McDonald’s, the “Heavyweight”
By John Guy LaPlante
Morro Bay, CA –This battling between McDonald’s and Burger King goes on every day in our fair little city here.
As we know, it goes on all over the United States and all over the world.
Worldwide there are 38,000 McDonald’s and nearly 18,000 Burger Kings.
In our 50 states we have 14,000 McDonald’s and some 6,000 Burger Kings.
Yes, they are competing, competing, competing.
And yes, it’s lopsided with McDonald’s way on top. Nevertheless, these
Burger King, our “Lightweight”
numbers make them the two giants of the billion dollar burger and fries business.
There are other big names in the business. But they’re smaller competitors and more regional.
Here in Morro Bay we have only one McDonald’s and one Burger King. And of course they are competing and fighting for customers day in and day out.
Friends, wherever you live, if you have a McD and a BK nearby and you probably do, they are doing the same thing for sure.
Here both are within a thousand feet of me. Just down Quintana Road. McDonald’s is on the left and Burger King on the right. I stop by one or the other every day.
And every day of the year, well, except Christmas — it’s the only day they close — the two are dueling from morning till night though you wouldn’t think so. It’s all so calm and ordinary. They’ve been battling this way for decades.
Here is how I see it globally. In one corner of the boxing ring is the 200-pound heavyweight, McDonald’s. And in the other corner is the 100-pound lightweight, Burger King. Each fighting for a knockout. None yet. Burger King is hanging in there. Looks like the fight will go on for years.
Yes, here in Morro Bay they are more evenly matched. Nevertheless, it’s clear to me that McDonald’s has the edge.
Oh, sure, this rivalry looks peaceful and kind of friendly. But it’s very real.
And here I have a ringside seat. Every day I see them going at it. Of course, I never get to see their daily cash register receipts. But my eyes tell me McDonald’s here, too, is the heavyweight.
Yet Morro Bay folks might consider them evenly matched. There are lots of reasons. Both brands are well known here and nationally. Everybody is familiar with McDonald’s and Burger King. Both are equally visible to people driving by. Both have the same number of cars going up and down Quintana. Drivers can’t help seeing both. Both look good from the street.
Both are open the same number of hours. Both have quite comparable menus. Both offer sit-in and drive-up service. Both have easy, ample off-street parking. Both are well known locally because they’ve been in business for years.
But all this having been said, there is one significant difference. It’s one most folks are not aware of.
This McDonald’s is a franchise. As most are. McDonald’s makes more money franchising than selling food and drinks.
This gives our local McDonald’s an advantage. Because the franchise owner is undoubtedly more sensitive and attuned to the local market. May be able to work little fixes. Tweak this or that. Experiment.
Our Burger King was a franchise until about two years ago. Then it became a company store. Why that big change happened I have no idea. Now every single thing has to be done in accordance with the corporate bible.
What’s interesting is that McDonald’s just re-opened after a big upgrade of its dining room. It changed everything. New flooring. A whole new front-counter set-up. All the computerization upgraded. Huge, beautiful menu boards.
A new color scheme and total re-painting. Clever new partitioning. The partitions don’t look like partitions, but do the job of partitions.
The whole thing quite beautiful and dramatic. It cost big bucks for sure.
But it kept its drive-up going, and for good reason. As is well-known, the drive-up window rakes in much more money than the dining room does. In fact, its drive-up window was busier than ever.
While this work was going on, you would think its regular dining room customers would have jumped across the street to Burger King. A few did. But most remained loyal to McDonald’s by using its drive-up service. And for sure McDonald’s was counting on that.
As a result, I think that its daily take was just about as much as it would have been without the re-model. Very smart planning.
Now that its dining room is open again, McDonald’s is doing better for a simple reason. More customers are coming in just out of curiosity. Plus, the re-model is attracting new customers.
But Burger King went through the same thing some three years ago. And it got more business for a while. Then things calmed down. Things will calm down at McDonald’s also.
I must tell you I’m a good judge of how well the two of them are doing because, as I said, I’m a customer at both. I can see that McDonald’s is the stronger one.
Having told you all this, I believe there are two key differences between them. The first is how they market themselves.
Day in and day out McDonald’s offers the very same, broad menu. Rarely offers specials.
Burger King has a standard, broad menu also. But every week it places a number of items on sale. It may be their famous Whopper burger. Or their their Chicken Nuggets. Or a full-meal combo. Close to a dozen such specials every week.
And on its big street-side windows every week it will tape posters of these combos and their prices. Really big posters. Each week new posters. They cover the windows.
So anyone riding may think, “Gosh, that Whopper combo sounds good!” If price-conscious, may decide, “Great! I’ll come for lunch!”
McDonald’s never does that. Because it has no big windows facing the street.
Well, you would think that this aggressive marketing would make Burger King the leader. But surprise. It does not. Maybe it’s because regulars driving by are so used to seeing big posters in the windows that they don’t pay attention. Plus, too many posters. They are driving by too fast. Not enough time to check them all.
Here are other things that my eyes tell me. McDonald’s generally has more customers using drive-up. Also it always has far, far more customers in the dining room. McDonald’s ongoing customer account is bigger than Burger King’s.
What is certain is that McDonald’s has its big fans and Burger King has its big fans. And these two groups are different. The demographics are not the same.
I said I go to both. This needs explaining. I go out pedaling my trike every afternoon. Trike, meaning my three-speed tricycle. Pedal to the senior center, the library, the supermarket, the post office, the bank, the drugstore, as needed. But always stop for a cup of coffee. Just a cup of coffee.
Most times it’s at McDonald’s.McDonald’s is on my side of Quintana. So, more convenient. Always have a magazine with me. And sit at a table and sip and read. Never eat. The reason is simple. I’m a vegetarian. All I could eat at McDonald’s would be french fries and ice cream and such.
Nevertheless, it’s a routine I love. It’s more than a routine. It’s a ritual.
In fact, know what? All the McDonald’s workers, from the manager on down, know me. Call me John. I like that, of course. And I know most of them by name. And I use their names. They like that.
Often they have my coffee ready for me the minute I walk in. Even when other customers are already at the counter. And hand me my coffee the way I like it, with three creams and two Equals Who wouldn’t like that kind of service?
No tipping, of course. No tipping ever. I’m surprised workers haven’t organized. How did McDonald’s and Burger King ever manage that?
And regular customers also know me, a few by my name, or as “the old guy with the bike.” And I know some as Charlie or Gretchen or as familiar faces. I like that, too.
I sit at a table, sip my coffee, and read my magazine. I never feel rushed. No employee ever gives me a dirty look for sticking around so long over just a cup of coffee.
Well, at 4 p.m. there might be 5 to 10 customers. At 6 p.m., 10 to 20.
But once in a while I go to Burger King instead. I did that yesterday just because McDonald’s was too crowded, too busy. Burger King was calm and quiet as expected. Burger King is attractive, too, in a simpler and less expensive way.
There were 4 customers there, as expected. If there had been 6 or 8, I would have thought Wow! But drive-up was busy.
The four were a couple in their late sixties eating a full supper. A teenage boy sipping a super-size soda. A man about 25 with a huge backpack eating a Whopper with a coffee. That was it. And mind you, its dining room could handle 40 or 50.
There were three behind the counter. The manager, about 25. A young fellow, about 20. And a gal, also about 20. They handled both counter customers and drive-ups. They all know me but not by name. I know the first names of the two men and use them.
The gal, very pleasant, knew I would order a coffee. But maybe something else, too. Once in a while I ask for a veggie burger plus a small order of fries. That’s what I ordered.
And she knows that I want my burger served to me cut into four pieces. Makes the eating easier. I suspect I’m the only Burger King customer in the United States who does that.
The fact is I’m a vegetarian. There is no other sandwich on the menu that I can eat.
A strange thing about that veggie burger. For some crazy reason they don’t advertise it. You can hardly see it on the menu board.
All the other sandwiches come in a distinctive wrapper. But the veggie burger always comes wrapped in the blue and white Fish sandwich wrapper. No special wrapper for the veggie burger. That’s how few they sell. How about that?!
It just happens to be the cheapest sandwich they serve. Maybe that’s why they don’t promote it.
Anyway, Burger King has big, big news about a new veggie burger. I’ll tell you about that in a
minute.
Well, as always I sat at a table, ate my veggie burger, sipped my coffee, and read my New Yorker. I was there nearly an hour and a half. Enjoyed my meal. Had a good time.
Truth is, at McDonalds I’d like to enjoy a veggie burger now and then. But they don’t sell veggie
burgers. They are missing the boat. A lot more people are becoming vegetarian.
By the way, I just got a strange insight into myself. I’ve just noticed that I talk of them always as McDonald’s and Burger King, and never as Burger King and McDonald’s. This although the letter B does come before the letter M in the alphabet, right?
Well, maybe I do that because I go to McDonald’s more often than to Burger King. But maybe I think of them as
I do because I’m prejudiced for some reason. I’ll have to think about that a bit.
I told you that the demographics in the two are different. Now I will explain.
First, McDonald’s.
Its staff will be three times bigger. The managers will be somewhere between 25 and 45 years
old. Will work full time. Will stick to the job. The turnover among them will be light.
The crew will include some regulars and part timers. Generally they will be younger, will include
teen-agers. Most of these will work just a few months. Some are full-time students.
The store is constantly taking applications.
The customers will be representative of the whole USA today. Meaning anybody and
everybody.
Just about everybody stops at a McDonald’s at least once in a while, right?
You know, the educated, the rich, the poor, the dropouts, the native-born, the white, the black,
the Latinos, the Asians.
Now Burger King.
Well, what I just described is quite usual. But sometimes there’s a new manager every 3 or 4 months.
The turnover in will employees will be high. Applications are always being accepted.
The customers will be much fewer than across the street. It’s rare that any customer will know me. Or that I will know any of them. The simple reason is that few are regulars.
They will include grandparents with their grandchildren. For sure there will be more single
people, older and younger. And most of these will be men. Single women will be few.
And their mix will be much narrower. Will include more minorities. I think some people consider Burger King lower class than McDonald’s.
I hesitate to say this represents the clientele of Burger Kings nationwide, but I suspect it does. Why this is the case, I do not know.
Now the big news about Burger King’s new veggie burger. It’s hoping it will give it a big edge over McDonald’s.
Burger King has been test-marketing it in several big cities. The sales have been impressive. They’ve announced they are planning to sell them everywhere.
It is 100 percent plant-based, of course. But know what Burger King’s big boast is? That the new veggie burger looks like real hamburger, meaning bloody, and tastes like real hamburger. Burger King has spent big, big bucks to achieve this.
And it’s selling it for $1 more than their traditional best seller, their Whopper!
Mind you, when I read about this in a big story in the New York Times, I felt like shouting, “I don’t want it to look like a real hamburger! I don’t want it to taste like a real hamburger! I want it to look and taste like fast food’s best veggie burger!”
Anyway, I can’t wait to try one. I’ll be watching that with a sharp eye. Because I remember another huge Burger King roll-out. That was in February, 2016. With thunderous fanfare it introduced two new hot dogs.
Hey, what true American doesn’t love hot dogs? That’s what Burger King assumed.
Besides, its arch nemesis, McDonald’s, was not offering hot dogs. It was a Burger King exclusive.
Burger King called one of the hot dogs the Classic. A good, traditional hot dog. And the other the Chili Cheese. It came with warm chili and shredded cheese.
Well, both hot dogs failed. For Burger King they are just a bad memory. An awful blunder.
Methinks their new wonder veggie burger may also bomb. Why? Because it tastes and looks
like a real hamburger. And the big price jump.
On the other hand, I may be wrong. It may be a big hit because we now have more vegetarians than ever.
Two reasons. More and more people don’t like the idea of killing and eating animals. And more and more realize that a vegetarian diet is more healthful. All of which is what I think.
Besides, more and more people are now aware that raising cattle for slaughter is hugely
expensive. Not only in dollars but in wasted natural resources.
Finally, know what? I like the idea McDonald’s would love to trounce Burger King, and Burger
King would love to trounce McDonald’s.
Sounds crazy. But competition is a terrific thing! Terrific for business because it makes businesses sharpen up. And terrific for customers because it gives them a choice and a better deal. No doubt about it. So, may their daily dueling continue!
Now, if you don’t mind, in closing, I have something personal to say to McDonald’s and Burger King.
“Dear McDonald’s, please smarten up and finally, finally offer us a good veggie burger! Do not
charge extra for it!”
“Dear Burger King, please bring back your delicious old veggie burger that doesn’t look and
taste like real bloody hamburger! Promote it more! Advertise it bigger on your menu board!”
Now friends, let me ask you a question or two if you don’t mind.
Do you go to McDonald’s? To Burger King? Consistently? Just once in a while? To both? Do you favor one? Maybe you never go to either. I’d love to know your thinking.
Fact is, the two of them serve millions of Americans every day. Yes, millions. Who would have thought that
when they first opened?
I wish I had bought stock when they first went public years ago. Yes, in both. Now I’d be going to Starbucks for my afternoon coffee! Just joking.
Hey, I like the plain, unvarnished democracy that I see at heavyweight McDonald’s and lightweight Burger King. Yes, facing off on opposite sides of Quintana Road. Hope they’ll be around a long time.
Duking it out. And letting me sip my coffee and read as long as I darn please.
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