Inside the Clever Branding Strategy IHOP and Applebee’s Used to Triple Sales

How the chain restaurants teamed up to become two of the biggest brand winners of 2025.

BY ALI DONALDSON, STAFF REPORTER @ALICDONALDSON

Photos: Michael Rivera and Clotee Pridgen Allochuku via Wikimedia Commons

Are chain restaurants cool now? Apparently. Like every other vestige of early 2000s millennial childhood, people are feeling nostalgic for vinyl booths and laminated menus, so much so that the Harris Poll crowned IHOP and Applebee’s two of the biggest brand winners of 2025.

The breakfast and dinner sit-down spots, which have more than 1,500 locations respectively and are owned by Dine Brands, the $450 million publicly traded restaurant group, rank among the top 25 percent of all brands in........

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