Looking to buy a fast food franchise?
If so, stay clear of Boston, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. Why? Because people in these towns spend way less money on fast food than the national average, according to a new survey by Business Insider.
Instead, think about opening a restaurant in towns like Wichita, Kan., Madison, Wis., or Akron, Ohio. Or better yet, set up that grease shack in Plano, Texas, where residents consume 2.1 times more fast food than the average U.S. city and spend 2.3 times the national average.
The study was based on spending data from eight national fast food chains: McDonald’s, Wendy's, KFC, Taco Bell, Subway, Pizza Hut, Arby's, and Burger King.
Overall, the survey found that coastal cities tend to eat less fast food, and cities in the South and Midwest eat way more.
Though the survey didn’t explain why, the answer is fairly obvious. There are a lot more dining options in San Francisco than there are in Plano.
Hiring Tips for Dummies. How do you know when you’ve hired a bad manager for your franchise? When that manager starts slapping customers in the face.
That’s what happened in Marietta, Ga., where the manager of a McDonald’s was charged with attacking a woman because she brought a dog into the restaurant.
But it wasn’t just any dog. It was a service dog that helped the woman keep an eye on her autistic twin sons, who were with her at the restaurant.
That subtlety was completely lost on the manager, Tiffany Allen. And get this, Allen was actually off duty at the time. Which should tell you all you need to know about this person.
The story takes nasty turn when Allen started following the poor mother around the restaurant. The mother was so freaked out, she accidentally dropped her soda, which splashed on the off-duty manager’s leg.
That’s when Allen completely lost it. She chased the mom into the parking lot and gave her an old-fashioned beat-down. The scene got so ugly, Allen had to be physically restrained by co-workers.
The moral of the story: don’t hire lunatics to manage your business. And yes, she was fired.
Golden Arches Go for Gold. The faux-outrage machine is in hyper-drive once again on news that McDonald’s will open its biggest restaurant ever in the heart of Olympic Park, the setting for the London 2012 Olympic Games.
The UK’s Daily Mail called it a “grotesque development,” adding that “the idea McDonald's is even allowed to be a sponsorship partner for sport or pretend it in any way contributes to sporting prowess is simply illogical.”
The 32,000 square-foot, two-story McDonald’s will have 1,500 seats and will be open on a temporary basis for the duration of the Olympic Games.
Yahoo! News jokes that the Olympic motto should perhaps be changed to Faster. Higher. Stronger. Fatter.
McDonald’s, for its part, is using the Olympic sponsorship to “present itself as a nutritionally responsible marketer, particularly when it comes to children,” reports the New York Times. The company has even hired swimming gold medalist Dana Torres as its global ambassador.
But, of course, the Daily Mail isn’t buying any of it. “Sport has obligations that go beyond making cash, but it has been surrendered here.” And just about everywhere else, too.
