Study: Customers rank Costco, In-N-Out Burger as top retail, restaurant brands
Costco Wholesale Corp. and In-N-Out Burger are the retail and restaurant brands whose physical experiences resonate most strongly with customers.
The membership warehouse club giant and burger chain took the top spots in brand strategy and retail design agency ChangeUp's second annual Experience Report, which ranks the top 100 retail and restaurant brands (separately) across eight “dimensions of experience.” These include memorability, return intent, substitutability, novelty, advocacy, unprompted visit desire, relevance and staleness. (A list of the top 20 retail and top 10 restaurant brands is at end of article.)
Costco scored above the retail average across all eight dimensions and was one of the few brands to show measurable improvement year over year, including significant gains in advocacy and novelty. Recent changes have made the trip faster at entry and checkout without taking away the browsing, the study noted.
[READ MORE: Costco gains $2.5B in CPG wallet share; new members fuel growth]
H-E-B moved down to the No. 2 spot after being ranked No. 1 last year, but still continued to outperform the retail average across most dimensions. The Texas grocer continues to push loyalty and connection with customers. Sneaker retailer Fleet Feet took the third spot.
In retail, pickup, delivery and curbside have pulled discovery and familiarity out of the store, the study noted. A visit that used to include both can now feel like collection.
“The strongest performers give people a reason to walk in anyway, through service, theater and a sense of place,” ChangeUp said. "When the store is run mainly as a cost center, customers miss it less."
Other insights from the ChangeUp survey are below:
•Every significant decline in this year's study came from retail, not restaurant. Grocery and mass retail, the trips people cannot easily skip, held their experience steady. The instability was in discretionary categories, like apparel and specialty, where a visit that does not feel worth it, is the easiest thing to drop.
•The top brands scored well across the board, rather than relying on one standout dimension — suggesting that breadth of experience may be what keeps a physical destination relevant over time.
•In restaurants, brands like In-N-Out, Chick-fil-A, Playa Bowls, and Texas Roadhouse turn distinctive elements into signature experiences that customers remember and talk about.
“Consumers are still willing to spend on experience, but as people become more selective, every trip now carries more expectation," said Lee Carpenter, CEO of ChangeUp. "They're taking fewer trips and asking more of the ones they make. The brands leading the rankings are giving people something that is harder to replace, along with a reason to make the trip, and a reason to remember it."
Staying relevant requires more than protecting what already works, added Carpenter.
“Brands have to keep finding ways to give people a reason to choose them," he said.
Top 20 Retail Brands
- Costco
- H-E-B
- Fleet Feet
- Vuori
- JD
- Lush
- Sam’s Club
- Wegmans
- Buc-ee’s
- Publix
- Kwik Trip
- West Elm
- Alo
- Aritzia
- Trader Joe’s
- Bass Pro Shops
- Harris Teeter
- Atar’d State
- Lululemon
- Abercrombie & Fitch
Top 10 Restaurant Brands
- In-N-Out Burger
- Texas Roadhouse
- Playa Bowls
- Sweetgreen
- Chick-fil-A
- Chicken Salad Chick
- Dutch Bros
- Culver’s
- Raising Cane’s
- Cooper’s Hawk
Download ChangeUp's 2026 Experience Report here.