Fast food is a billion dollar business. It can be easy to become complacent and not try to keep up with today’s fast pace lifestyle where new trends come out on a weekly basis. Some fast food places are trying new weird trends to try and entice people to eat out at their establishments. We decided to take a look at some fast food gimmicks both past and present and see what kind of quirky ideas fast food joints have delivered or intend to deliver very soon.

During the 1980s, Wendys created a super buffet that they called the ‘SuperBar’. The buffet had three sections: Salad (Duh!), Mexican (Tacos and Burritos) and Italian (Pizza,Garlic Bread). The SuperBar was an expensive upkeep for Wendys. The idea was decent but it never seemed to catch on with consumers as much as Wendy’s executives hoped it would. Also, The food was not replaced as often compared to a more conventional buffet restaurant which left the food to be less than fresh. After 10 years, Wendy’s ditched the SuperBar and replaced it with simple side salad meals that could be switched into a combo free of charge if the customer didn’t want to order a french fry, baked potato or chili on the side.

In the mid 90s, Burker King decided to classy up their establishment and created a dine-in service where customers didn’t have to walk up to the cash to place their order and had a burger king employee come to their table to serve them. Customers had the option of chowing down on some free popcorn while they waited for their food to be ready. Customers weren’t sure whether they should tip their servers after each meal and ultimately realized that it was cheaper for them to just walk 5 feet to the cash and pay for their meal then it was to sit down and wait for it like at a restaurant.

You would think that customers having to fill up their own drinks would make fast food restaurants even lazier then they already are but the recent trend of self-service beverage stations has been a huge success for the fast food industry. Beverage stations have allowed customers to fill up their own drinks and choose how much ice or soda they want in their cups. They can also go for refills without asking the server and the reduced time allows an employee to concentrate on preparing their food in a more timely manner. The machines have gotten so advanced that restaurants are now including new tea options and an expanded product offering beyond your typical cola or orange soda beverages. This is a great trend that started off at Burger King and soon expanded to Taco Bell and other restaurants. I like the idea of getting my own drink and getting free refills but let’s hope this trend doesn’t move towards the kitchen area where soon I’ll be getting oil burns from using the potato fryer myself or having to flip my own burgers while the employee makes sure I don’t overcook my own burger.

McDonald’s is joining the Eco-friendly trend by installing car chargers for electric cars at their restaurants. The first few car chargers will be tested in July, 2011 at a McDonald’s in North Carolina. The concept seems like a great idea for McDonald’s employees to try and attract Eco-conscious consumers to their establishments but shouldn’t they worry first about taking all those Big Mac wrappers and french fry boxes and making sure that they can be recycled before they get thrown into the trash and end up in some landfill somewhere?

Woops, I guess McDonald’s listened to my arguments as they’ve created their first ever LEED-certified restaurant in Chicago,Illinois. This restaurant will feature LED-certified lighting throughout the restaurant, trash and recycling receptacles in the dining and kitchen areas of the restaurant, landscaping with the use of native hardy plants and an advanced rain water collection system to avoid any pollution hazards that may arise. A nice start for McDonald’s but let’s hope their food isn’t recycled as well as some critics might point out.

We hope that you enjoyed our first look at some recent fast food trends that were both good, bad and soon to be at a fast food joint near you in the near future. We liked writing this article so much that we plan to do another article very soon and hope that you enjoy that article as well. Till next time!

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 11th, 2012 at 8:53 pm and is filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.