Five dollar foot-long beats out the golden arches

I first ate at McDonald’s during the summer of 1967.  A friend and I had jobs in a shoe factory, where we did  “heel podding” (which must actually have been “heel padding”, since it meant gluing a beneath-the-heel pad in the sole of a shoe) and trim-finishing for work boots and combat boots – including somewhat mini-versions of paratroop jump boots for the Vietnamese Air Force.

Fast food wasn’t such a big deal then – or nearly as ubiquitous –  but there was a McDonald’s a couple of blocks away from the factory. When the whistle blew at noon, and we punched out for lunch, we often drifted over to McD’s. Not liking the hamburgers in particular – mostly because for some reason I did not eat mustard or ketchup at that point in my life – I usually ordered fries and a chocolate shake. (In retrospect, that does sound pretty unhealthy as regular lunch fare, but I suppose if I’d been a health nut, I wouldn’t have taken a minimum wage job where I got to breathe glue, shoe-polish, and acetone fumes all day.)

For a long while, that was about all I had to do with fast food as we’ve come to know it.

When my friends and I hung out, we went to Friendly’s, mostly.

Fast forward/foodward) a few years.

On my first trip to Europe, in 1973, I was thrilled that there was a McDonald’s on the Champs-Élysées. Actually, it was a bit off of it. It was in some sort of arcade, and the sign advertising it was quite small. No major honking golden arches outside, that’s for bien sûr. I do believe that this McDonald’s is still in operation. And I do believe I have eaten there more recently than 1973, since pretty much every time I’m in a European city, I’ll pop in and indulge myself in a small fries, just for the ugly American heck of it.

Needless to say, if there’s a European city that lacks a McDonald’s, I’ve yet to step toe in it.

It’s also pretty easy to find other American fast food outlets. Most memorable (to my memory, anyway) was coming across a Dunkin’ Donuts in Budapest.

But I don’t recall ever seeing a Subway anywhere other than in the good old US of A.

That may well be because I wouldn’t have been looking for one, since it’s not on my list of must-eat fast food joints when I get my semi-annual craving for a quarter-pounder (or equivalent). Now I don’t quite put Subway in the same category as Roy Rogers and Arby’s, “restaurants” I would only eat it if, say, I had just crawled 600 miles across the Sahara desert with a single liter-bottle of Poland Springs, and the only place to eat in the oasis was a Roy Rogers franchise. And I will say that, during my business travelin’ days, when one airline – was in American – fed the steerage crowd with a Subway sandwich, rather than a plastic cooked meal, I was just as happy. (I do believe that what was typically on offer was a smallish, smallish-taste sandwich containing something called “turkey ham”, accompanied by a bag of Sun Chips.)

Still, if I’m looking for a sub, there are plenty of onesie-twosie independent sub shops around where I can satisfy my occasional jones for an Italian with onions, pickles, and hots. In fact, as I write this, I’m sitting in The Writers’ Room of Boston, looking out at Big Al’s, where I get my occasional Italian, or a “Lady Café” (mozzarella, tomato, and basil).

So why stop at a Subway?

The world, however, doesn’t exactly share my sentiments. (What else is new?)

Worldwide there are, in fact, more Subway outlets than there are McDonald’s stores. According to the Wall Street Journal:

At the end of last year, Subway had 33,749 restaurants worldwide, compared to McDonald's 32,737. The burger giant disclosed its year-end store count in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing late last month.

Of course, in terms of sales, McDonald is still the (burger) king, with revenues of $24.1B last year vs. $15.2B for Subway.  Still, 33,749 shops (and $15.2B in revenues) is an awful lot of five dollar foot-longs. And certainly the five dollar foot-long jingle has long supplanted “you deserve a break today” in my jingle-jangling brain.

Most of the race – as it is for all things economy-related – is on globally, not in the U.S., where the number of fast food outlets is already super-sized. No, the action’s overseas. And, since there are only so many Mickey D’s you can locate in the basement of a 14th or 15th century building in Krakow, or on the Champs Élysées, where they have to contend for retail space with the likes of Louis Vuitton. And since the Old World is so, well, in its death throes, the cry is, “Go East, young man(ager of an American fast food company).”  After all, “over there” is where the growth is, and Subway:

…which opened its first international restaurant in 1984, in Bahrain, expects its number of international restaurants to exceed its domestic ones by 2020, says Don Fertman, Subway's Chief Development Officer….Subway just opened its 1,000th location in Asia, including its first in Vietnam.

China, of course, is the apple of Subway’s (and every other fast food retailer’s) eye.

 Starbucks Corp. recently said it plans to triple its number of outlets in China, for example. Dunkin' Brands Inc., parent of Dunkin' Donuts and Baskin-Robbins, plans to open thousands of new outlets in China in coming years.

Mostly because they’re local and I like their ice coffee, I’m pretty much a Dunkin’ Donut fan. (There is, in fact, one in the first floor of the building I’m in at the mo.)  But Baskin-Robbins? I suppose they’re fine if you like ice cream with the consistency of glue.

Like it or not, here they come, and Dunkin’ – Baskin is, like Subway, planning on expansion in Vietnam.

I’ve got to wonder whether this is such a welcome development for the Vietnamese.

Somewhere in Hanoi there’s a grandfather muttering, “for this I wore black pajamas, sweltered in tunnels, and shot at stoned GI’s who were even more scared than I was. Oy!”