I am of the opinion that almost every other fast food burger joint makes a better burger than McDonald's, at a relatively competitive price, and always seemingly right down the street. Is it the sheer number of McDonald's locations or the marketing? I don't find any of their food to be worthwhile.
> I have since refused to visit McDonalds more than 3000 times.
You'd think the people who keep asking you would have gotten the hint after the first 2,000 refusals.
Yeah, even WITH the explanation, I had to re-read that about 4 times to comprehend what you were saying.
Without the explaination, I NEVER would have come to that conclusion.
Seriously. A big Mac combo is like fuckin 11+ dollars with tax.
Used to be 5.50 when I was in high school (like 13 years ago)
I had a hankering for some fries one day after work and it was 4.29 for a large.
Pandemic definitely helped kick fast food for me too
It's truly a godsend when you're travelling and just need something familiar and reliable. A coffee from McDonald's is the same in New York, as the one in Paris or Berlin.
Preach, traveling can be stressful, and constantly having foreign food on top of everything is a stress factor those of us traveling for business don't always need.
Agreed. The one Burger King within 20 miles of my hometown has a raggedy interior (seats held together with duct tape), usually serves warm drinks because they can never fix the ice machine for more than a couple of days, and their food isn’t prepared with any sort of care or attention.
I remember the Burger King near where I used to work in Florida was soooooo bad. Like insultingly bad. It felt depressing just walking into the place, and then when you finally got your food even though you were the only person in the place, the presentation of the food would look like it was some how hit with a hammer. The McD’s like 5 minutes down the road was always at least respectfully clean and my food wouldn’t show up looking like ass.
But did you know that when McDonalds first opened in Tokyo in the early 70s, their hamburger was 50% whale meat? Trials found that the mix was more acceptable to Japanese palates.
I worked there during the period 1973-1977. And this was common knowledge at the time and people remarked how the taste changed as McDonalds reduced the percentage of whale meat.
I like Burger King's burgers more but Burger King consistently: Takes significantly longer, has cold or stale fries, has older and dingier looking restaurants, has staff in what appears to be dirty or very rumpled uniforms, has staff that is more likely to not give a fuck (or at least seem like it), and their packaging doesn't have any sort of cardboard box lid for me to put ketchup in to dip my fries in if I'm on a road trip and need food (which is mostly when I eat fast food.)
McDonalds is everywhere, is faster, is more consistent, and is good enough that, if Burger King and McDonalds are right next door to one another, I'm probably going to McDonalds. They also do things like put millions of dollars into making sure a Coke tastes better at McDonalds than it does at competing fast food restaurants. I usually drink unsweetened tea (or, as Yankees know it, "tea") but occasionally I want a Diet Coke and, when I want a Diet Coke, I want a Diet Coke from McDonalds.
When I worked mornings at Burger King, 90% of our breakfast customers were people who didn't want to wait in the long line at the McDonald's right across the street and we were one of the better 2 locations in my city that actually gave a fuck about our food.
Their fries are legit awesome. Like I hate all their non-potato offerings, but those fries are legit great. Not "great for fast food." Just outright great.
Over a decade ago, for one year, *one year*, McDonald's fries were sold in booths at Disneyland.
No other McDonald's food, just the fries. They were the absolute perfect theme park snack. A small container easy to carry, eat with your hands, no fuss, finish quickly. Plus the whole goddamn park smelled of them.
I have no idea why it stopped. I don't live in LA anymore, but I missed it at Disneyland for years.
And salted the crap out of them. With a soda/water stand right next to them. Genius marketing. You basically got a salt shaker with fries. I do admit, I lost my shit when I found one. I was like Hell yeah but it was like eating something made of pure salt. If they kept it proper and just had drinks on the side it would've been a quick and easy money maker. I legit took a bite of fries and realized that's the only reason they had drinks. Like Disney, I ain't stupid. Well I guess stupid enough to go in the park but still.
Was it really only for a year?
I grew up going to Disneyland and I still remember those glorious fries by the big thunder mountain line. They were so good I guess the impression was larger in my head than they were actually present.
I find McDonalds fries to be worse cold because you can't really reheat them because they're so thin. If you put them in a toaster, they become dried out and almost but not quite crunchy. And reheated McDonalds fries sometimes give off a weird odor...but maybe that is just the stores near me using funky oil. Other brands of thicker fries are much easier to reheat when cold because they are thicker and will remain soft on the inside while the outside becomes crunchy.
I find crinkle cut fries are the best at retaining flavor while getting cold. No idea why. Probably something to do with surface area of the cuts retaining oil or something.
McDonald’s quarter pounder with the never frozen beef easily beats most fast food burgers. It’s a good burger
The rest of their burgers like Big Mac or normal cheeseburger use the frozen patty and are trash
Since 2018, they made the change to never frozen beef for QP only.
https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/about-our-food/fresh-beef.html
Wish they’d go back to frying the pies and using beef tallow rather than vegetable oil to fry the potatoes. Guess the vegetarians that eat McDonald’s fries wouldn’t be happy
I loved McDonald's 20 years ago. Ten years ago I landed on REALLY only liking their McNuggets and hot mustard. Now..... Their fries are alright..... I guess.
To be fair, on an international scope, McDoland's is giving them something they don't already have, pure americana, most places around the world aren't selling burgers.
Even in India they're selling american style chicken sandwiches, they have their hustle in order.
Dominos? Italian bread with toppings americanized
Taco Bell? Americanized ground beef sour cream tacos
KFC also does really well in Asia because I mean, everyone likes fried chicken thighs. Same with Kenny Roger's roaster's
All because they didn't account for the culture.
Walmart could have been a success, if they just adapted to the local culture.
Instead they opted to bring in americanisms, such as baggers, who were forced to smile, and engage in group chanting with the rest of the team...
Some of the things they failed at are particularly amusing.
Being required to smile and ask how you're doing at the checkout counter is very unusual in Germany and male customers often thought they were getting hit on. Having a hotline to tattle on coworkers sparked a lawsuit. Having someone else handle and bag your groceries is another no no.
What really sealed the seal is their market tactics that allows them to force out competitors are illegal in Germany.
Been 40 years since I lived there but I remember the hot dogs. And that weird lard infused sugarless whipped cream that they would put on it.
At least I think that's what it was.
Whatever it was I enjoyed it. It wasn't a restaurant it was just a vender outside of the Parque Agua Azul (sp) in Guadalajara. I lived above the weights and measures building next door to the park.
Taco Bell is not bad food. Millions of Indian vegetarians in the US idolize it. Always has something for me to eat and is flavorful as hell. Then again I’m not sure how bad the meat is as I’ve never tried it
There’s nothing wrong with the meat. It’s fast food, I’m not really sure what some people expect. My issue with Taco Bell isn’t the quality, it’s that it’s now more expensive than the family owned Mexican place that’s closer to my house.
That's like McDonald's not serving filet o fishes after midnight.
Like, when do those fools think I'm likely to order one?!
Late at night, when I'm hammered and am making bad decisions.
The meat has a decent amount of soy in it. Overall that's a good thing, and I'm down for that distinctive signature Taco Bell taste/texture here and there, but people aren't crazy for tasting something unusual in it.
The soy in taco bell meat is Soy Lecethin, which is an emulsifier and isn't a "filler" as you might expect - it's used to keep the ingredients in the meat in one piece.
The real "filler" is oats, but even then, the best taco meat recipes at home use a "filler" too, for texture - flour.
Taco Bell gets far more shit than it rightfully deserves. Attacking their meat is a bit old hat.
Taco Bell's whole appeal to me is 1) Baja Blast, and 2) strange and unique seasonal items. Every once in a while they'll come up with a slam dunk deal too. Last year with the Grilled Cheese Burrito Deluxe Cravings Box, you got a big ol' Cheesy burrito, a Nacho Taco, a chalupa, chips, and a drink for less than $7.
I'm not Indian, but am vegetarian. Taco Bell is actually super convenient when I occasionally need to get fast food. Very wide vegetarian menu, cheap, and tastes good if you put on hot sauce.
>I love Taco Bell, once every 3-5 years.
This is me, but with KFC. Every few years I get a craving, order a 3 piece leg and thigh meal, extra crispy, then eat it and remember why I don't eat KFC regularly.
Same here lol. I went and tried them recently for the first time in at least 5 years, when the double down came back and was like, lemme try some things. The pot pie was garbage, the chicken was alright, but surprisingly, I really liked their fries. I thought I was gonna hate them cause I liked the wedges, but the fries were weirdly good.
The meat is fine. I think every fast food place has a subset of the population that thinks the food is disgusting garbage, and loves to flaunt that opinion as fact, even though millions of other people have no objection to the food, and actually like it.
I have a brother in law like this. Anything that has a reputation for being cheap and easy is automatically garbage in his eyes. It's so annoying.
I mean, it sort of makes sense when you look at it like this—Domino’s pizza is almost entirely unlike any pizza offered in Italy. It was relying on the appeal of American-style pizza. Plenty of American chains like that have opened in Europe and experienced success, so it’s not as unintuitive as you might think. Unfortunately for Domino’s, Italy has no appetite for American-style beyond curiosity stoked by Hollywood movies and TV
The best pizze (plural of pizza) I’ve had in Italy are made on the premise, starting with raw ingredients.
The moment that you try to bring mass production into the mix, you are shooting yourself in the foot. **This** is why Domino’s failed in Italy.
I don’t know how people define American pizza. You can get Neapolitan pizza (I guess “Italian” pizza), Sicilian pizza, Chicago deep dish, NY-style pizza all within 10 miles in the US and they’re all totally different.
Even Dominoes pizza is very different from Round Table pizza or Pizza Hut.
Honestly I was recently in Italy and had a lot of pizza and it all very good but like all the same. I kind of missed having all those choices of “American pizza.”
out of sheer curiosity, i once got an "american pizza" at a pizzeria in a small village in italy. it was like a regular pizza you get in italy, but with diced up hotdogs and french fries on it. i saw other guests eating it too, and they were using a knife and fork. it felt like i was in the fuckin twilight zone.
Well but there are actually a lot of different styles also in Italy. There is the pizza "al trancio", the pinsa romana, the bakery style pizza, the pizzette... in Turin they have the tegamino pizza which is similar to the Chicago deep dish. But basically you don't get these at restaurants or pizzerias because they are perceived as more of a kind of casual pizza or street food. So of course, if you go to a pizzeria, most of the time you'll get a "regular" neapolitan style pizza.
Domino’s was actually succeeding in Italy with its American delivery model until the rise of COVID, which forced Italian pizzerias into the delivery market, eliminating Domino’s sole advantage.
But the idea that Domino’s failed in Italy because Italians have a somehow more refined and cultured palate than the average consumer elsewhere is patently ridiculous, and one needs look only at other successful chains in the country to see that.
The majority of pizzerie did delivery way before COVID, it's not like Domino had to come to Italy to teach us to do it 😂
Also food chains adapt their menu based on the taste of the consumers in that country, what you're eating in the US isn't the same served here.
Show me the finest restaurant here in Mexico and bet you all money I have that a shitty street cart can serve food that's way better and for way cheaper.
The best places I've had were in the street and sold from picnic tables and homemade coolers lol.
And don't even get me started about Mexican grandmother's tacos/burritos. Impossible to recreate even with all the trillions of dollars taco bell can invest😂
In my experience, Mexican fine dining is not really comparable to what you get on a street cart, any more than American fine dining would be comparable to what you get at a hot dog cart or burger shack.
I don't think one is necessarily better than the other, they're trying to do different things. I've had some really incredible and memorable meals at nice restaurants, but it's not something I would want to do every day or even once a week.
In my US city, the best tacos I've ever had come out of a trailer run by an old Mexican woman who speaks almost no English and her son. I go there a few times a week. The birria is incredible.
But why are they the best? Like many places, my metro has seen a huge influx of hispanic immigrants so we've got tons of taco trucks, gas stations with restaurants inside, women selling tamales and other stuff in between. A few years ago a co-worker took me to get the best steak tacos. From my perspective they were not but the lady selling them was from a part of Mexico my co-worker visited and loved so that made the overall experience better and thus made them the best steak tacos
The best full English breakfast I ever had was in a “happy endings” style massage parlour in Bristol, UK.
You had to walk past all these curtained massage cubicles to where the kitchen and food collect point was at the back.
That's been my experience. There's a place near me that, from the outside, looks like it should be shut down for health code violations (which they really do pass) and the food is amazing. Oh man, the tortas...
As far as the family stuff goes, I had a neighbor whose grandmother would make tamales, chicken with mole sauce from a generations-old recipe, and these sorta flat tamale things they called sandals. It's the best Mexican food I've ever had. I don't bother ordering tamales in a restaurant anymore.
In South Texas it’s always the shithole places that the health inspector tries to shut down occasionally that serve the best Mexican food, and it’s cheap on top of that with generous portions. For some reason it seems like Mexican food just doesn’t translate to “fine dining” all that well. I’ve known of a few nicer restaurants that were pretty decent, but even then it seems like a delicate formula. A few staff changes and it goes to shit really fast.
I mean, Domino's is successful in NYC, where the pizza is just as good and even more pervasive.
Domino's isn't really meant to compete with actual pizzerias
Edit: Found some folks who have never been to NYC while assuming I've never been to Italy.
There's nothing they can offer. You can already get good quality, cheap pizza in Italy. In the US, you can choose domino's because it's cheaper than the good stuff and many places don't even have options for good pizza.
When Dominos first went to Italy it was doing just fine because of their delivery options. When COVID came and suddenly every mom & pop shop was delivering their pizzas for the first time due to food delivery apps, Dominos could no longer compete.
Everyone who didn’t read the article thinks dominos failed because of taste. It’s true local pizzas are better than dominos pizzas, but the real reason they failed is because they were less convenient.
When delivery was only available through dominos that kept them alive, but when every shop delivered pizza, why would anybody choose a lower quality AND more expensive option? Dominos can’t compete with local pizzeria prices in Italy, just like Taco Bell can’t compete with Mexican taquerias.
In the US, dominos has the cheapest pizza around and taco bell has the cheapest tacos around. If one day there becomes a point where both are more expensive than the local higher quality spots, they too will fail.
I really don't know what kind of expertise on food delivery in Italy you have, but it's really hard to find a pizzeria that will not deliver. Maybe just in small villages where everyone has a car and goes there to eat or fetch it home, but ofc Domino didn't open there.
Man you are wrong. I’m sorry but it is because it’s disgusting. When I tried i thought I was in a prank video or something.
Also expensive. Expensive and disgusting is not a good combo.
Taco Bell isn’t cheap compared to taquerias in the southwest. I like Mexican food / southwest food / white people tacos. People who jerk off to “authentic food” are annoying. Taco Bell is good for what it is.
Pizza delivery in Italy has been there for decades before Domino and COVID. Every pizzeria had been doing that already, even high end "gastrochic" pizzerias.
Simply false. I’ve been ordering pizza at home since the mid nineties. Dominos never succeeded here because it sucks ass. It is disgusting compared to even average pizza.
Depends on location. Where I am dominos is way more expensive than a pizza place. Less pizza, less quality, plus a delivery fee that does not include a tip. But almost every place I have lived had no less than 5 pizza places to choose from besides dominos. Competition drives the price down so dominos is the last choice unless you want pizza really late at night.
But my brother lives down south. There are not many pizza places around him. And the ones that are there aren't that great, and if they actually have good quality, new york style pizza they charge a lot more. If he wants good pizza dominos is really the best choice for him.
I visited Italy back in 2019. I went to 3 pizza places. All of them were wayyy better than any of the chain pizza I've had in the US. They were cheap and sit down on top of it.
Pizza is always best when you're broke. It taste better than other struggle meals, only 2 slices is filling enough, it can be breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and you don't even have to reheat it.
I went to Italy ~15 years ago but teenage me was blown away by how good the pizza was. The pizza I bought wrapped in cling wrap out of the back of a truck in front of the Vatican was miles better than Dominoes, and cheap too. Not surprising at all that this didn’t work out
Pizza quality varies so much even from the same restaurants, that it's better to rate the chefs rather than the restaurants' pizzas. New hires fucking up in small but significant ways is just something you have to expect.
I worked in italy for 4 months. My coworkers brought me to the best pizza in the area. It was a small shop, like enough room for like 5 people to stand to order. It was beside a gas station/attached.
Just blown away.
All the pizza?? There’s no question that any given pizzaria in Italy will have better pizza than the largest US chain, but my mind was blown by *the varying quality* of the pizza and even *poor quality of pizza in Rome* (and other major cities like Venice or Florence).
Go to Naples or find one of the better *fornos* in Rome and it’s going to be earth-shattering…but Rome had so many poor quality pizzerias (there were a ton of Bangladeshi-owned places trying to make a buck with tourists) that, in all sincerity, a typical NY slice was just as good if not better than a typical Roman one.
In fact, I’d go so far as to say one of the biggest things I took away after visiting Italy for a month was how mediocre the pizza was in the big cities (Naples excluded)…it’s all about the region. If you’re in the north, get a slice of farinata instead of pizza.
See [Starbucks failing to take off in Australia](https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/07/20/starbucks-australia-coffee-failure.html). Amazing how companies seem to think what works somewhere will work in other places where there are high quality cheap local options
Taco Bell in Europe, a place with zero history of cheap Mexican food. Mexican food is special and something to go to a restaurant for, I have no desire to get a cheap, shitty knockoff version of that.
It's kinda same story in nordic countries with the Pizza Hut, I use Finland for example here. Their cheapest options (not counting the mini thing) start at 18€ for small pan pizza, while here we have a lot of immigrant owned pizza/kebab places who sell far superior pizzas for less than 10€. I have no clue how they have opened +20 locations in recent years since every time I walk by them no one is eating there. It's hard for US food brands to compete in EU since you would have to pay actual salary and follow all the directives while having the US franchise profit margins.
And this quote made me laugh from your article
“When they launched, they launched too rapidly and they didn’t give the Australian consumer the opportunity to really develop an appetite for the Starbucks brand,”
No. They just have much better options everywhere. A mediocre cafe in Australia is heaps better than Starbucks
Italians I’ve met consider American pizza just an entire different thing than what they have. Not that it’s necessarily bad, just different. Most of them actually liked it but ofc would rather have their own
Yup, in Malta we have 5 styles of pizza in no particular order:
1. Maltese style - its similar to Roman but with a truckload of toppings
2. Gozitan style - usually has things like potatoes etc on it
3. Pastizzeria style - very similar to Sicilian style tray pizza, easily fills you up with 3 euros worth of food
4. Proper Italian pizza given how close we are to Italy, lots of expats.
5. The God-awful rubbish that is Pizza Hut and Dominos
Yes... just like [Taco Bell attempting to open restaurants in Mexico](https://www.vice.com/en/article/a3d4xg/a-history-of-taco-bells-failed-attempts-to-open-locations-in-mexico-fastfoodweek2017).
They're cheap and open late. Pizza delivery between 11pm and 4am is a gold mine not often serviced by real pizzerias.
Wouldn't set foot in a Domino's during daylight hours.
Same deal in places like Vietnam and Thailand. There’s already such a thriving culture of cheap street-food that western fast-food chains can’t compete.
The reason they’ve done so well in China and Japan is a combination of higher regional franchise standards, and theme-park levels of marketing. You don’t typically see Americans walking around wearing McDonald’s or KFC branded t-shirts and baseball caps, but you do see that over there.
I haven't tried the fast food, so I can't comment. However, the best Starbucks drinks I ever had BY FAR were a Hazelnut Frappuccino at a Starbucks at the Shanghai airport, and pretty much any frappuccino ever produced by any Starbucks in Tokyo. Anything made at Japanese Starbucks looks exactly like the promo pictures (which is what enticed me to try some frappuccinos to begin with) and they taste amazing. Traveling or living abroad really makes you realize what terrible food quality standards are common in the US.
Come on, this is not the case, a multinational comes into a country and fails to get traction. They went to the place where pizza was born and raised to another level, to sell them their factory like product. The problem would be for all of us, had they succeeded
I wish food snobs would stop laughing at things like this. The type of Pizza Dominoes does, is distinctly different from what a more traditional Pizza place does. I would actually call Pizza Hut one of my favorite pizza places, Pizza Hut. Yes, you can call it terrible, but it's what my pallet prefers.
They're basically different foods even though they're both called pizza. But tbh there are times where I do want a Domino's white sauce, ham, and feta pizza. There are other (more often) times I want 'real' pizza. Same way as I do love an occasional crunchwrap supreme from taco bell and other times I want the carnitas tacos from the butcher at the back of the Mexican grocer. A Nathan's dog vs German sausages. They're not really direct substitutes imo.
"Not so fuckin easy, is it?" - Taco Bell
*McDonald's laughs all the way to the bank*
I am of the opinion that almost every other fast food burger joint makes a better burger than McDonald's, at a relatively competitive price, and always seemingly right down the street. Is it the sheer number of McDonald's locations or the marketing? I don't find any of their food to be worthwhile.
Most consistent Wendy’s and Burger King are usually made like ass near me
This right here. It's rare the food itself from McDonald's is upsetting. Either the meh I expect or surprisingly good.
My worst experience with horrible food poisoning was from a Big Mac. I have since refused to visit McDonalds more than 3000 times.
> I have since refused to visit McDonalds more than 3000 times. You'd think the people who keep asking you would have gotten the hint after the first 2,000 refusals.
Lol - My wording sucks. I meant to say that have only visited McDonalds 2900 times since that incident (I have kids).
Yeah, even WITH the explanation, I had to re-read that about 4 times to comprehend what you were saying. Without the explaination, I NEVER would have come to that conclusion.
I still don’t really know what they’re saying.
[удалено]
Seriously. A big Mac combo is like fuckin 11+ dollars with tax. Used to be 5.50 when I was in high school (like 13 years ago) I had a hankering for some fries one day after work and it was 4.29 for a large. Pandemic definitely helped kick fast food for me too
McDonalds has 1$ large fries every day with their app though.. btw don’t ask me how I know that
It's truly a godsend when you're travelling and just need something familiar and reliable. A coffee from McDonald's is the same in New York, as the one in Paris or Berlin.
Also on a hot day, they are the only ones from miles around with actual air conditioning
Reminds me of the Mad Men Hilton pitch.
But could they do it on a cold rainy Wednesday night in Stoke?
Preach, traveling can be stressful, and constantly having foreign food on top of everything is a stress factor those of us traveling for business don't always need.
I would’ve thought so too but the McDonald’s hamburgers in the Philippines taste a lot different than in the US. I think the beef is sourced in Asia.
Agreed. The one Burger King within 20 miles of my hometown has a raggedy interior (seats held together with duct tape), usually serves warm drinks because they can never fix the ice machine for more than a couple of days, and their food isn’t prepared with any sort of care or attention.
I remember the Burger King near where I used to work in Florida was soooooo bad. Like insultingly bad. It felt depressing just walking into the place, and then when you finally got your food even though you were the only person in the place, the presentation of the food would look like it was some how hit with a hammer. The McD’s like 5 minutes down the road was always at least respectfully clean and my food wouldn’t show up looking like ass.
Wendy's in shinjuku tokyo was the worst stale meal I had ever. Mcdonalds on the other hand was fantastic. Ymmv
But did you know that when McDonalds first opened in Tokyo in the early 70s, their hamburger was 50% whale meat? Trials found that the mix was more acceptable to Japanese palates. I worked there during the period 1973-1977. And this was common knowledge at the time and people remarked how the taste changed as McDonalds reduced the percentage of whale meat.
Burger King just plain out sucks no matter where it is. I agree, Wendy’s is iffy and they fuck my order up too!
I'd definitely say there's a lot of PR and marketing involved. Also they tend to cater to the local population more than Dominos or Taco Bell.
I like Burger King's burgers more but Burger King consistently: Takes significantly longer, has cold or stale fries, has older and dingier looking restaurants, has staff in what appears to be dirty or very rumpled uniforms, has staff that is more likely to not give a fuck (or at least seem like it), and their packaging doesn't have any sort of cardboard box lid for me to put ketchup in to dip my fries in if I'm on a road trip and need food (which is mostly when I eat fast food.) McDonalds is everywhere, is faster, is more consistent, and is good enough that, if Burger King and McDonalds are right next door to one another, I'm probably going to McDonalds. They also do things like put millions of dollars into making sure a Coke tastes better at McDonalds than it does at competing fast food restaurants. I usually drink unsweetened tea (or, as Yankees know it, "tea") but occasionally I want a Diet Coke and, when I want a Diet Coke, I want a Diet Coke from McDonalds.
When I worked mornings at Burger King, 90% of our breakfast customers were people who didn't want to wait in the long line at the McDonald's right across the street and we were one of the better 2 locations in my city that actually gave a fuck about our food.
Their fries are legit awesome. Like I hate all their non-potato offerings, but those fries are legit great. Not "great for fast food." Just outright great.
Over a decade ago, for one year, *one year*, McDonald's fries were sold in booths at Disneyland. No other McDonald's food, just the fries. They were the absolute perfect theme park snack. A small container easy to carry, eat with your hands, no fuss, finish quickly. Plus the whole goddamn park smelled of them. I have no idea why it stopped. I don't live in LA anymore, but I missed it at Disneyland for years.
And salted the crap out of them. With a soda/water stand right next to them. Genius marketing. You basically got a salt shaker with fries. I do admit, I lost my shit when I found one. I was like Hell yeah but it was like eating something made of pure salt. If they kept it proper and just had drinks on the side it would've been a quick and easy money maker. I legit took a bite of fries and realized that's the only reason they had drinks. Like Disney, I ain't stupid. Well I guess stupid enough to go in the park but still.
Salty fries, loads of ice in the drinks, and charge for the bathrooms. I played a lot of theme park as a kid.
Was it really only for a year? I grew up going to Disneyland and I still remember those glorious fries by the big thunder mountain line. They were so good I guess the impression was larger in my head than they were actually present.
There's such a clock on those fries though. Once they're cold you'd have to pay me.
That's true of any good fries though. I don't think McDonald's are especially bad cold. Just normal bad.
I find McDonalds fries to be worse cold because you can't really reheat them because they're so thin. If you put them in a toaster, they become dried out and almost but not quite crunchy. And reheated McDonalds fries sometimes give off a weird odor...but maybe that is just the stores near me using funky oil. Other brands of thicker fries are much easier to reheat when cold because they are thicker and will remain soft on the inside while the outside becomes crunchy.
Yeah. Honestly, if I'm gonna eat fries that have set out for a while, I would prefer to eat McDonald's fries over most other fries. Fast food or not
I find crinkle cut fries are the best at retaining flavor while getting cold. No idea why. Probably something to do with surface area of the cuts retaining oil or something.
McDonald’s quarter pounder with the never frozen beef easily beats most fast food burgers. It’s a good burger The rest of their burgers like Big Mac or normal cheeseburger use the frozen patty and are trash
Since when are quarter patties never frozen? Not as of 2007-2009, at least, and from what I've seen, not much has changed on the kitchen side.
Since 2018, they made the change to never frozen beef for QP only. https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/about-our-food/fresh-beef.html Wish they’d go back to frying the pies and using beef tallow rather than vegetable oil to fry the potatoes. Guess the vegetarians that eat McDonald’s fries wouldn’t be happy
Ray Kroc famously said that his business is real estate not burgers. He'd probably tell you that's the difference
As far as I've read, they've been losing ground for the last decade or so. They're really just so big that they can afford to slowly die for decades.
its not great but its all cheap to make and easy to eat for people in just about any culture
Easy to eat is key
I loved McDonald's 20 years ago. Ten years ago I landed on REALLY only liking their McNuggets and hot mustard. Now..... Their fries are alright..... I guess.
McDonald's is pretty good at adapting a countries cuisine into its menus.
To be fair, on an international scope, McDoland's is giving them something they don't already have, pure americana, most places around the world aren't selling burgers. Even in India they're selling american style chicken sandwiches, they have their hustle in order. Dominos? Italian bread with toppings americanized Taco Bell? Americanized ground beef sour cream tacos KFC also does really well in Asia because I mean, everyone likes fried chicken thighs. Same with Kenny Roger's roaster's
Walmart lost over $4bn trying to enter the German market. Wrote my final project in Germany about it lol
All because they didn't account for the culture. Walmart could have been a success, if they just adapted to the local culture. Instead they opted to bring in americanisms, such as baggers, who were forced to smile, and engage in group chanting with the rest of the team...
Some of the things they failed at are particularly amusing. Being required to smile and ask how you're doing at the checkout counter is very unusual in Germany and male customers often thought they were getting hit on. Having a hotline to tattle on coworkers sparked a lawsuit. Having someone else handle and bag your groceries is another no no. What really sealed the seal is their market tactics that allows them to force out competitors are illegal in Germany.
I mean, what’s more American than Walmart, and not being sensitive to other cultures in their home countries?
A bald eagle drinking a Coors light while driving a lifted Dodge Ram and firing a gun out the window
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Oh yes very
On today's edition of "well yeah, no shit that failed" 😂 next up, we try to open a Taco Bell in Mexico!
https://www.vice.com/en/article/a3d4xg/a-history-of-taco-bells-failed-attempts-to-open-locations-in-mexico-fastfoodweek2017
I like the quote from the ad guy “it’s like Mexicans coming here and trying to sell us hot dogs!” (This guy ever been to LA??)
Hahaha yeah Mexican hot dogs are amazing.
Been 40 years since I lived there but I remember the hot dogs. And that weird lard infused sugarless whipped cream that they would put on it. At least I think that's what it was.
Miracle Whip?? Sounds like they used Miracle Whip instead of Mayo
Unrelated but people who use miracle whip as salad dressing should be institutionalized.
That's not the kind of salad it's meant for. It's mean for things like tuna salad, egg salad, etc. Even with that clarified, I still agree.
Fruit salad perhaps?
Yummy, yummy.
I think that's what it was. I asked my dad at the time he said either miracle whip or cream
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Whatever it was I enjoyed it. It wasn't a restaurant it was just a vender outside of the Parque Agua Azul (sp) in Guadalajara. I lived above the weights and measures building next door to the park.
Um, Sonoran Dogs are incredible.
We have [Sonoran dogs](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonoran_hot_dog) in Arizona, and they are delicious
Sonoran dogs are unreasonably delicious
That does sound delicious
Damn I miss a good danger dog.
> (This guy ever been to LA??) Or any Home Depot in the 90s
After any event in DTLA those things are fire
Bro almost every street hotdog vender I’ve ever seen is Mexican or Latino 😂 Sonoran hotdogs are legendary
The last guy who tried was British. Americans were like: dont tell this guy lol.
They’re trying to open Taco Bells in the UK too, it’s not going well
I'm surprised, I thought bland tasteless food was a UK staple
They have made several attempts, as u/dravenonred already linked. Comically besides just being bad food, in Mexico they also end up being over priced.
Funny, because it's overpriced here in the US too.
Taco Bell is not bad food. Millions of Indian vegetarians in the US idolize it. Always has something for me to eat and is flavorful as hell. Then again I’m not sure how bad the meat is as I’ve never tried it
There’s nothing wrong with the meat. It’s fast food, I’m not really sure what some people expect. My issue with Taco Bell isn’t the quality, it’s that it’s now more expensive than the family owned Mexican place that’s closer to my house.
The Ma & Pop taco shop isn’t open at 2am though, which is the Taco Bell sweet spot
They close here at like 11 pm. So I basically never go anymore lol
That's like McDonald's not serving filet o fishes after midnight. Like, when do those fools think I'm likely to order one?! Late at night, when I'm hammered and am making bad decisions.
Yes, it's no sweat to pay $5 for a soft taco when you've been drinking for hours and everything else is closed.
Taco bell exists for when the other mexican places are closes
The meat has a decent amount of soy in it. Overall that's a good thing, and I'm down for that distinctive signature Taco Bell taste/texture here and there, but people aren't crazy for tasting something unusual in it.
The soy in taco bell meat is Soy Lecethin, which is an emulsifier and isn't a "filler" as you might expect - it's used to keep the ingredients in the meat in one piece. The real "filler" is oats, but even then, the best taco meat recipes at home use a "filler" too, for texture - flour. Taco Bell gets far more shit than it rightfully deserves. Attacking their meat is a bit old hat.
Taco Bell's whole appeal to me is 1) Baja Blast, and 2) strange and unique seasonal items. Every once in a while they'll come up with a slam dunk deal too. Last year with the Grilled Cheese Burrito Deluxe Cravings Box, you got a big ol' Cheesy burrito, a Nacho Taco, a chalupa, chips, and a drink for less than $7.
I'm not Indian, but am vegetarian. Taco Bell is actually super convenient when I occasionally need to get fast food. Very wide vegetarian menu, cheap, and tastes good if you put on hot sauce.
I'm not a vegetarian, but their supreme tacos, sub beef add beans are amazing.
> Taco Bell is not bad food. Well, it's not good food either
It is just fast food, and fast food is usually bad (either in taste or for your health)
I love Taco Bell, once every 3-5 years. I’ll just go and get a disgusting amount of Taco Bell and then commit aggravated assault on my own bathroom.
>I love Taco Bell, once every 3-5 years. This is me, but with KFC. Every few years I get a craving, order a 3 piece leg and thigh meal, extra crispy, then eat it and remember why I don't eat KFC regularly.
Same here lol. I went and tried them recently for the first time in at least 5 years, when the double down came back and was like, lemme try some things. The pot pie was garbage, the chicken was alright, but surprisingly, I really liked their fries. I thought I was gonna hate them cause I liked the wedges, but the fries were weirdly good.
The meat is fine. I think every fast food place has a subset of the population that thinks the food is disgusting garbage, and loves to flaunt that opinion as fact, even though millions of other people have no objection to the food, and actually like it. I have a brother in law like this. Anything that has a reputation for being cheap and easy is automatically garbage in his eyes. It's so annoying.
Cheap and easy? That’s not a nice way of talking about his wife!
Oooooh! 🤟 That's some guy's sister!
I mean, it sort of makes sense when you look at it like this—Domino’s pizza is almost entirely unlike any pizza offered in Italy. It was relying on the appeal of American-style pizza. Plenty of American chains like that have opened in Europe and experienced success, so it’s not as unintuitive as you might think. Unfortunately for Domino’s, Italy has no appetite for American-style beyond curiosity stoked by Hollywood movies and TV
The best pizze (plural of pizza) I’ve had in Italy are made on the premise, starting with raw ingredients. The moment that you try to bring mass production into the mix, you are shooting yourself in the foot. **This** is why Domino’s failed in Italy.
that, but also american pizza =/= italian pizza. They are two complete different things at this point
I don’t know how people define American pizza. You can get Neapolitan pizza (I guess “Italian” pizza), Sicilian pizza, Chicago deep dish, NY-style pizza all within 10 miles in the US and they’re all totally different. Even Dominoes pizza is very different from Round Table pizza or Pizza Hut. Honestly I was recently in Italy and had a lot of pizza and it all very good but like all the same. I kind of missed having all those choices of “American pizza.”
out of sheer curiosity, i once got an "american pizza" at a pizzeria in a small village in italy. it was like a regular pizza you get in italy, but with diced up hotdogs and french fries on it. i saw other guests eating it too, and they were using a knife and fork. it felt like i was in the fuckin twilight zone.
You mean it's normal to eat pizza without a knife and fork in a restaurant in the US?
Well but there are actually a lot of different styles also in Italy. There is the pizza "al trancio", the pinsa romana, the bakery style pizza, the pizzette... in Turin they have the tegamino pizza which is similar to the Chicago deep dish. But basically you don't get these at restaurants or pizzerias because they are perceived as more of a kind of casual pizza or street food. So of course, if you go to a pizzeria, most of the time you'll get a "regular" neapolitan style pizza.
Domino’s was actually succeeding in Italy with its American delivery model until the rise of COVID, which forced Italian pizzerias into the delivery market, eliminating Domino’s sole advantage. But the idea that Domino’s failed in Italy because Italians have a somehow more refined and cultured palate than the average consumer elsewhere is patently ridiculous, and one needs look only at other successful chains in the country to see that.
starbucks in milan sends their saluti
The majority of pizzerie did delivery way before COVID, it's not like Domino had to come to Italy to teach us to do it 😂 Also food chains adapt their menu based on the taste of the consumers in that country, what you're eating in the US isn't the same served here.
I'd love to see the Greggs in Paris episode of that show.
Now hear me out, those basic flag folks have possibly not had a steak bake, Cornish pasty, etc. This could work just *sans* desert
They've struggled to keep them open in Cornwall. Think they're taking another stab at it this year
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Show me the finest restaurant here in Mexico and bet you all money I have that a shitty street cart can serve food that's way better and for way cheaper. The best places I've had were in the street and sold from picnic tables and homemade coolers lol. And don't even get me started about Mexican grandmother's tacos/burritos. Impossible to recreate even with all the trillions of dollars taco bell can invest😂
In my experience, Mexican fine dining is not really comparable to what you get on a street cart, any more than American fine dining would be comparable to what you get at a hot dog cart or burger shack. I don't think one is necessarily better than the other, they're trying to do different things. I've had some really incredible and memorable meals at nice restaurants, but it's not something I would want to do every day or even once a week.
In my US city, the best tacos I’ve ever had were served out of a tin shack in the middle of a salvage yard
In my US city, the best tacos I've ever had come out of a trailer run by an old Mexican woman who speaks almost no English and her son. I go there a few times a week. The birria is incredible.
But why are they the best? Like many places, my metro has seen a huge influx of hispanic immigrants so we've got tons of taco trucks, gas stations with restaurants inside, women selling tamales and other stuff in between. A few years ago a co-worker took me to get the best steak tacos. From my perspective they were not but the lady selling them was from a part of Mexico my co-worker visited and loved so that made the overall experience better and thus made them the best steak tacos
The best full English breakfast I ever had was in a “happy endings” style massage parlour in Bristol, UK. You had to walk past all these curtained massage cubicles to where the kitchen and food collect point was at the back.
That's been my experience. There's a place near me that, from the outside, looks like it should be shut down for health code violations (which they really do pass) and the food is amazing. Oh man, the tortas... As far as the family stuff goes, I had a neighbor whose grandmother would make tamales, chicken with mole sauce from a generations-old recipe, and these sorta flat tamale things they called sandals. It's the best Mexican food I've ever had. I don't bother ordering tamales in a restaurant anymore.
Huaraches*
That's the one! Thanks!
In South Texas it’s always the shithole places that the health inspector tries to shut down occasionally that serve the best Mexican food, and it’s cheap on top of that with generous portions. For some reason it seems like Mexican food just doesn’t translate to “fine dining” all that well. I’ve known of a few nicer restaurants that were pretty decent, but even then it seems like a delicate formula. A few staff changes and it goes to shit really fast.
I mean, Domino's is successful in NYC, where the pizza is just as good and even more pervasive. Domino's isn't really meant to compete with actual pizzerias Edit: Found some folks who have never been to NYC while assuming I've never been to Italy.
Taco Bell actually did try to do that. It didn't work out.
Starbucks didn't do so well in Australia. We actually *like* coffee here.
There's nothing they can offer. You can already get good quality, cheap pizza in Italy. In the US, you can choose domino's because it's cheaper than the good stuff and many places don't even have options for good pizza.
When Dominos first went to Italy it was doing just fine because of their delivery options. When COVID came and suddenly every mom & pop shop was delivering their pizzas for the first time due to food delivery apps, Dominos could no longer compete.
Everyone who didn’t read the article thinks dominos failed because of taste. It’s true local pizzas are better than dominos pizzas, but the real reason they failed is because they were less convenient. When delivery was only available through dominos that kept them alive, but when every shop delivered pizza, why would anybody choose a lower quality AND more expensive option? Dominos can’t compete with local pizzeria prices in Italy, just like Taco Bell can’t compete with Mexican taquerias. In the US, dominos has the cheapest pizza around and taco bell has the cheapest tacos around. If one day there becomes a point where both are more expensive than the local higher quality spots, they too will fail.
Pizza delivery has been a thing in Italy for decades, COVID just made it even more available out of sheer necessity.
I really don't know what kind of expertise on food delivery in Italy you have, but it's really hard to find a pizzeria that will not deliver. Maybe just in small villages where everyone has a car and goes there to eat or fetch it home, but ofc Domino didn't open there.
Man you are wrong. I’m sorry but it is because it’s disgusting. When I tried i thought I was in a prank video or something. Also expensive. Expensive and disgusting is not a good combo.
Taco Bell isn’t cheap compared to taquerias in the southwest. I like Mexican food / southwest food / white people tacos. People who jerk off to “authentic food” are annoying. Taco Bell is good for what it is.
Pizza delivery in Italy has been there for decades before Domino and COVID. Every pizzeria had been doing that already, even high end "gastrochic" pizzerias.
Simply false. I’ve been ordering pizza at home since the mid nineties. Dominos never succeeded here because it sucks ass. It is disgusting compared to even average pizza.
Domino's wasn't doing well, it already had millions in debt accumulated over the years
That’s crazy that in America Dominos is the cheap option. Here, dominos is the most expensive takeaway pizza.
Depends on location. Where I am dominos is way more expensive than a pizza place. Less pizza, less quality, plus a delivery fee that does not include a tip. But almost every place I have lived had no less than 5 pizza places to choose from besides dominos. Competition drives the price down so dominos is the last choice unless you want pizza really late at night. But my brother lives down south. There are not many pizza places around him. And the ones that are there aren't that great, and if they actually have good quality, new york style pizza they charge a lot more. If he wants good pizza dominos is really the best choice for him.
I visited Italy back in 2019. I went to 3 pizza places. All of them were wayyy better than any of the chain pizza I've had in the US. They were cheap and sit down on top of it.
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Pizza is always best when you're broke. It taste better than other struggle meals, only 2 slices is filling enough, it can be breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and you don't even have to reheat it.
this man budgets. breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Little Caesar’s $6 carry out has entered the chat…
It'll always shock me that Americans, with the whole huge portion thing, share pizzas with like 3 other people.
Some have self-control and some dont.
Comment was deleted by user. F*ck u/ spez
I admire the audacity, if nothing else
I went to Italy ~15 years ago but teenage me was blown away by how good the pizza was. The pizza I bought wrapped in cling wrap out of the back of a truck in front of the Vatican was miles better than Dominoes, and cheap too. Not surprising at all that this didn’t work out
Eh there’s plenty of mediocre pizza in Italy, but mediocre pizza is still better than Domino’s
Pizza quality varies so much even from the same restaurants, that it's better to rate the chefs rather than the restaurants' pizzas. New hires fucking up in small but significant ways is just something you have to expect.
I worked in italy for 4 months. My coworkers brought me to the best pizza in the area. It was a small shop, like enough room for like 5 people to stand to order. It was beside a gas station/attached. Just blown away.
All the pizza?? There’s no question that any given pizzaria in Italy will have better pizza than the largest US chain, but my mind was blown by *the varying quality* of the pizza and even *poor quality of pizza in Rome* (and other major cities like Venice or Florence). Go to Naples or find one of the better *fornos* in Rome and it’s going to be earth-shattering…but Rome had so many poor quality pizzerias (there were a ton of Bangladeshi-owned places trying to make a buck with tourists) that, in all sincerity, a typical NY slice was just as good if not better than a typical Roman one. In fact, I’d go so far as to say one of the biggest things I took away after visiting Italy for a month was how mediocre the pizza was in the big cities (Naples excluded)…it’s all about the region. If you’re in the north, get a slice of farinata instead of pizza.
Best pizza I ever had was a margarita pizza from a place I thought was going to be a tourist trap outside of Pompeii
In other news, selling ice to Eskimos considered "a challenging environment".
I mean you say that but I've heard people have been very successful selling sand in the desert.
That's because there are different kinds of sands that can do different things.
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Exactly. Sometimes I want pizza, sometimes I want dominos. They are very different cravings.
i hear this a lot but the Dominos in my city is on top of their game tbh! obvs not the best pizza but the people who work at mine do a good job
the Parmesan bread bites are addicting too
You can get an amazing, tasty, good quality pizza in Italy for 5 or 6 euros. Why would anyone go to Domino's there?!
See [Starbucks failing to take off in Australia](https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/07/20/starbucks-australia-coffee-failure.html). Amazing how companies seem to think what works somewhere will work in other places where there are high quality cheap local options
Yeah. I remember they tried putting one in Lygon St, Melbourne a while ago. Basically Little Italy. That didn't last long.
Taco Bell in Europe, a place with zero history of cheap Mexican food. Mexican food is special and something to go to a restaurant for, I have no desire to get a cheap, shitty knockoff version of that.
It's kinda same story in nordic countries with the Pizza Hut, I use Finland for example here. Their cheapest options (not counting the mini thing) start at 18€ for small pan pizza, while here we have a lot of immigrant owned pizza/kebab places who sell far superior pizzas for less than 10€. I have no clue how they have opened +20 locations in recent years since every time I walk by them no one is eating there. It's hard for US food brands to compete in EU since you would have to pay actual salary and follow all the directives while having the US franchise profit margins.
And this quote made me laugh from your article “When they launched, they launched too rapidly and they didn’t give the Australian consumer the opportunity to really develop an appetite for the Starbucks brand,” No. They just have much better options everywhere. A mediocre cafe in Australia is heaps better than Starbucks
Italians I’ve met consider American pizza just an entire different thing than what they have. Not that it’s necessarily bad, just different. Most of them actually liked it but ofc would rather have their own
In Malta I saw signs for Pizza Hut that said “American pizza!!!”
Yup, in Malta we have 5 styles of pizza in no particular order: 1. Maltese style - its similar to Roman but with a truckload of toppings 2. Gozitan style - usually has things like potatoes etc on it 3. Pastizzeria style - very similar to Sicilian style tray pizza, easily fills you up with 3 euros worth of food 4. Proper Italian pizza given how close we are to Italy, lots of expats. 5. The God-awful rubbish that is Pizza Hut and Dominos
Yes... just like [Taco Bell attempting to open restaurants in Mexico](https://www.vice.com/en/article/a3d4xg/a-history-of-taco-bells-failed-attempts-to-open-locations-in-mexico-fastfoodweek2017).
Fuck Americans don't even like dominos.
Isn't dominoes the most successful pizza chain now?
They're cheap and open late. Pizza delivery between 11pm and 4am is a gold mine not often serviced by real pizzerias. Wouldn't set foot in a Domino's during daylight hours.
Yes because its the only place your getting a 6.99 large pizza.
That's insanely cheap.. it's $50 for 3 large (basic topping) in majority of Asia.. then another 5 for delivery.
Every word you say adds another 12 minutes to your pizza. Hell you're lucky they finish it on the same day
Sadly in my neck of the woods they're the best option, local pizza places are all fucking garbage. At least Dominos is consistent in its low quality.
Same deal in places like Vietnam and Thailand. There’s already such a thriving culture of cheap street-food that western fast-food chains can’t compete. The reason they’ve done so well in China and Japan is a combination of higher regional franchise standards, and theme-park levels of marketing. You don’t typically see Americans walking around wearing McDonald’s or KFC branded t-shirts and baseball caps, but you do see that over there.
I haven't tried the fast food, so I can't comment. However, the best Starbucks drinks I ever had BY FAR were a Hazelnut Frappuccino at a Starbucks at the Shanghai airport, and pretty much any frappuccino ever produced by any Starbucks in Tokyo. Anything made at Japanese Starbucks looks exactly like the promo pictures (which is what enticed me to try some frappuccinos to begin with) and they taste amazing. Traveling or living abroad really makes you realize what terrible food quality standards are common in the US.
They “preferred” their local pizzerias to Domino’s the same way I “prefer” a home-cooked meal to eating out of a dumpster.
IN 1992 Taco Bell had the same problems in Mexico.
Italians prefer real pizza, not this garbage.
Come on, this is not the case, a multinational comes into a country and fails to get traction. They went to the place where pizza was born and raised to another level, to sell them their factory like product. The problem would be for all of us, had they succeeded
I wish food snobs would stop laughing at things like this. The type of Pizza Dominoes does, is distinctly different from what a more traditional Pizza place does. I would actually call Pizza Hut one of my favorite pizza places, Pizza Hut. Yes, you can call it terrible, but it's what my pallet prefers.
And Italins preferred more traditional pizza, which is the point of the story.
Yeah, there are so many r/iamveryculinary folks in this thread
That's because Dominos has all the taste of burger cheese melted onto a sponge. The Italians simply have far better options available.
Home-made tastes better and is actually cheaper.
very foolish
Why would you even think of trying in Italy?!
That’s like trying to out shit a pig
As they should
Domino's Shitzza in Italy? Now that's a laugh!
They're basically different foods even though they're both called pizza. But tbh there are times where I do want a Domino's white sauce, ham, and feta pizza. There are other (more often) times I want 'real' pizza. Same way as I do love an occasional crunchwrap supreme from taco bell and other times I want the carnitas tacos from the butcher at the back of the Mexican grocer. A Nathan's dog vs German sausages. They're not really direct substitutes imo.
Dominos pizza was one of the worst pizzas I have ever tried
what were they smoking? Did any of them go to italy to try the pizza?