Research methodology

What a chain record means

A chain appears in the ledger because we track it. Tracking is not a finding. Each chain's ownership section shows exactly one of the following:

Verified PE ownership

Current control by a private-equity firm, confirmed from a primary source such as the firm's portfolio page, an acquisition announcement, or a corporate filing.

Reported / investigating

A sourced lead that does not yet meet the verification threshold. It may be incomplete, dated, or unconfirmed.

No verified PE ownership found

Research was performed and no sufficient proof of PE control was found. This is never a claim that a chain is independent or PE-free.

Research pending

The chain is tracked but no research record has been published yet. No conclusion of any kind should be drawn from this state.

Evidence and sources

Every published ownership record carries its sources, the publisher, publication date, and the date we last checked it. We prefer sources in this order:

1. The PE firm's portfolio page, an acquisition release, or a company announcement.
2. A regulatory filing or corporate record establishing the relationship.
3. Reputable business or local reporting.
4. User-submitted material, which remains a lead until a moderator reviews it.

Ownership changes. A record last checked more than 180 days ago is flagged as possibly out of date, both on the record and in the moderation queue. If a record looks wrong, use submit research to send a correction with a source.

The location directory

The directory is a baseline of restaurant locations sourced from OpenStreetMap. A directory listing is a place, not an ownership finding.

When a listing's name matches a tracked chain's name or a curated alias, the listing links to that chain's research record, and its published ownership status is shown. Uncertain automated matches are held for moderator review and never displayed until approved. A listing with no match is a data gap, not evidence about ownership.

Quality signals and corroboration

Quality signals are structured, dated, location-specific observations — a price, a portion, a menu change — submitted by signed-in accounts and reviewed by a moderator before publication.

A published report is labeled corroborated community evidenceonly while it has at least three distinct confirm votes in the trailing 60 days, excluding the original reporter, and fewer than two dispute votes in that window. Votes mean "I observed this too," not "I agree." Corroboration is a report-agreement threshold. It does not prove the report is true, and it never establishes that ownership caused an observed change.

Automation and moderation

A daily scan reads public business news feeds and proposes ownership candidates. An LLM extracts names, dates, and summaries, then a second LLM pass reviews each candidate against publication standards: a clearly stated acquisition naming both the firm and the chain, credible reporting rather than rumor or speculation, and a recent source date.

Candidates that pass review at high confidence are published automatically, marked reported, and always carry the source article so you can judge it yourself. Lower-confidence and rejected candidates are held in a review queue with the model's rationale. A human moderator can publish, unpublish, or correct any automated decision, and every decision — automated or human — is recorded in an audit trail. Community quality signals are always reviewed by a human moderator before publication.