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The story
As inflation keeps squeezing the U.S., the diverging strategies of fast-food chains are starting to show up in their earnings. McDonald’s pushed a shift toward cheaper chicken menu items, but the move fell flat, while Burger King stuck with beef even as prices kept climbing, revamping its recipe for the first time in a decade — and posted strong results. On the 5ch thread discussing this, users pointed to a U.S. survey ranking burger chains by popularity that placed McDonald’s 13th, with some noting that in America fast food carries a “cheap, self-indulgent food for the bottom rung” stigma, while others praised Japanese McDonald’s for being both cheap and tasty.
Something unusual is happening in the fast-food wars in the United States — long considered the common person’s ally.
Facing rising prices, McDonald’s USA and others shifted toward cheaper chicken menu items, but earnings didn’t improve,
while Burger King, which stuck with beef despite the ongoing price surge and overhauled its recipe for the first time in a decade, posted strong earnings.
Source: nikkei.com / Original article here
What people said
Yeah, it's fighting for last place in any food-chain taste ranking.
It's pricier but the portions are huge and satisfying.
People have been saying that since spring.
Hard to believe.
Subway's actually good, but isn't BK just okay like that too?
Maybe it's like atoning for an otherwise terrible diet?
Feels like the opposite mentality from Japanese people.
the meat's totally different, right? The Big Mac was genuinely good,
but the plain Hamburger is bad enough every time that I regret eating it.
The meat's actually the same.
The Hamburger's just got one thin flat patty, which is why it's not great.
The sauce difference is huge too.
The regular Hamburger tastes bad because of the buns.
McDonald's cheapest bun is airy and bland, not good at all.
When Americans were asked their favorite burger chain:
1st: In-N-Out Burger 73%
2nd: Five Guys 68%
3rd: Culver's 67%
4th: Whataburger 58%
5th: Smashburger 54%
11th: Wendy's 36%
12th: Burger King 33%
13th: McDonald's 28%
It's only big in cash-strapped Japan because it's cheap.
McDonald's is 13th?
Basically nobody over there takes that burger joint seriously.
Decent folks treat eating out as a premium thing, so naturally they demand quality.
That's exactly
why you get Re: #15.
Both #1 and #2 are burger joints with genuinely great quality.
For reference, here are the store counts:
1. McDonald's: approx. 13,900–14,700 locations
2. Burger King: approx. 6,400–7,700 locations
3. Wendy's: approx. 5,600–6,400 locations
4. Sonic Drive-In: approx. 3,600 locations
5. Jack in the Box: approx. 2,300 locations
6. Five Guys: approx. 1,600 locations
7. Hardee's: approx. 1,400–1,500 locations
8. Whataburger: approx. 1,200 locations
9. Carl's Jr.: approx. 1,000 locations
10. Culver's: approx. 970 locations
Japan has declined so much that people can't even afford this absurdly cheap burger anymore.
Big Mac: cheaper than China
Disney tickets: cheaper than China
iPhone: cheaper than China, the cheapest in the world
Starbucks has fallen off in America, but people in Japan still flock to it.
No Japanese person actually feels like Japan is 'an island nation.'
An island nation is more like an uninhabited island where you can see ocean in every direction.
Once something becomes 'the standard,' old people just camp out there forever.
'Starbucks fell off so I stopped going too' —
that's the lame, easily-swayed attitude (lit. "kyoro," someone who just checks what's trendy), not the other way around.
You can't even proudly admit to liking what you like.
That's just a boring person with no identity of their own.
I love that story about Gates getting roasted in the news for using a McDonald's discount coupon.
Rich people being cheapskates, lol.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DaLkED8VAAYIjDp.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DaLkED9VQAI601f.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DaLkEECUQAAbtG7.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DaLkEEBVMAMGC-G.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DaLfYZ8U0AAXuFg.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DaLfYZ-UMAAdPsy.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DaLfYZ-V4AARhAy.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DaLfYZ8VwAAvJkO.jpg
It's cheap junk food that's easy to eat —
don't need it to feel fancy.
That's probably because their prices have crept up to match Burger King's, right?
He just thinks spending time on meals is wasteful — it's definitely not because he thinks it's delicious.
The guy was lining up at McDonald's himself, though.
That's a rumor that only circulates in Japan.
It's bizarre — Gates eats McDonald's once and suddenly Japanese articles claim he only eats McDonald's.
In reality he barely eats it at all.
You're the one spreading misinformation.
There are plenty of photos of him eating it in the actual restaurant.
Trump and Buffett eat McDonald's normally too.
Way too easy to fool, lol.
FYI I'm Team Lotteria.
Liar.
Lotteria doesn't even exist anymore.
The Whopper's good.
Their cheap burgers are mediocre though.
That place is basically a Whopper shop.
That legendary sauce that's basically clear.
They only ever show the people gushing 'it's so good, it's so good,' but a lot of white tourists can't actually handle Japanese food, so partway through their trip they start eating McDonald's or pizza instead.
For some reason CoCo Ichibanya (the curry chain) is a huge hit with white tourists though.
Background and key points of this discussion
In recent years, how U.S. restaurant chains respond to rising beef prices has become a dividing line. McDonald’s tried to cut costs by pushing chicken menu items, but kept losing customers, while Burger King kept the beef ratio in its mainstay Whopper unchanged and overhauled the recipe for the first time in a decade, turning its earnings around. The U.S. popularity survey quoted in the thread (with In-N-Out and Five Guys at the top and McDonald’s at 13th) is an image of unknown origin that’s been copy-pasted widely online, and it doesn’t actually contradict the fact that McDonald’s has the most locations of any chain in the U.S. — in other words, “popularity ranking” and “scale of store network” are two different metrics, and it’s an easy misread to jump from this survey to “McDonald’s isn’t popular back home.” The oft-repeated anecdote that Bill Gates loves McDonald’s also sparked debate, since how often he actually eats there remains unconfirmed — a story that’s taken on a life of its own in Japan.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “America: ‘Right now it’s a total solo win for Burger King — the people still eating McDonald’s are poor people who care about money over taste’“.
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