Introduction

Fast Food Restaurants in the

USA and Canada

Each fast food restaurant normally has its own large outdoor car park, and more than adequate seating and tables are provided, so fast food is a much more pleasant experience than in the UK and in our opinion well worth trying even if you have been put off by bad experiences with overcrowding and less than perfect service over here.

The quality and cleanliness of the fast food chain restaurants in the USA and Canada are consistently of the very highest standard, and service is generally very good.

Prices tend to be around two-thirds to three-quarters of those for the same products in the UK.

Each of the fast food chains has its own distinctive style of building.

Most fast food establishments have drive-thru's for the takeaway trade.

Most fast food chains in the USA now give free refills on soft drinks, increasingly on a serve-yourself basis.

A "combo" is a combination of a hamburger or other major item plus (usually) fries and a drink. Combos offer a considerable saving over buying the items individually. Often combos can be "supersized" for a very small extra cost, in which case you get the same size of hamburger or other main item, but a larger size of fries and drink.

As well as the categories listed in the links on this page, there are also seafood fast food chains such as "Long John Silver's" which we have not yet tried.

Fish and chips is extremely rare in the USA but a little more common in Canada.

As far as we know there are no Chinese or Indian fast food chains, but Chinese fast food takeaways are occasionally found in supermarkets and shopping mall food plazas.

Once you make your wishes clear, fast food restaurants are quite happy to omit certain ingredients, for example if you prefer a hamburger without tomatoes. However, making it clear what you want can sometimes be rather tricky, and of course it's difficult to know what's in an item if you've never tried it. Also, you'll usually have to wait a few minutes for your "special" or "grill" as it's often called to be made. Of all the fast food chains, Wendy's probably caters for "fussy eaters" better than any.

Restaurants