300 you
get a per capita density of 1,667 people per restaurant.
Winnipeg is a city on the edge of the Canadian prairies that boasts a
broad cross section of immigrant communities all of whom have their local
ethnic cuisines. If you want French toast for breakfast, perogies and
sauerkraut for lunch , and Vietnamese imperial rolls for dinner then this
is the place to come. This city regularly claims to have more restaurants
per capita than any other city. Some websites claim the city has 900
restaurants but in reality there are just 478. With a population of
619,544 Winnipeg can claim only one restaurant per 1,296 snow-bound
Canadian.
Victoria. This city on Vancouver Island and capital city of British
Columbia, Canada regularly makes the claim that it has the “second highest
number of restaurants per capita,” which is perhaps clever psychology as
the city has never indicted which is top. With a population of 335,000 the
city claims to have 265 Italian, French, Greek, East Indian, Vegetarian,
German, Dutch, Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Thai eateries.
That means Victoria has a restaurant per 1,264 people. But with its
spectacular location halfway between Vancouver and Seattle, you’d hardly
care if its claim is a little off.
In New York City no one cooks at home and by the time you’ve heard of a
restaurant it has probably closed. Restaurants open and close with
alarming alacrity in the Big Apple. On average, the city of New York can
claim 6,650 dining places from the chic Lespinasse to the greasiest corner
diner -- the most restaurants in any one place on the continent. Yet with
8,168,338 people, New York can only claim to have 1, 228 people per
restaurant. It might seem that every second building in New York is a
restaurant but they have to cater to a lot of vertically housed residents.
That explains why it is hard to find a table some nights.
The one Canadian city that can make a great claim to have the most
restaurants per capita is Montreal in the province of Quebec. With just
over 5,000 restaurants in the metro island area, is appears there are at
least one restaurant on every street corner. With its diverse immigrant
population and French majority, the city has every type of cuisine
available from Lebanese to continental French to native Canadian. Some
3,720,000 Quebecois live in the metro area making Montreal the second
largest French speaking city in the world. Giving it a restaurant per
capita number of 744.
When you leave Austin you enter Texas so the saying goes. This funky city
in central Texas has 1,088 eating places to enhance its reputation as
Music City USA. That list includes 128 establishments in or around the
University of Texas alone. Austin’s burgeoning population is currently
690, 252 making their people to restaurant ratio 634.
Louisville, home to the Kentucky Derby, is a small city of just over half
a million people. Pap John’s Pizza and Yum Brands, the parent company of
A&W, KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, both make Louisville their corporate
home so it is not surprising that that this city on the Ohio River has
1,089 restaurants. That makes for 510 people per restaurant.
Madison owns the rights to the title of “city with the most restaurants
per capita” and the capital makes the claim throughout its literature.
However, pining down the actual number of restaurants is pretty hard. The
best list available points to 437 restaurants that caters to 221,551
people in the Wisconsin city. But that makes for only 506 people for each
restaurant. Good for only third on this list.
Wichita, Kansas is not usually a city that leaps to mind when one thinks
of cuisine. But with an ethnically diverse work force, the largest city in
Kansas has a reputation for cultural diversity and is located in the
breadbasket of America. The 739 restaurants in town have only to cater to
360, 715 people. That translates into 488 people per restaurant, good for
second on our list.
Dallas. This Lone Star State city has a population of 1,250,950 and a
selection of restaurants that add up to 2,666. While the city is known for
its BBQ and steak houses there is a surprising mix of great eateries from
chic to basic. That means every restaurant, fast food place and steak
house in Texas’ third largest city can boast an potential pool of just 469
people. Making this city the winner of the title “City With The Most
Restaurants per Capita.”
