Friday, March 23, 2012

My personal vendetta with European McDonalds

There is one issue with Europe that, country to country, has been bothering me to no end—and that issue is McDonalds. I’ve lived my entire life building a very intricate and personal relationship with this fast food chain, a relationship that I hold very dear to me. Unfortunately, living in Europe has somewhat soiled the age-old bond between Mickey Ds and I. At first glance, I was ready to embrace the European McDonalds with open arms; the restaurants are remarkably more modern and clean than their American counterparts, and their food seems to be made with more care and possibly fresher ingredients. However, the Europeans looked over the most important and defining quality of the franchise that enabled it for success—low prices. McDonalds was built on the entire premise of providing people with an option to obtain quick and affordable meals. The franchise’s quality of food isn’t the reason why people keep coming back, it’s the price. So when I walk into a McDonalds, I’m not thinking to myself “Gee, I can’t wait to indulge myself with this world-class cuisine”, but rather “God, I’m broke. Atleast McDonalds will always be there for me”. So when I was face to face with a $13 Big Mac mealand 30 cent ketchup packets in Switzerland, something deep down inside of me slowly started to die. Why are the prices so inflated here?! It goes against anything and everything that is McDonalds! The food definitely isn’t good enough to warrant such prices, so what in God’s name is making this acceptable? Is it because they want to take advantage of hungry American tourists? I doubt that’s the sole reason, as I see the establishments constantly filled to the brim with locals. A more likely reason is that they’re taking advantage of the poor souls who haven’t grown up to love and know McDonalds as it was meant to be. They are trying to benefit off of European ignorance, and I’m unfortunately getting caught up in the cross fire. So I say to the hell with European fast food! I’ll stick with off-brand Nutella and bread.

2 comments:

  1. Europe is more expensive than the U.S. so prices would be higher but probably not that high. They also have a slow food/city mentality which could be jacking up the prices to encourage people to eat at more traditional restaurants or at home. Kind of like the cigarette tax - if they raise the tax on cigarettes high enough it encourages less and less people to smoke.

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  2. I wonder if Europeans see McDonald's in quite the same context we Americans do? We've since learned that, in Switzerland at least, the average meal is about equal to one hour of minimum wage pay. It's about the same in the United States (not counting the Dollar Menu, which of course does not exist in Europe). So, do the Europeans take McDonald's a little more seriously? The McDonald's are cleaner, and there are plenty of dirty restaurants in Europe so I do not think it's an overall better sense of cleanliness.

    I also think you have a good point in wondering if the prices are higher to take advantage of tourists that are more accustomed to eating McDonald's and want something familiar in a foreign place. I once read a joke somewhere that when Americans travel, they get Big Macs because a Big Mac is the same everywhere. It's true I think. I don't necessarily think there's anything wrong with that--if you want McDonald's, get McDonald's! It's the same concept for overcharging at restaurants near tourist sites and for touristy souvenirs--they can charge more because people will buy.

    Regardless, I've found street food, especially Doner Kebabs, to be the actual cheap fast food equivalent in Europe. And they're tasty too.

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