This headline from Salon magazine – which is hardly conservative – punctuates a trend we’ve been calling out for years. Fast food restaurant chains are moving their headquarters and sometimes their stores from blue states.

The trend is unmistakable. Here’s a list of some of the major changes of address:

• • • Yum! Brands
    • KFC
    • Taco Bell
    • Pizza Hut
    • In-N-Out Burger
    • CKE
    • Carl’s Jr

Salon’s Senior food editor Ashlie Stevens writes that this relocation trend isn’t just about taxes – and she’s right.  It’s also about minimum wage rules, energy costs, an anti-business regulatory structure, and fewer less exposure to trial lawyer harassment lawsuits.

Salon hisses there is a “tribal” element to the business migration patterns, and we’re not sure what that means, but it seems like a snobbish attack against the culture of southern hospitality. Bible Belt states.

Lynsi Snyder, In-N-Out’s CEO and the granddaughter of its founders, explained well the reasons for moving the headquarters from California to Tennessee: “California had simply become too difficult. There were so many pressures and hoops we were having to jump through. You have to do this. You have to do that.”

Stevens also writes, “…for brands still recovering from pandemic-era whiplash, red states offer something undeniably appealing: lower costs, looser rules, and an eager welcome.”

This chart shows where major restaurant chains were started: