Visit most city websites on the net and you’ll be surprised how many claim to have more restaurants per capita than anywhere else. This is claimed by San Francisco; Madison, Wisconsin; Washington DC.; and Shreveport, Louisiana. At least Canadian cities do the same.

So which cities have a legitimate claim to the title of “Most Restaurants Per Capita”? The National Restaurant Association (NRA) publishes a list of restaurants per capita by state. According to the Association, California has by far the most restaurants with a staggering 87,225 eating establishments. New York state comes in with a paltry 58,027. The top five are completed by Texas (53,631), Florida (41,901) and Pennsylvania (31,466).

In terms of per capita by state, Washington DC tops the list according to the NRA. The US capital region powers about 0.4 restaurants per 100 residents. Second is, surprisingly, Montana with .354 restaurants per 100 people. Rounding out the NRA top five are Rhode Island (0.304 per 100) Vermont (0.303 per 100) New York (0.301 per 100). If you’re a little peckish, you might want to avoid the three states with the fewest restaurants: Mississippi, Kentucky, and Utah.
As for North American cities, it’s a bit more difficult to determine who can claim the title of city with the most restaurants per capita.

Here are ten cities with more than 100,000 people who have made the claim. But who has the real right? Who offers more options to the kitchen seeker or just the hungry shopper? Who can claim the title of The Restaurant City.

The City of San Francisco is a city of 744,230 and claims to have 2,662 restaurants within the city limits. There is no doubt that the level of restaurants in the city by the bay is exceptional. If you only include San Francisco correctly, your density is 279 people per restaurant. But because of housing costs, the number of people living in the city proper has dropped, while the number of businesses, including restaurants, San Francisco is a distorted number. If you count the metro area, the number of restaurants jumps to 4,300 restaurants (we won’t include hundreds more in nearby Napa and Sonoma wine country). If you consider the population of the metropolitan area of ​​7,168,176 and divide it by 4,300, you get a per capita density of 1,667 people per restaurant.

Winnipeg is a city on the edge of the Canadian prairies that boasts a broad cross-section of immigrant communities, all of which have their own local ethnic cuisines. If you want French toast for breakfast, perogies and sauerkraut for lunch, and Vietnamese imperial rolls for dinner, this is the place to come. This city regularly claims to have more restaurants per capita than any other city. Some websites claim the city has 900 restaurants, but there are actually only 478. With a population of 619,544, Winnipeg can claim only one restaurant for every 1,296 Canadians covered in snow.

Victory. This city on Vancouver Island and the capital of British Columbia, Canada, regularly claims to have the “second-highest number of restaurants per capita,” which is perhaps clever psychology, as the city has never dictated which is the best. . With a population of 335,000, the city claims to have 265 Italian, French, Greek, East Indian, Vegetarian, German, Dutch, Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Thai restaurants. That means Victoria has one restaurant for every 1,264 people. But with its spectacular location halfway between Vancouver and Seattle, it wouldn’t mind if your claim is a little off the mark.

No one cooks at home in New York City and by the time you’ve heard of a restaurant, it’s probably closed. Restaurants open and close with alarming alacrity in the Big Apple. On average, New York City can lay claim to 6,650 places to eat, from the fancy Lespinasse to the greasiest corner diner – the most restaurants anywhere on the continent. However, with 8,168,338 people, New York can only boast 1,228 people per restaurant. It may seem like one in two buildings in New York is a restaurant, but they have to serve a lot of vertically housed residents. That explains why it’s hard to find a table some nights.

The only Canadian city that can boast of having the most restaurants per capita is Montreal, in the province of Quebec. With just over 5,000 restaurants in the island’s metropolitan area, there seems to be at least one restaurant on every corner. With its diverse immigrant population and its French majority, the city has every type of cuisine available, from Lebanese to continental French to native Canadian. Some 3,720,000 Quebecers live in the metropolitan area, making Montreal the second largest French-speaking city in the world. Giving you a restaurant per capita number of 744.

When you leave Austin you enter Texas, the saying goes. This original city in central Texas has 1088 places to eat to enhance its reputation as Music City USA. That list includes 128 establishments in or around the University of Texas alone. Austin’s growing population is currently 690,252, making the ratio of people to restaurant 634.

Louisville, home of the Kentucky Derby, is a small city of just over half a million people. Pap John’s Pizza and Yum Brands, the parent company of A&W, KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, make Louisville their corporate headquarters, so it’s no surprise that this city on the Ohio River has 1,089 restaurants. That makes 510 people per restaurant.

Madison owns the rights to the title of “city with the most restaurants per capita” and the capital makes the claim throughout its literature. However, pinpointing the actual number of restaurants is quite difficult. The best available list points to 437 restaurants serving 221,551 people in the Wisconsin city. But that means only 506 people for each restaurant. Good for only the third on this list.

Wichita, Kansas is not usually a city that springs to mind when one thinks of cooking. But with an ethnically diverse workforce, Kansas’ largest city has a reputation for cultural diversity and sits in the breadbasket of America. The 739 restaurants in the city only have to serve 360,715 people. That translates to 488 people per restaurant, good for second place on our list.

Dallas. This Lone Star State city has a population of 1,250,950 and a selection of restaurants numbering 2,666. While the city is known for its barbecues and steakhouses, there is a surprising mix of excellent restaurants, from fine dining to basic. That means every restaurant, fast food joint and steakhouse in Texas’ third-largest city can boast a potential crowd of just 469 people. Making this city the winner of the title “City with the most restaurants per capita”.