What's your country's McDonald's?

[Zontar]

Every country has 'that' chain, 'that' brand, the one that dominates either in the market, culture or both as the symbol of service.

Here in Canada ours is the coffee chain Tim Hortons, which has 1 per 10,000 people here in Canada (for reference, the rate of McDonald's in the US is 1 per 22,000 people). The chain controls 62% of the country's coffee market (Starbucks, at #2, controls 7%) and the brand continues to grow due to the fact that in Easters Canada the rate is 1 per 7,000 people, with there being a disparity with the West that is being closed.

To put the sheer scale of things into perspective, Canada is the same size as only 11% of the US population, yet there are 50% as many Tim Hortons locations in Canada as there are Starbucks in the US in absolute numbers.

With all that, is it any wonder Burger King bought them when they relocated here? Americans be weary, because they're coming....

So what's your country's McDonald's?

 

[DefunctTheory]

Uh... um...

...McDonalds.

 

[Queen Michael]

I suppose that unless you count McDonald's, you'd have to go with Pressbyr?n, a chain of convenience stores. Whose name i can't type here, since The Escapist doesn't allow Swedish letters.

 

[Saelune]

I see your Tim Hortons, and I raise you Dunkin Donuts...cause I want to contribute but you said McDonalds already...

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Well, we used to have Quick, which was unrelated to McDonalds but otherwise interchangeable. There where 88 restaurants, so about 1 for every 11500 Belgians, most of them located in the larger cities or near major traffic hubs. They always played second fiddle to McDonalds though. Quick recently got taken over by Burger King though, and all their restaurants will be rebranded to fit the new owner.

There's also Panos, a chain of sandwich bars with about 250 locations (or 1 for every 4000 people), usually located in or around train stations and shopping streets.

But both pale in comparison to the amount of 'frietkoten'. A frietkot[footnote]Literally translated: french fries shack.[/footnote] is not part of any chain, but an independantly owned snackbar that primarily serves french fries[footnote]Most have snacks like hamburgers and such, but those are side dishes to the fries, not the other way around. The fries are also generally far superior to those of chains.[/footnote]. It's hard to tell how many there are in Belgium, but by estimation there are over 5000, which amounts to 1 in every 200 people. A place may not have a McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Panos, Quick or whatever, but it WILL have at least one frietkot, even the smallest hamlet.

 

[Bilious Green_v1legacy]

The biggest fast food chains here in Australia are all the big US names - McDonalds, KFC, etc. There are some local brands, but they aren't as big as the imported variety.

Interestingly, when Starbucks tried to move into Australia, they failed utterly due to the fact that Australian coffee culture was already well established and well supplied by independent local caf?s, so they never even managed to make a dent in the market. They opened a heap of stores, and within 12 months they were shutting most of them down. To my knowledge, there can't be more than a handful of them left that exist on the novelty value of being a "Starbucks" rather than being a place that serves good coffee.

 

[Sassafrass]

In the UK, I guess it'd be Greggs? Not 100% sure, but all I know is the town near me has four of them now. Used to be three.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Aside from us (Finland) having McDonalds and Burger King, the native equivalent is Hesburger. There isn't much difference between its stuff and McDonalds, but their meals are slightly pricier and slightly (I stress the word slightly) higher quality.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Jolibee, which is basically McDonalds but more affordable.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I live in Australia. Fish and chips stores was always abundant before McDonald's ... then you had Turkish restaurants providing pide and kebabs.

But if you're talking predominantly burger places that are kind of like McDonald's in franchising, I'd have to say Oporto. At least in Sydney. Oporto's is great (for basically a McDonald's style of thing). It's a chicken burger place. Started by a Portuguese immigrant to Sydney. So it's basically ... imagine Portuguese chicken style flavours, transform it into a homogenous burger form.

 

[Pseudonym]

Albert Hein is the most well known supermarket chain in the Netherlands. (most well known to dutch people, that is, there are other supermarket chains with a presence here, that are more known elsewhere) It is probably the goto supermarket chain for half of everyone here, and it would become bigger if anti-monopoly laws didn't prevent it from doing so. In fact, in many conversations 'Albert Hein', 'AH' or 'Appie' may be used interchangably with 'supermarket'.

We also just have McDonalds here.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

The biggest fast food chains here in Australia are all the big US names - McDonalds, KFC, etc. There are some local brands, but they aren't as big as the imported variety.

Interestingly, when Starbucks tried to move into Australia, they failed utterly due to the fact that Australian coffee culture was already well established and well supplied by independent local caf?s, so they never even managed to make a dent in the market. They opened a heap of stores, and within 12 months they were shutting most of them down. To my knowledge, there can't be more than a handful of them left that exist on the novelty value of being a "Starbucks" rather than being a place that serves good coffee.

Yeah I remember that happening, it was really weird.

Otherwise, yeah he's totally right. McDonald's (or Macca's as we call it) and Co. have such an ingrained market that outside of a takeaway shop you have fuck all chance of starting any that are new. Unless Ali Baba are Australian, in which case that would be the closest comparison.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

It's...McDonalds?

We just have McDonalds. McDonalds is our McDonalds.

 

[Wrex Brogan]

McDonalds, or as the locals around here call it, 'Maccas'. Indeed, the 4am Maccas Run is even something of a cultural tradition amongst Australians, and the damn things are fucking everywhere to the point that road signs out in the bush tend to have 'Km to next Maccas' on 'em.

Fucked if I know why they're so popular here. Though from what I've heard from American tourists, Aussie Maccas tastes waaaaaaay better than American Maccas. Though I've also heard that isn't exactly a hard thing to do these days...

 

[CeeBod]

The first thing I noticed when I moved here, was how there seems to be either a 7-11, Lawsons or Family Mart on every street corner! Quick check on wikipedia brought up these numbers:

7-11 Japan: 18,785 stores
Lawson Japan: 11,384 stores (Plus a smaller number of Natural Lawsons and Lawson 100s)
Family Mart Japan: 9,641 stores

By way of comparison there are (or were as all of these figures are from a few years ago) 14,157 MacDonalds in the USA, so that's a lot of convenience stores here! (And nearly all open 24/7 too!)

 

[McMarbles]

I think Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts outstripped McDonalds long ago in the States.

 

[SupahEwok]

As an American, I'd say Mcdonald's is Mcdonald's, but since that's a boring answer, let's get local. I'm going to school in Corpus Christi, TX, and a chain called Whataburger is crazy around here. Whataburger is a regional chain, mainly in Texas and the South I believe, but it was founded in CC. I know of at least 4 within a couple miles off of the top of my head, and I've seen at least one road named after it and I think the local football or baseball stadium is Whataburger Field. And the locals are crazy proud of it.

It helps that they're probably among the best fast food burgers around, way above Mcdonalds and Burger King. They've got a handful of specialty burgers that they keep on the menu year round, along with a burger of the... I was gonna say month, but I don't think they cycle out that fast. Every couple of months? Season? Something like that. It's the Sweet and Spicy burger right now. Pepper sauce, grilled onions, bacon, monterey jack cheese. Mm.