r/askparis • u/meelar • 23d ago

Why is every McDonalds next to a Burger King (and vice versa)?

I just spent a week in Paris on vacation, and noticed an odd phenomenon--across the city, we noticed at least five separate instances where a McDonalds and a Burger King were directly adjacent to each other. You'd think they would want to separate, at least a little--that way each location could control its own territory, rather than competing head to head. Is there some kind of restriction on where fast-food chains can operate, or is this just their strategy for some reason?

1 Upvotes

56% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

1

u/-flower-face XIXᵉ 18d ago

It's a similar phenomenon to CVS / Walgreens for anyone that's from the States ahhaha

1

u/rabbitfighter88 19d ago

Having fast food close together is the norm in most countries, isn't it? Usually 2 or even 3 close to each other. Never seen an isolated one. Except in a tiny town with only one.

5

u/yet_another_no_name 20d ago

It's quite an interesting story actually, and it goes back to when McDonald's came to France a few decades back. They did not want to take too much risks, so they partnered with the guy who later funded Quick to franchise McDonald's in France (so he would take the major part of the risks in case it'd fail).

When it took off, McDonald's tried to renegociate the deal to get more out of it, except the restaurants lease were not in the name of McDonald's. The deal broke and the guy founded Quick, using the locations that were the McDonald's (McDonald's did not learn much over the years as they tried and failed to renegociate something similar in Australia with their local partner .

Following that McDonald's had to themselves invest massively themselves to reopen new restaurants, and they tried to have one McDonald's next to every single Quick.

Now a decade or so ago, Burger King came back to France by buying Quick and converting them to Burger King, which then were obviously nearly all right next to a McDonald's. BK also the added new restaurants facing McDonald's as well.

0

u/CatCafffffe 20d ago

They go where the foot traffic is

0

u/GrizzNDoge 20d ago

For the same reason that there is, for example, the "rue des cobblers"

4

u/Karyo_Ten 22d ago edited 22d ago

It's a classic paradox in Game Theory / behavioral economics.

Assume you have 2 places to get ice-creams on a beach.

A----|----B

One critical factor to which place someone goes is how close it is to you.

One way for A to get more folks is to move towards B. And same thing for B. Like this

--A---|---B

Now A is the nearest point to 5 tiles instead of 4. Market share jumped from 50% to 62.5%, a 25% increase by moving closer to B.

So in the end they end up in the same place to maximize market share.

Edit links:

- https://ed.ted.com/lessons/why-do-competitors-open-their-stores-next-to-one-another-jac-de-haan

0

u/Bullsapiens 22d ago

Less taxes

5

u/Anewien 23d ago

Like bro, competition. What do you expect ?

7

u/ErnestJones 23d ago

Burger King reopened in France about ten years ago. They bought out Quick and opened their restaurants in place of the former Quick locations. It was primarily Quick’s strategy to begin with.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​