Pizza Hut Tops Google's Most Searched-For Restaurants Of 2013
The ranking is part of Google's annual Zeitgeist list for top search terms. Here's the full list:
1. Pizza Hut: Searches peaked in June, when Pizza Hut rolled out its Firebaked Style Flatbread Pizzas and again around Thanksgiving, when a Texas Pizza Hut manager was fired for refusing to open on Black Friday.
2. Domino's: Searches were up in June when Domino's was testing a pizza delivery drone.
3. Starbucks: Searches surged in September when Starbucks said guns would no longer be welcome in its cafes.
4. McDonald's: People were Googling McDonald's at higher rates in July, when fast food workers across the country went on strike for better pay.
5. Jimmy John's: Searches for this sandwich shop were up this month when a coroner's office in a Chicago suburb reported that one of its morgue freezers failed. The freezer was purchased from a Jimmy John's.
6. Subway: Searches for Subway peaked around the time that fast food workers went on strike in July.
7. Olive Garden: Searches peaked in February around the time that Olive Garden president David George announced a restructuring of the chain amid falling same-store sales. Google searches went up again in December when the chain started selling hamburgers.
8. Buffalo Wild Wings: Searches when up in late August and early September after the company announced it would be expanding to the Philippines. Also around that time, McDonald's came out with its Might Wings to compete with Buffalo Wild Wings.
9. Applebee's: Searches for Applebee's peaked in mid-November when the restaurant chain offered free meals to veterans on Veterans' Day, which was Nov. 11 this year.
10. Chipotle: Chipotle was a hot search term in late October when the burrito chain announced it would be bringing its vegan tofu to the East Coast.