The 20 best chain restaurants in America

Samantha Lee/Business Insider

Whether it's indulging in a Bloomin' Onion from Outback Steakhouse or digging into a basket of Olive Garden's unlimited breadsticks, Americans love chain restaurants. But personal preferences aside, which chains get the most love?

Business Insider teamed up with Restaurant Business, a food-service industry expert and media outlet, to compile a definitive ranking of the best chain restaurants in America. Using proprietary data collected by Restaurant Business and its sister research firm Technomic, we looked at 45 of the largest US chains and rated them on three criteria that we considered the most telling for all-around excellence: financial performance, customer satisfaction, and overall value.

Our calculations accounted for sales growth, average sales at each location, consumer-sentiment ratings, and the average cost of a meal, among other metrics. (For more on how we came up with this ranking, check out our list of the best fast-food chains in America, which uses a similar methodology.)

The 20 highest-rated spots raked in a combined $28 billion in revenue last year and include popular joints like The Cheesecake Factory and Cracker Barrel, as well as lesser-known chains such as Bahama Breeze Island Grille and Maggiano's Little Italy.

Read on to learn more about the 20 best chain restaurants in the US.