Is KFC, MacDonalds, Burger King, etc Fast Food or Slow Food

I saw this in the local newspaper and that reminded me that I need to put this article up on my blog.


According to my classification, KFC, MacDonalds, Pizza hut, Dominos Pizza, Carl's Jr, Burger King, etc are classified in to a fast food restaurant.

To me fast food means it should be served fast, and it is meant for people who are in a hurry. I used to think and still think that when I am rushed for time I will go for one of these options when I need to grab a bite.

Whenever I visit any one of these restaurants in Kuala Lumpur I will curse as the line moves too slowly.

The reason why I curse is because this fast food takes too long to be served. I have calculated the time taken for a customer to be served in MacDonalds and KFC to be approximately 5 minutes. So if you get in the line and there are 3 people ahead of you, you will expect to wait 15 minutes, if there are 4 then 20 minutes.

The same amount of time is also required even if you were to go to a drive through, especially at KFC. Can you imagine, waiting 20 minutes in the car with your engine on to buy a quick bite because there are 3 cars in front of you? Then you take 3 minutes to finish the meal. It is totally ridiculous.

That is if all the customers ahead of you are Malaysians. If there are any foreigners, please expect to take a longer time. The reason for this is because the cashier or the person serving usually do not understand or speak any English. Worse if the foreigner in front is an Arab, they cannot speak English properly either adding to the confusion.

I have since developed a strategy to queuing up at a fast food restaurant line. My strategy is to make sure that there are no foreigners in my line, make sure I have exact change and never use a Credit Card. The cashiers usually do not know how to accept a transaction with using a credit card.

I believe that a fast food restaurant should serve food fast for people who are in a hurry or on the run. So I pose a challenge to MacDonalds and KFC, the two restaurants I visit most to bring their customer serving time down to 1 minute per customer. Otherwise they might as well revert to the old way where we just go to the restaurant, sit down and wait to be served.

Not to just offer nonconstructive criticism, I would also offer some suggestions as to where they can improve;

1. Hire staff who can Speak more than 1 Language, where English is preferred
   
2. Modify your work-flow or
3. increase your staff strength
   
4. Staff who cannot converse in English should be placed in the outskirts where chances of serving foreigners are more remote. Do not place these staff in the city centre where the main tourists spots are.

Thanks whoever it is who put up this picture in the Star on Saturday 16th October 2010.