A Short History of Giant Food Chains Trying Desperately to Be Cool

McDonald's isn't the first chain to try and capture a trendier market share, and it certainly won't be the last.
Tom Clift
January 28, 2015

A brand new restaurant has cropped up in inner west Sydney that looks poised to take the Australian food scene by storm. Nestled in the heart of Camperdown, the menu at The Corner is jam packed with fashionable dining options, from lentil and eggplant salad to roast Moroccan chicken breast, tomato and bocconcini Caprese salad to...Wait a minute, are those McNuggets?

Yes, Sydney's hottest new eatery turned out to be a Maccas in disguise. Described by the fast food giant as a 'learning lab', the site will be used to trial a bunch of new menu options, presumably in a bid to combat their flagging sales. Which is all very well and good, but come on. Brioche McMuffins? Pulled pork Quarter Pounders? What kind of twisted bait and switch is the Hamburglar trying to pull?

Of course, the reality is that a bit of sneaky rebranding is de rigueur for companies like these. McDonald's isn't the first chain to try and capture a trendier market share, and it certainly won't be the last. Here are four other examples of mass producing omnicorps attempting to cash in on foodie culture.

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stealth-starbucks

YOUR FAVOURITE CORNER COFFEE JOINT TURNED OUT TO BE A STARBUCKS

No self-respecting coffee lover would ever be caught dead in Starbucks. That is, unless they didn’t know it was a Starbucks. In an attempt to raise sales in the wake of the global recession, the massive coffee chain started to revamp a number of its US and European locations in 2010, removing all traces of the company name save for a nauseating caveat that the 'new' stores were 'inspired by Starbucks'.

The good news is that Australia's coffee snobbery has already killed close to three quarters of the Starbucks locations down under, so our chances of being hoodwinked are fairly slim. That is, unless they just said they were closing all those stores. Maybe it was just a trick. Maybe they never left at all.

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burger-king-soda-pairings

BURGER KING TRIED OUT 'SODA PAIRINGS'

It's common knowledge that certain wines go better with certain foods. All Burger King tried to do was apply that same basic principal to soft drink in 2014. Taped half-heartedly to the side of a soda fountain, their pairings seem somewhat arbitrary to me, but then again I'm no sommelier. After a hearty Angus Burger and onion rings, who's to say that a 'crisp, clear bodied' Sprite doesn’t sit better on the palate than a Diet Coke?

Honestly, this feeble attempt at classing up the joint isn't so much insidious as it is really, really lame. That being said, nothing goes well with Dr. Pepper.

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jack-and-co

YOUR AVERAGE BP SERVO SANDWICH WENT ALL 'ARTISAN'

When they're not too busy pumping oil into the ocean, it turns out BP make freshly baked artisan bread. And brew 100 percent organic coffee. And build rescue shelters for injured puppies.

Okay fine, so I made up that last one. But the other two are apparently staples of Jack & Co., self-described as "the freshest convenience stores in the world". The original store was fused to a BP service station in 2012, but recent openings in Taree, NSW have evolved into their own faux-gourmet, corporate guilt-alleviating entities.

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YOUR KFC ZINGER COMBO WILL HAVE CRAFT BEER FOR THE DRINK

Face it: if Mickey D is targeting hipsters, this lot were never far behind. Kudos to the Colonel for at least having the giblets to keep the initials — not that KFC actually stands for anything anymore.

In any case, Parramattans will soon be able to get beer and cider with their original recipe, when 'KFC Urban' is granted a liquor licence later in 2015. Like McDonald's, KFC has been falling behind in the fast food arms race, losing younger customers to chains like Nandos and Grill’d. Rather than serving up a kale burger, their solution is apparently to just get everybody sloshed. Frankly, I have absolutely no problem with that.

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Images: The CornerFast Company, Imgur, Jack & Co., KFC.

Published on January 28, 2015 by Tom Clift
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