I’ll take your word for it.
(Bleah)
Although Donato’s pizza has been around since 1963 (so says their Web site) and started out as a single store in Columbus, Ohio (of course), it now has about 200 stores in several states in the east:
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, michigan, New Jersey (1), Ohio and Pennsylvania.
They didn’t make it “big,” I don’t think, until they became part of the “McDonald’s Family” 5-10 years ago. Now, there’s one near where I work that shares a parking lot with a McD’s.
Their pizza is ok but best when fresh. Horrible the next day…
Does anyone remember hearing about the guy planning on marketing spaghetti sippers as a fast food chain?
Spaghetti in a cup again? Honey, I love you!
I so desperately want Steak 'n Shake to come to the Baltimore/Washington area. I first discovered them last year on a trip to Florida, and got to go again a couple weeks ago in Chicago.
We have all the usual crappy stuff, and someone got the great idea to add Roy Rogers to the mix. UGH. I like Hardees, but we don’t have that in our immediate area.
I would so, so happy if we had Steak 'n Shake nearby.
Sheri
I think one of the reasons for no relatively new fast food chains, is lack of originality. I mean how many pirate sponsered sea food chain resturants can you have?
But there has been a rescent pop up of sub places, Quizno’s, Scholtsky’s and Subway.
I guess my question is whether you’re looking for ‘new fast food chains’ or ‘new national fast food chains’. I would be suprised if a new fast food franchise could become a national chain without first being a local, state, or regional chain for some years before becoming national. I know that I had never seen the chains I listed until recently, but I didn’t imagine that we were seeing the very first store opened up over here. IMO being in one location for 10 years before spreading out isn’t that big of a deal for a traditional business, it’s the kind of pattern I’d expect.
What about Cinnabon? I never heard of Cinnabon ten years ago and now they’re like Starbucks II.
There is one fast-food place around here that’s new–Panda Express, a “Gourmet Chinese food” joint. It’s actually quite good, but pricey.
[slight hijack]Nando’s ROCKS!!! But I’m afraid its food is too spicy for middle-American tastes.[/slight hijack]
When people say “fast food,” I think of this:
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A Drive-Through. This is an absolute must, even though none of the chains can spell it correctly.
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A full meal. Starbucks has beverages with snacks on the side, Cinnabon sells a snack with a beverage on the side…neither is a meal.
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Low prices; $4-7 for lunch or dinner.
So, as far as national chains fitting that requirement, we have McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, maybe KFC, and what else?
Plenty of other industries can open up new stores all at once on a national level. How about Old Navy (Gap), Saturn (General Motors), and so on… but as chriscya pointed out, this isn’t happening in the fast-food industry.
P.S. I had never been to, nor heard of, an A&W restaurant until recently. If you ever visit Montreal, and you have a car, go over to Brossard, the next town to the east.
I think the main strip there is route 12 or something, but I can’t remember for sure. Head north a little, and there’s an A&W on the left. I’m probably being a little inaccurate here; ask someone for directions.
They had very tasty onion rings, which might actually have been made fresh. Their root beer was the best I’d ever had, and I actually bought at 2-liter bottle to take home… it’s even made with real sugar!
I’ve noticed “Steakpedos” sandwiches lately…are they a new chain?
I think drive in fast food is pretty saturated, but in the last 10 years or so ‘casual dining’ has taken off. Applebees, Villiage Inn, Chillis, TGIFridays, Tony Roma’s, Steak and Ale…and so on. Usually in the 7 to 15 dollar a meal range, with table service. I don’t have much of an idea if these chains are merely regional in Texas or national.
A releted genre is “comfort” and “downhome foods”, Cracker Barrell and so on.
Here on Long Island, we tend to lose fast food franchises, which are replaced by bodegas, donut shops, or (most likely) yet another outlet for the existing franchises
Chains such as:
Arby’s
Roy Rogers
Kenny Roger’s
Jack’s
Mr. Philly
have mostly dissapeared, only to be replaced by yet another McDonald’s or Wendys
God I love Steak and Shake. I’m a recent transplant from Florida to DC and I lonbg for the good old days of Chicken Frisco and a Lemon Freeze at 3 am.
In the last couple of years, Fazoli’s has expanded to Houston. They were a great place. They meet all of Chris Luongo’s criteria: drive-through, full meal, good prices. They have a variety of pasta dishes and so forth that fill a niche not present in most of the other fast-food places. (Oh, and they had the best bread sticks!)
Unfortunately, I’ve moved away, and there aren’t any Fazoli’s up here. I’ll miss them.
Aren’t they relatively new, by Chriscya’s standards?
Check out my thread in Cafe Society on In 'N Out Burger vs Fatburger.
Some chains seem to have fewer links, but are a chain nonetheless.
“A Drive-Through. This is an absolute must, even though none of the chains can spell it correctly.”
I guess the Taco Bell I ate lunch at where I work in downtown Chicago (or the Burger King I ate at Friday, or the Sbarro on Thursday, etc.) wasn’t actually fast food because it didn’t have a drive-through. :rolleyes:
Blimpie’s is not new. They were around in the 70’s and 80’s. I think they may have gone bankrupt. I also think they are now owned by a different company - or maybe the new company just bought the name from the previous owners.
We had a chain that kinda hit and run here called Goombas Pasta that was something like this sold thier pasta in little waxed paper tubs (kinda like a stubby super big gulp cup fom 7-11)
You guys are right about Quiznos and Papa Johns- I forgot about them. Reading about all these state/regional chains that exist throughout the country makes me wonder even more. You would have thought with all of those chains (some of which are very well established and have been around for decades) that at least a few would have exanded nationwide since 1970.
I guess the posters who figured that the market was saturated quickly a very long time ago so that no one else wanted to put up the money to go national with their chains makes the most sense to me. It is unfortunate that restaurants like McDonalds and Taco Bell- which both have really really bizarre tasting food are everywhere, while better fast food restaurants like Whataburger and Taco Cabana (they both use beef that tastes like beef) are known only in small areas. I guess whoever got started first in the fast food restaurant business has a tremendous advantage, regardless if their product sucks or not.
As many pointed out, the medium priced restaurants with service (such as the Outback and Olive Garden) are all over the place over the past 10 years. Every major highway in my city is covered with them from beginning to end and they are all always crowded. I don’t like them very much- they are kinda creepy with their “lets see how many odd objects we can find” decor. I hope that we are not going to be stuck with these restaurants everywhere for the next 75 years since they were first.
As for me, I think I am going to go get a #1 with cheese at Whataburger.
Judging from the quantity of the responses and all the fast food chains that can be mentioned I think the answer to the origina question is there are new and growing fast food chains, they are just hard to notice because where ever they go, it is already crowded with restuarants. Here in New York I can think of a couple of local places that are new and are chains, but somebody out of the New York might not have heard of them. Then eventually they become national and they blend intot he background. Only a few (MCdees, Wendys, BK and Subway) get noticed because they have Very Big advertising budgets.
I don’t think Panda Express is that new – it’s been around for about ten years, IIRC. I believe they started in Southern California, even, and are now in a high-growth phase. They also have a number of sit-down restaurants (there’s one at the Westside Pavillion, and another one in Cerritos), though I suspect the food served there is the same as at the “Express” outlets.
Good food, too – Panda’s is one of the few “fast food” Chinese joints that actually do decent Chinese. Don’t know why they don’t have a franchise at the Del Amo Fashion Center, though, since they’re in practically every other mall I’ve been to.