A new McDonaldâs (2nd one within walking distance from my apartment) opened today. The food is the same, Ronald is the same, but it attracted a big crowd, lots of cars.
There are too many McDonaldâs in Taiwan. I did some research and discovered that USA, Japan (3598 stores ), Canada, UK, Germany France, Australia has more stores than Taiwan (338). They should invest in other chainstores, there are better ones than McDonaldâs.
I recently visited Kinmen. They donât have a mcdonalds on the island! I thought this looks like an investment opportunity so, visited the md website for information on franchising. I was horrified buy the amount they wanted from me and the cut they would take from sales. Not sure how anyone could earn a decent living from them. I guess people do because there are so many of them⌠Ethically, it goes against my better judgement and i wonât be investing but, just for a moment, i thought Iâd found my destinyâŚ
Pop over to mainland China - McDs in every city, and plenty of them (delivery service free within 5km), and even more KFCs.
I ate two of them McDs Bacon burgers in one day, and was constipated for a week.
When I landed here 4 years ago, I was surprised to find lots of McDonaldâs in this tiny island. I assumed that since Taiwaneses are Chineses, the local food should be incredible good, but I found out later that the local peoples actually love fast food. And these chainstores provide jobs for many young peoples here. The food is not that great (at least compared to my own burger recipe) but I consume it anyway because Iâm most of time too lazy to shop and cook.
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Iâm yet to have a breakfast burger that tastes worse than McDonalds. The only appeals I can work out of Mdâs is 24 hour opening times, the fact that they donât kick you out for sleeping there and the kidâs playground.
A Starbucks recently opened in the small town I live in and I donât get the popularity of that either especially given the prices and the number of alternatives.
McDonald isnât really in the food business, they make money in real estate and management, which kinda made them successful. Even in the US McD isnât considered to be âgood burgerâ because there are plenty of better places, but somehow their marketing pretty much made them very successful.
Another key approach is to market to children and get people hooked at a young age. It isnât necessarily that food from McDonaldâs taste good, but you aquire the taste. Then you continue to purchase it since you always know what you are getting when you order at McDonaldâs.
The âReal estateâ thing in that people in Taipei need to rent a bit for a couple of hours to do hwk, have âbusiness meetingsâ, language exchanges, whatever, that is cheaper, has glacial aircon and is away from the extended family for a while. You canât really do any of that in MacDâs in my hometown in England and so itâs a lot less popular and prevalent there than it is in Taipei.
Also McDâs in Europe charges for everything on top of their horrendously expensive meals (compared to Taiwan): Condiments like ketchup/mustard, use of the toilet, etc. and possibly napkins too. Who would want to eat there when a Donerâs is not far away and wonât charge you for everything under the sun, not to mention their meals are much cheaper than McD.
Is it true that BurgerKing are closing their operations in central and southern Taiwan? It seems that they canât compete with the McD kiddy fast food.
I hope they donât close in the north. Theyâre the only junk food Iâll touch - and then very rarely.
I do like Burger King better than McD, the meals are better even though their prices are higher. I think they also allow free refills for drinks. However there are scarcely any Burger Kings compared to McD or KFC.
I agree. Weâre starting from a very low base, of course, but BurgerKing is infinitely better than McD.
I cannot begin to understand why anybody eats McD. Even if shitfaced drunk 
. If one wants fast food there are Taiwanese fast food places that are so much better.
I donât think itâs really the food although McD has good fries⌠people go there because its famous. Itâs funny because mass marketing seems more effective here compared to the US.
I remember when there was only one, up on the corner of Minsheng and Dunhua.
They donât in Italy or the UK. I would eat there rather than some random kebab shop in Europe for my mystery meat fix (fnar) because the hygiene standards are higher than average and because all their workers are legal.
I like their coffee, mostly. Not gourmet, but a quick, cheap cup, for when you need to hit the brown note.
I think one of the earliest ones was on the corner of LInSen N.Rd and Nanking E. Rd. Sadly it took the place of this awesome restaurant that had live music all day and evenings. Pretty and young waitresses in Sarongs. Excellent and very fairly priced meals too. Was an awesome place to hang out in the afternoons and evenings for music, good food, with a date.
Then it became a MCDonalds. !!! DANG.
LOL at the McDonaldâs hate in this thread.
McDonaldâs simply kick ass at their job. They serve a low cost, low quality product and people queue up around the block 24 hours a day. They absolutely rape Burger King, KFC and Subway on this island in terms of sales (despite the other three having arguably better product) and I sometimes worry they cannot be stopped.
Why the fuck would someone open another chain, when McDonaldâs has the market on lock?
I am older now and can only indulge in fast food a few times a month, and when I do it usually isnât McDâs, but I always marvel at how busy their locations are.
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I donât like the McDonaldâs food but there are things that I appreciate in the McDonaldâs place, they donât play any music, is relatively clean, they have clean toilets, I can study there, have coffee, tea, ice cream without being bothered. I tried other places, but usually those fancy coffee houses around the island have some music blasting loud enough to prevent you from spending too much time there talking with friends or studying. Failing that they send someone to stare at you and ask if you want something else to eat or to tell you that time is up, need to pack and clear the place.
[quote=âDeuce Dropperâ]LOL at the McDonaldâs hate in this thread.
McDonaldâs simply kick ass at their job. They serve a low cost, low quality product and people queue up around the block 24 hours a day. They absolutely rape Burger King, KFC and Subway on this island in terms of sales (despite the other three having arguably better product) and I sometimes worry they cannot be stopped.
Why the fuck would someone open another chain, when McDonaldâs has the market on lock?
I am older now and can only indulge in fast food a few times a month, and when I do it usually isnât McDâs, but I always marvel at how busy their locations are.[/quote]
Compared to the price of local food, I wouldnât consider McDonaldâs low priced. There has to be more to it than the price. To be honest, I think a large part of it is marketing and getting people hooked at a young age.