I used to get a bic mac large menu for me and my friend for roughly €10, now it's around €12 for one if i'm not mistaken (haven't been to the place for quite some years now).

The food was never worth the money, we went there for the friendship and low barrier of entry. We could just do what we wanted and enjoy ourselves for as long as we wanted. Watch some video's, have a laugh, maybe get a cheap icecream or milkshake after a while.

Where any regular coffee place would start trying to get you to order more or let you know they needed to "free up the table" for other guests.

Maccers never gave a shit and it felt good to be there, so that's what we did...we hung out as it was affordable, especially when the weather was bad.

This makes me glad that I have celiac’s disease; as in I can’t eat fast food even if I wanted to.

I would consider myself a fast food connoisseur, despite having what I would call above average cooking skills.

The likes of McDonald's and KFC have never been in the same leagues as proper burgers/chicken. No one is comparing a Big Mac to a normal burger from home or a restaurant, so many of the comparisons here are unfair at best, and detached from reality at worst. You have McD because you want McD, not because you want a burger.

The fundamental problem is that fast food needs to be both fast and cheap. It's neither, because companies skimped on staff post-pandemic, and prices are just too high. Now, that cheap treat that you enjoy has to be worth both the price and the wait - and these restaurants are finding that it's just not justifiable any more.

They lost the battle the second you made it about low-income diners. These restaurants were about spectacle for the kids, and about value at speed for the families. When you market your food as "poor people food" people aren't going to want it, especially if someone with a good income still balks at the price tag.

I don't really know how many of them are going to survive, outside of revisiting what make them great places for kids and families. That's harder to do today than it was, but they really need to revisit who their customer actually is - because if your value proposition is "you'll be less surprised at how expensive the food the poors eat" then you're going to see fewer customers. Ultimately, that's probably what some execs want, because that real estate is probably worth a ton...

They kept pushing the prices, became more expensive than restaurants in my area. I ate at a diner. 13 per person. Eat at McDonald's, 11 per person for the cheap stuff. The patty from the diner was as big as their fucking $3.5 Mcdouble. Then they overwork their employees and pay them like shit so you're lucky if they even give 2 shits about you or your food. There's just no point in going to fast food anymore. It ain't fast, it being food is questionable, and it's not even cheap.