Restaurant Organizational Forms and Community in the U.S. in 2005 Glenn R. Carroll ∗ Stanford University Magnus Thor Torfason Harvard University Recent sociological theory and research highlights food, drink, and restaurants as culturally meaningful and related to social identity. An implication of this view holds that the prevalence of corporate chain restaurants affects the sociological character of communities, as many activists, popular-based movements, and theorists contend. The analysis we report here seeks to identify the ecological niche properties of chain and independent restaurants—which kinds of communities support restau- rant chains, and which kinds of communities tend to support independent local restaurants and food service providers instead. We analyze data from a 2005 sam- ple of 49 counties across the United States with over 17,000 active restaurants. We argue that demographic stability affects the community composition of organiza- tional forms, and we also investigate arguments about a community’s income dis- tribution, age distribution, population trends, geographic sprawl, and commuter population. We find that communities with less stable demographic make-ups sup- port more chain restaurants, but that other factors, including suburban sprawl and public transit commuter, also have some impact. INTRODUCTION With increasing interest, sociologists view food and dining as an attractive social context for examining both organizations and culture. 1 Within this domain, an emerging, new theoretical theme trumpets food, drink, and restaurants as culturally meaningful and related to social identity. 2 Developing this theme, we examine here the organizational composition of local pop- ulations of restaurants and other food service locales in real American communities. In particular, we study the prevalence of organizational forms of restaurants distinguished by chains and independent operators. In the 49 county-based communities for which we collected data, the percentage of chain restaurants varies from a low of 17 percent to a high of 47 percent. In the analysis, we ask: Which kinds of communities support ∗ Correspondence should be addressed to Glenn R. Carroll, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, 518 Memorial Way, Stanford CA 44304; carroll glenn@gsb.stanford.edu. City & Community 10:1 March 2011 doi: 10.1111/j.1540-6040.2010.01350.x C  2011 American Sociological Association, 1430 K Street NW, Washington, DC 20005 1