Dunkin'
Coffee and donut chain · 14,241+ locations · Nationwide in the US, plus nearly 40 international markets
Dunkin' has been New York's most common chain store for eighteen years running, with 623 locations. Almost every one belongs to a franchisee; the brand belongs to Roark Capital's Inspire Brands. Those franchisees have drawn child-labor penalties in four states and a $1.5 million New York City scheduling settlement.
The Big Picture
Bill Rosenberg founded Dunkin' in 1950 and died in 2002; no member of his family runs it today, and in 2020 Roark Capital's Inspire Brands took the publicly traded company private for $11.3 billion. Of its 9,999 U.S. restaurants, 9,963 are franchisee-owned, and it is those franchisees that regulators have acted against: three federal child-labor penalties, nearly $1.75 million in Massachusetts wage enforcement, and a $1.5 million New York City scheduling settlement in March 2026. The stores are local businesses; the $837 million a year in franchise fees and royalties, and the $426 million distributed to the parent in 2025, are not.
The Dirty Details
Ownership
Inspire BrandsConglomerate
Inspire Brands is the Atlanta multi-brand restaurant company private equity firm Roark Capital formed in February 2018 by merging the parents of Arby's and Buffalo Wild Wings, and it has bought a brand a year since: Sonic in 2018, Jimmy John's in 2019, and Dunkin' Brands for $11.3 billion in December 2020, which brought Baskin-Robbins with it. Its own site puts the group at more than 33,400 restaurants and more than 2,500 franchisees across 55 global markets. Roark confidentially filed for an Inspire Brands IPO in May 2026 with proceeds reported as earmarked to repay debt; no S-1 was public on SEC EDGAR as of August 2026, so the company remains privately held. The two brands tracked here are both almost entirely franchised, which means the restaurants are owned by independent operators while the trademarks, the franchise agreements and the royalties sit inside Inspire.
Restaurants: 33,400+ (2026)
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Company data last updated August 2026
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