Harper Polling released their annual “Our Commonwealth” survey, which reveals the various preferences Pennsylvanians have when it comes to their food.
Family Restaurants
There are a variety of family chain restaurants in the Keystone State but one stood out clearly above the rest: Olive Garden which took 22%.
Red Lobster with 14% and Texas Roadhouse with 13% took the silver and bronze.
The rest of the family chains finished in the following order: Outback Steakhouse (10%), Longhorn Steakhouse (9%), Cracker Barrel (8%), Chili’s (7%), Red Robin (6%) and Carrabba’s (5%).
Carrabba’s has an excuse since they have the fewest, nine, locations. Although Chili’s has a state-high 38 venues throughout the commonwealth and it didn’t help them.
Fairs & Scrapple
Since the Governor’s hometown of York hosts the country’s oldest fair, Harper’s asked the entire state whether they attend a fair during the summer.
57% of Pennsylvanians do attend a fair while only 37% do not. The only section of the state that doesn’t is Philly and the Southeast (55% were a no).
Conversely, the numbers on scrapple were primarily Philly driven.
Only 34% of PA natives said they enjoy eating scrapple against 57% who don’t. A majority, 56%, of those from Philly and the Southeast, though, enjoy their local “delicacy”.
Wawa v. Sheetz III
After falling to Sheetz in 2013 only to emerge on top in 2014, Wawa repeats as PA convenience store champion.
It was close but Wawa edged Sheetz 34% to 32%. Their smaller siblings, GetGo and Turkey Hill came in third and fourth with ten and eight percent respectively.
National chain 7-Eleven received 6% while Rutter’s got just 2%.
When asked why they chose the way they did a plurality (31%) said it was proximity to their home or workplace. 28% cited the food while 22% went with gas prices. 11% are loyal because of the coffee while just 5% are influenced by partnership deals.
Fast Food
When it comes to fast food, one towers above all the rest.
Chick-Fil-A finished first with 26% with McDonald’s and Subway each trailing at 12%.
The rest of the field finished as follows: Wendy’s (10%), Arby’s (10%), Burger King (9%), Chipotle (7%), Five Guys (5%) and Sonic (3%).
Harper polled 546 Pennsylvania residents for this survey through landline interviews conducted using Interactive Voice Response (IVR). It took place on July 12th and 13th and the margin of error is +/- 4.19%
4 Responses
The study may be skewed in that WaWa and Sheetz’ territories overlap in places but they work largely in different regions. I like both places and go to either depending on where I travel. However, if WaWa has the most populous part of the state, might that not influence the results if Sheetz prime areas areless urban?
I just had Sheetz and my guts are killing me … I wish I had a wawa local
As someone who eats regularly at both Sheetz AND Wawa, each chain has it’s strengths and weaknesses. It’s hard to say one is “better” than the other if you haven’t eaten at both a number of times.
That being said, most people prefer the chain they grew up with. Is that any surprise?
When you ride to Wawa, you ride with Hitler.