More than 1 in 10 US restaurants serve Asian food, new study finds
By Carl Samson
May 24, 2023
Some 12% of restaurants in the U.S. serve Asian food, and most of them are Chinese, Japanese or Thai, according to a new analysis from the Pew Research Center.
The think tank studied data regarding U.S. restaurants from SafeGraph, which curates high-precision data on millions of places around the world. Upon collection of the data in March, the company had records for 787,153 open restaurants across the country.
The 12% finding slightly exceeds the 7% share of Asian Americans in the U.S. population. Of these restaurants, around seven in 10 serve only Chinese, Japanese or Thai, whose communities collectively make up 33% of Asians in the U.S.
About four in 10 (39%) restaurants serve Chinese food, comprising the most out of the bunch.
Japanese restaurants came second with 28%, followed by Thai at 11%. In comparison, Chinese people account for 24% of the U.S.’ Asian population. Japanese Americans make up 11%, while Thai Americans comprise just 2%.
On the flipside, Indian and Filipino Americans make up almost 40% of the country’s Asian population, yet Indian and Filipino restaurants only account for 7% and 1% of U.S. Asian restaurants, respectively. Pakistani restaurants also comprise 1%, while Mongolian and Burmese restaurants each account for less than 1%.
Pew’s analysis included an unspecified category labeled “Other Asian,” which makes up 19%. These restaurants reportedly include “noodles” or “bubble tea shop” tags that do not explicitly reference an origin group.
The analysis also found that Asian restaurants are concentrated in just a few states.
Approximately 45% are in California, New York, Texas, New Jersey and Washington, almost mirroring the 55% of all Asian Americans who live in said states.
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