04-009 We need more international burgers

04-009
We need more international burgers

Back in November 2020, a rather interesting post was circulating on Facebook worldwide. It was from “Burger King UK”. In the post, Burger King asked the public to buy food from McDonald’s, KFC, Pizza Hut and many of their competitors. Reason? COVID knockdowns were killing the restaurant industry and any purchase would be essential, no matter the purchase was made to them or to others.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/burgerkinguk/posts/10157489048836921

The post granted a lot of salutes to Burger King. McDonald’s fans also posted photos of their McDonald’s milkshake on Burger King’s Facebook, saying they have followed the advice. 😊 

I started wondering, how many International Fast Food Restaurant chains can I found in my city. And to my surprise, there is no easy answer to the question.

First, how should we define a restaurant as a “Fast Food Restaurant”. Fast Food Restaurant is also called Quick Serve Restaurant (QSR). Everyone know what it is, McDonald’s, KFC, Wendy’s etc. But how exactly can we define a restaurant as a QSR? If Wendy’s is a QSR, how about Wimpy? Their food are almost the same but in Wimpy, you get a waiter serving you. And should the list also cover restaurants not selling Western Food? How about chains not originated from the US or the UK? Should we count them? If not, why?

I found the answer on Wikipedia. There exists a list of all QSR chains with more than 500 stores worldwide. The list does not give out a clear definition on QSR. It is not unarguable. But it technically phased out those more high-end restaurants, as a city normally cannot support so many fine dining restaurants of the same brand.

So, how many of them you can find in Hongkong. Let’s go through the list one by one. To my surprise, there are not so many.

Note: The list is dynamic and would change from time to time. The writing time of this post is at the end of 2022.

First, we have McDonald’s, definitely. And it is also the largest here.

McDonald's in Hongkong

Subway in Hongkong

Starbucks in Hongkong

Subway is not doing very well here. Most of the Subways in Hongkong only provide takeaway. Starbucks is also everywhere. And KFC is also doing well recently, but still not as popular as McDonald’s.

KFC and Pizza Hut are operated by the same company here.

The struggling Burger King, with only one outlet here at the time of writing.

Burger King is doing really bad. At the time of writing, only one Burger King survive in Hongkong and I am not sure how long can it stand. Pizza Hut is better, with more than 40 stores around.

And the 7^th on the list, Domino’s? Sorry, Domino’s is no more although its “stepson” is still around. No Dunkin’, no Krispy Kreme, no Hunt Brothers, no Taco Bell, no Orange Julius, no Dairy Queen, no Wendy’s, no Baskins-Robbins and no Hardee’s neither. We used to have Wendy’s & Hardee’s but they’re also no more.

Popeyes is just hanging on in Hongkong, with only one outlet hiding inside a food court.

Popeyes' Menu

The next we have is already the 22^nd on the list, Popeyes. But it is not doing good either. There is only one outlet surviving in the city center, hiding inside a food court.

Sukiya in Hongkong

MOS Burger in Hongkong

Cinnabon in Hongkong

Jollibee in Hongkong

Five Guys in Hongkong

Ichibanya in Hongkong

85C Bakery Café in Hongkong

BreadTalk in Hongkong

Häagen-Dazs restaurant in Hongkong

The remaining are Sukiya from Japan (37^th), MOS Burger, also from Japan (44^th), Cinnabon (47^th), Jollibee from Philippines (50^th), Five Guys (51^st), Ichibanya (54^th), 85C Bakery Café (65^th), BreadTalk (75^th) & Häagen-Dazs (76^th).

That’s all! We have 16 out of 103 restaurants of the list. I wonder how international we actually are!

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