Last fall there were 630,964 restaurants of all types in the U.S., down 0.7% from spring last year and 1% from a year ago, per NPD Group's ReCount research. But chain restaurants showed positive growth, increasing 1.1% since last spring. All quick-service/fast-casual restaurants taken as a group showed a year-over-year increase of 1%. Fast-casual concepts were responsible for most of the gain. Visits to quick-service restaurants, 79% of total industry traffic, were up 1%, while full-service restaurant traffic, representing 21% of total visits, was down 2% last year, per NPD.