Amid a boom in real estate development in places such as White Plains, Yonkers and New Rochelle, along with a diversifying population, large restaurant chains are taking notice of positive market conditions to expand their footprint in the county.
According to Melissa Fleischut, the president and CEO of the New York State Restaurant Association, Westchester is the perfect location for any national chain to set up shop. “It doesn’t have all the regulations of New York City for small businesses and in most areas of the county, you get good consumer spending and customer traffic,” she says. New establishments are launching despite the difficult climate over the past year, she adds. “It was a tough year for spending across the board—many customers spent less or dined out less; there has been a lot of turnover in the entire restaurant industry with mergers and acquisitions, and plenty of locations opening and closing.”
There’s clearly been a rebound. In many busy commercial areas, additions of chains are helping to meet Westchester’s growing demand for convenient eats.
Shake Shack: Set to open in mid-2025, the burger chain will take over a 4,000-square-foot space on North Bedford Road in Mount Kisco, which will become the fifth location for Shake Shack in the county. The Manhattan-based fast casual burger chain first made its way north with the opening of the Hartsdale location in 2018.
Paris Baguette: This South Korean multinational chain of neighborhood bakery-cafés with more than 4,000 locations worldwide has opened two locations within a year of each other—Hartsdale in 2023 and Yonkers in 2024. The bakery is known for its unique soft milk bread, cake slices, and tarts.
The Halal Guys: What began as New York City street food created by three Egyptian immigrants in 1990 has grown into a nationwide chain with 100 locations. Known for their chicken and rice platters and super-spicy hot sauce, the chain recently expanded with a second shop that opened late last year in New Rochelle. The first one opened in Yonkers in 2021.
Crumbl Cookies: Hartsdale was the first Westchester location for Crumbl, a Utah-based chain of 1,000 cookie shops nationwide, when it opened on Central Avenue in 2023. A second store opened in Yorktown a year later, after demand spiked for the oversized treats.
Wonder: Operating in 19 locations in the New York Metropolitan area, this food delivery platform added a West Harrison storefront in 2024, the same year it opened Larchmont and Scarsdale locations. The concept is a centralized kitchen that prepares meals from multiple brands by licensing recipes from award-winning chefs and restaurants.
Related: Eat and Drink Local at Women-Owned Businesses in Westchester
