{"id":174568,"date":"2026-02-21T19:22:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T19:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/174568\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T19:22:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T19:22:08","slug":"whataburger-tops-texas-in-nationwide-fast-food-popularity-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/174568\/","title":{"rendered":"Whataburger tops Texas in nationwide fast-food popularity study"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Texans&#8217; loyalty to\u00a0Whataburger runs deep, and new national data suggests\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statesman.com\/project\/austin-2025-food-guide-best-restaurants\/\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Austin diners<\/a> are no exception.<\/p>\n<p>A recent analysis by <a href=\"https:\/\/financebuzz.com\/favorite-fast-food-chains\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">personal finance website FinanceBuzz<\/a> ranked Whataburger as Texas&#8217; favorite fast-food chain. The study compared nearly 70 major chains nationwide using Google search popularity combined with restaurant locations per capita to determine each state\u2019s top pick. The study pulled data from March 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Americans are divided nationally, with chains like Wendy\u2019s and Sonic topping\u00a0five states each, but Texas stood firmly behind its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statesman.com\/business\/article\/texas-whataburger-southeast-locations-closing-21245665.php\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">homegrown orange-and-white institution<\/a>. Eleven restaurants took the top spot in multiple states.<\/p>\n<p>Across the country, 30 different chains earned the No. 1 spot in at least one state, and many states favored brands founded locally \u2014 17 restaurants were named the favorite in the state where the chain started.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texans&#8217; loyalty to\u00a0Whataburger runs deep, and new national data suggests\u00a0Austin diners are no exception. A recent analysis by&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-174568","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-austin-headlines","10":"tag-austin-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}