Lilo, I just had lunch, but reading your post has made me hungry! (Perhaps it was b/c I had yogurt and fruit?) :>)

I think we have one of each two of some like Mickey D's
and KFC.
I don't eat hamburgers made in fast food chain places.
I make my own at home.

Lilo, just curious, do you have any litter along the roads
in your town?

The nearby town has at least one of almost every National fast food chain I can think of. I think there are four or five sites of the bigger pizza chains, and burger joints. For all practical purposes, the manufacturing base is gone, gone, gone. There isn't much left to the area than hospitality businesses and retail chains, to take advantage of the close access of the city to the interstate.

No skin off my nose, other than for some reason the smaller restaurants and larger independent restaurants are history and that's a shame. We used to have many mom and pops and a few buffets and several very nice steakhouses and ethnic restaurants. The prices were cheaper than fast food, the service was decent, and you'd have thought that the businesses would have had some sort of customer loyalty.

I have pondered what brought the demise of the independents more than once.........and came to the conclusion it wasn't the chains directly driving them out, nor the price or quality, or advertising dollars the smaller concerns didn't have. It was a matter of city planning and location, location, location. IOW convenience.

The heart of the city is empty for all practical purposes. The stores (and practically everything else) is located on one very ugly, very congested road what stretches on and on and on, ever gobbling up the rural edge of that direction of the city. When do you stop for fast food? When you are coming from or going to work or shopping, usually. So that's where you stop and eat, or get your bag of cholesterol to take away. Then there are the chains who took advantage of the exit ramp locations outside of town to catch the travelers, and when they finally smartened up enough to put motels at the in-town on/off ramps they sprung up there too. All of this is high priced real estate now and only a national chain has the backing to build on it and back it until the sites start earning their keep.

I miss the little diners with the friendly, and slow paced atmosphere where you could chat with friends and read a paper at the table and nobody considered shooing you off to open up space. I really hate to think that what remains in our community are now low paying hospitality jobs and the bulk of the profit going out of town to some national headquarters.

We live about 1/2 mile away from the fast food corner of the world. 10 regular chain restaurants, one 24 hrs diner (chain), one little Chinese and two Mexican places.
A bank, 2 gas stations/convenience stores and a car dealer separate the whole mess. What you cannot find in the whole town is a place where you can get a good steak.

Our little town which always was a "Home Town" is no more. Folks tore down a beautiful old church with the leaded glass windows and all, on a corner lot...guess what took it's place? Most of our local owned stores are no more. We have a unique parking system down town, now they want to change that.They will put in trees on the corners and benches to set on....for what? No one is going down-town to shop so there will be no one to rest on the benches. My parents could take cream and milk or eggs to town and trade for needed articles whether it was food or clothing or chicken feed. Hate it!!!! They say we need to adjust. Bologna !!The days of the nickle ice cream cone and fifteen cent movie ticket are no more ! I even find that our new modern churches are uninviting.

There will be no fast food chain outlet in this village as long as we don't have a modern sewer system, and we do hope it stays that way! We are straddling a major highway (US 101)
have a big Chevron station where tourists will stop, but nothing else in town is of much interest for most of them. It seems people are so conditioned to only patronize the well-known, well advertised outlets, too afraid to try something different.
We don't even have a traffic-light, the closest one is 22 miles south LOL
I don't understand some newcomers, who moved here because of the rural area, but want to improve it to make it more like the suburbs they wanted to get away from. Go figure!

We have lots of fastfood because we are also on an interstate, but also lots of family owned restaurants, especially Italian and Pizza. The DD has worked at one diner type since she was 15. Now she comes home on weekends from college to work.

We have a McDonalds, a Subway and a Domino's Pizza. The rest of the cafes and restaurants are locally owned and operated and food is cooked from scratch for the most part. I don't think it's "Fast" food if it's made from scratch.precludes fast food chains and box stores from starting business here.