Every year, Restaurant Business releases its Top 100 Independents list:
It is one of the clearest measures of commercial excellence in the hospitality industry. The ranking is based solely on food and beverage sales, which means the RB100 celebrates one thing: performance at scale.
These independents are not just great restaurants. They are high-volume businesses serving hundreds of thousands of guests each year. They prove that a single location, with the right operational discipline, can generate tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue.
And the question ambitious operators ask is simple.
The answer is intelligence. The independents that rise understand how their business behaves at a data level. They see patterns in throughput, guest behavior, menu performance and channel mix that most operators simply cannot see. They remove friction, scale their best shifts and unlock revenue already hiding inside their operations.
This is exactly what the CONVX platform delivers.
The RB100 has clear geographic patterns. High-volume markets tend to dominate the list because they offer the right combination of tourism, density, nightlife and group dining.
Miami Beach, Las Vegas, Chicago and New York appear consistently because their economies create high check averages and intense nightly turnover.
Las Vegas alone represented seven restaurants on the RB100, contributing nearly $130M in combined sales.
Chicago has historically placed more than a dozen independents in a single year, especially modern steakhouses and elevated fine dining.
The combined Top 100 generated nearly $1.96B in revenue last year. Many individual restaurants serve between 200,000 and 300,000 meals annually with check averages ranging from $75 to $150.
This is high-performance hospitality.
This rooftop stunner ranked number one with $51.1M in revenue and more than 271,000 meals served. A blend of premium pricing, immersive brand identity and market dynamics makes it a high-volume powerhouse.
With $25.8M in annual revenue and roughly 191,000 meals served, this iconic restaurant shows how strong operations, consistent experience and premium pricing create reliable scale.
Restaurants like Maple & Ash demonstrate that even in a competitive metro, independents can hit chain-level output when they combine culinary excellence with disciplined revenue management.
These examples highlight a simple truth.
Volume is not luck. It is operational intelligence.
This is why platforms like CONVX matter.
Many top independents hit operational ceilings long before they hit demand limits. Kitchens slow down, orders stack and digital channels overwhelm the line.
Even a 5 percent throughput gain can move an operator several positions on next year’s list.
High-performing independents do not rely only on dining room traffic. They build balanced revenue across delivery, takeout, private dining and the bar.
Friction between channels leads to lost revenue. Removing it creates immediate gains.
Explore how OpSage provides clarity: https://convx.com/opsage
Culinary excellence is table stakes for the RB100. What operators often lack is clarity on which dishes drive margin and which slow down the kitchen.
This produces a smarter, more profitable menu that lifts both revenue and consistency.
Every restaurant on the RB100 is excellent.
The ones that climb the list operate with more clarity than their peers.
Independent restaurants do not need chain-level infrastructure to achieve chain-level performance. They need intelligence that reveals how their business actually runs.
If your restaurant belongs on the RB100 list or wants to rise higher next year, the answers are already in your data.
You just need a platform that can reveal them.
We will show you how the strongest independents use data to grow with precision.