Another possibility:

In B1: =A1

In B2:
=IF(ISERROR(MATCH(0,COUNTIF($B$1:B1,$A$1:$A$1000&" "),0)),"",INDEX(IF(ISBLANK($A$1:$A$1000),"",$A$1:$ A$1000),MATCH(0,COUNTIF($B$1:B1,$A$1:$A$1000&""),0 )))

This is an array formula, entered using Ctrl-Shift-Enter

Copy down as far as needed

"wx4usa" wrote:

I have a range of 1000 cells..A1:1000. This range holds the favorite
restaurant list as provided by our customers. So, in each cell is a
restaurant name. There are approximately 50+/- unique restaurant names
in these 1000 cells. Many are obviously repeated since different
customers say the rest is their favorite too.

How do I extract this list of the 50+/- unique restaurants mentioned
in the range of 1000 cells? and place these unique names in B1:50?

I need the unique list so that I can then count the number of
occurrences of each unique name and then rank them.