Ohio-Born Arby’s Lost Its Spot in a 2026 Customer Satisfaction Survey
A year ago, only three brands in a national customer survey scored higher than Arby’s.
Now 16 do. Three of them are new to the list.
Arby’s score slipped from 79 to 77 on a scale of 0 to 100. That’s two points below the fast-food average.
Here’s how Ohio-born Arby’s lost its spot in a 2026 customer satisfaction survey.
Who Ran the Survey and How
Arby’s score comes from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), a research group that measures how happy customers are with the companies they use.
For its 2026 restaurant study, ACSI gathered 16,464 completed surveys by email between April 2025 and March 2026.
ACSI says it chose those customers at random.
It then turns the answers into a score from 0 to 100.
Higher means happier.
If you’ve ever filled out a survey about a meal, you did what these customers did.
Here’s how the scores moved, starting with where Arby’s began and ending with where the company runs today.
A Neon Cowboy Hat in Boardman
Arby’s opened its first restaurant on July 23, 1964, in Boardman, Ohio, according to a company release.
Brothers Forrest and Leroy Raffel ran it, and the doors opened under a glowing neon cowboy hat.
The name came from the founders’ initials, R and B.
Local station WKBN reported in 2023 that the building housed the very first Arby’s restaurant.
WKBN also reported that a gravestone business, Artcraft Memorials, had opened there and that the original Arby’s bathroom was still there.
If you’ve ever pulled up to an Arby’s, you’re part of a story that began at that one storefront.
If you’re ever in Boardman, you’re near where it all began.
It started here.
From 79 to 77
ACSI’s 2026 table lists Arby’s at 77, down from 79 in 2025, a 3% drop.
A year earlier, Arby’s sat right at the industry average of 79.
Now it sits two points under that average.
The industry average held steady for a third straight year, so the slide wasn’t the whole market sinking.
If you’re a regular, your grade for Arby’s may not have changed at all.
A year earlier, three brands in ACSI’s table scored above Arby’s. Now 16 do, though three of them are newcomers.
Small gaps matter.
How Arby’s 2 Points Became 3%
A two-point drop in Arby’s score sounds small until you see it as a percentage.
Arby’s lost 2 points off a starting score of 79, which works out to about 2.5%.
ACSI’s release rounds to whole numbers, as when it reports Popeyes falling 3% to 73.
Rounded the same way, Arby’s slide comes out to 3%.
ACSI says each score blends what customers expected, how they rate the quality and how they judge the value.
So you can’t tell which of the three moved from the score alone.
If you were one of the 16,464, your visit was one answer among thousands.
Jersey Mike’s at the Top
Arby’s wasn’t at the top in either year, and Jersey Mike’s debuted there as the new number-one brand at 84.
It overtook Chick-fil-A, which held at 83.
The release’s headline calls it the end of Chick-fil-A’s 11-year reign.
Jersey Mike’s 84 sits seven points above Arby’s 77.
Popeyes fell too, down 3% to 73.
The release says Jersey Mike’s added 238 net new locations in 2025 and reached $4.2 billion in systemwide sales.
ACSI also says mobile app quality slipped slightly as customers use apps more for ordering and discounts.
If you stick to one chain, you might never notice a newcomer rising.
A newcomer won.
A Crowded Middle Around Arby’s
Arby’s now sits one point behind Burger King and Culver’s, which both landed at 78.
Burger King rose 1%, while Culver’s held steady.
Kentucky Fried Chicken did better, rising 4% to 80.
Sonic rose 5% to 77, which puts it level with Arby’s.
Wingstop entered the study at 77 as well.
Raising Cane’s debuted at 79, which matches the industry average.
That leaves a lot of chains within a few points of each other.
If you’re choosing between them, you’re picking among scores that barely differ.
It’s tight.
Wendy’s Climb in the Same Report
Arby’s isn’t the only Ohio-born chain in the survey, and the other one moved the opposite way.
Wendy’s says its first restaurant opened on November 15, 1969, at 257 East Broad Street in Columbus.
In the 2026 study, Wendy’s rose from 75 to 77.
That puts it level with Arby’s at 77.
A year earlier, Arby’s led it by four points.
Wendy’s lists its headquarters as Dublin, Ohio.
If you’re an Ohioan, you might call that a split decision.
Your hometown bragging rights just got more complicated.
Same state, different year.
Psst! Think you know where America’s favorite chains got their start? Take our quiz and see if you can ace it.
Quiz
Fast-Food Chain Origins Trivia
Answer these questions on where America’s fast-food chains got their start. We bet you can’t get them all right. Prove us wrong?
Popeyes opened its first restaurant in 1972 under a different name. What was it?
Arby's Parent in Atlanta
Arby's started in Ohio, but it belongs to Inspire Brands, which says it was founded in 2018 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
It's a big family.
Inspire's site lists Arby's alongside Baskin-Robbins, Buffalo Wild Wings, Dunkin', Jimmy John's and Sonic.
Three of those brands are in the same ACSI table, with Jimmy John's at 81, Dunkin' at 78 and Sonic at 77.
If you eat at any of them, your order comes from the same Atlanta company.
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