I hear a lot of Milwaukee diners lamenting the increase in chain restaurant concepts. It's true, especially in the suburbs and the ever-growing Downtown that more and more national concept dining destinations are realizing that we like to eat.

Reality is -- if you believe the latest list on restaurantchains.net -- that none of the 10 fasting growing restaurant chain concepts with 50 operating stores or less are even in Wisconsin, much less Milwaukee.

Quick serve and fast casual joints like Roosters, Spicy Pickle, Ono Hawaiian BBQ and Whole Hog Café dominate the new list.

The fastest growing smaller concept, by the way, is Dagwood's Sandwich Shoppes. And, for my money, we could use a deli franchise like this in the Downtown business district. I'd prefer a City Market-type place, but if Dagwood's comes calling, I'll be eating.

RestaurantChains.net presents quarterly list of Top 10 Fastest Growing Concepts (began period with less than 50 units) displaying quarter-to-quarter recent growth captured during our re-verification process. Information is derived and calculated from the continual process of interviewing and verifying more than 7300 restaurant chain concepts.