The Decline Of Fast Food Chains: A Very Telling End Of An Era
This story involves Taco Bell and a bad day at a rave.
Do you remember the last timeyou went to a true, old-school fast food restaurant? I remember my last sitdown in one. I was on the road with my husband to a rave in Connecticut, and we were both hungry. We decided to hit a road stop with Taco Bell.
It was the cleanest Taco Bell we’ve been in. Like most other Taco Bells I’ve been to, there was almost no one in the restaurant. I’ve always assumed it was a regional thing. No one really hangs out at a Taco Bell anymore up near me.
Not soon after, I noticed something. I was already full despite ordering my usual meal. The problem was that I had barely touched the meal. My husband remarked that he, too, felt unusually full. He barely ate a taco.
Within hours, we both felt sick.
He ended up having to spin the show while on the verge of vomiting. I ended up feeling better after an hour or so, because I have the digestive tract of a concrete elephant. That was the last time I felt like sitting down at a fast food place.
Today, I actually stopped and thought about that experience.
Maybe it’s just me, but I haven’t been seeing people hang out at fast food restaurants the way they used to. When I was a kid, going to McDonald’s and hanging out that the PlayPlace was the jackpot for kids’ outings. In college, Taco Bell was often the “it” thing for geeks.
Looking back, the only time I saw people hanging out at a fast food restaurant like a McDonald’s, Wendy’s, or Taco Bell was when…you literally had nowhere else to go. In Newark and New York, these locations are generally the hangouts of homeless people, addicts, and troublemakers.
All things considered, I’m not shocked to hear that many of these classic fast food stands are not doing well. They’re all being replaced with more upscale, fast-casual restaurants like Cava, Sweetgreen, Starbucks, and Chipotle.
Hell, even Chipotle doesn’t seem to be doing that well.
What’s going on here?
From an economic and cultural perspective, it’s the end of an era. The death of the classic, cheap fast food restaurant is a sign of how our consumer behavior and economy both changed. Let me explain what’s going on.
The major elephant in the room is the price.
I’m not sure if you have gone into a McDonald’s recently, but I checked on the menu. In my area, a Sausage, Egg, and Cheese McGriddle costs almost $12. A regular combo meal can easily top $10 or more.
If I look at other restaurants in my area, I can get handmade tacos for $14. I could also get a quick breakfast sandwich platter from the local grill for like, $8. Those mom-and-pop shops are cheaper than most fast food venues.
Most major franchises have major fees associated with them that make them very expensive to manage. Franchise owners have to make back that money to stay in business, so they end up passing those fees onto customers.
McDonald’s, from what I hear, is pretty bad with that. Quizno’s was and still is worse with that. They have the lowest profit margins of any fast food chain restaurant, which is why over 90 percent of those stores closed in recent years.
Franchise owners are also required to keep their prices above a certain level in some chains. While most franchises are still fairly profitable, the truth is the main reason people went to fast food was for a cheap meal.
Local eateries are now starting to beat them out at their own game.
Fast food also has a very noticeable stigma in terms of quality.
If you were born in the 80s or earlier, you know there was a time when fast food wasn’t as stigmatized as it was today. Parents taking their kids out for fast food was a regular treat after sports games, or a reward for a test.
If you tell certain parents you do that today, they’ll give you a side-eye that could make a flower wither. I even got that look when I ate a burger from McDonald’s while I was pregnant.