America's Top 2 Full-Service Restaurant Chains Are These Beloved Steakhouses (Sorry, Olive Garden)

When most people picture a sit-down chain dinner, Olive Garden isn't far from the imagination — the bottomless breadsticks, the dimmed lighting that feels almost fancy, a server who keeps filling your water glass before you notice it's half empty. For a lot of Americans, it's basically the platonic ideal of a casual night out ... which makes it a little surprising that Olive Garden isn't numero uno in customer satisfaction.

According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index's 2026 Restaurant and Food Delivery Study, an annual report drawing on more than 16,000 customer surveys, LongHorn Steakhouse and Texas Roadhouse tied at the top in the full-service restaurant category, both scoring 82 out of 100. Olive Garden, with an ACSI score of 81, was right behind them.

For what it's worth, full-service restaurants as a whole kept one of the highest satisfaction scores in the index, holding at 82. The more interesting number is how little separates the top three — one point across LongHorn, Texas Roadhouse, and Olive Garden. At that margin, a bad stretch of Saturdays can reshuffle the whole picture.

Beyond that top cluster, you have names like Applebee's, Chili's, and Cracker Barrel all landing at 79, joined by Golden Corral (a new entrant to the ACSI rankings), Outback Steakhouse, and The Cheesecake Factory — the latter of which actually gained 3% this year.

Chili's is an interesting case. The chain leaned hard into value messaging and a streamlined menu throughout 2025, briefly becoming one of the most talked-about names in casual dining — and its ACSI score ticked up 1% to 79. But the study also flagged Chili's for a complaint rate that ran above the industry average (turns out, more customers can cause some growth challenges along the way).

Buffalo Wild Wings nudged up 3% to 78, Denny's did the same to a score of 77, and IHOP went the other direction — down 3% to 76. First Watch, new to the ACSI this year, debuted at 72 and took last place (despite being one of the chains with one of the best bacons). Ten points separate last place from the first-place territory that LongHorn and Texas Roadhouse claimed. While that doesn't sound like much on paper, in a category where customers are being selective about where they spend, that teeny gap is actually a veritable chasm between the players fighting tooth and nail for diners' hearts, tummies, and wallets.