Fast Food Notion

To be considered fast food a restaurant must meet a few simple requirements.
1. It must be unhealthy.
2. You must get your food in under 5 minutes (on average).
3. You must order at a counter or a drive-thru window.
4. The average age of an employee must not exceed 19.
5. 50% of the customers must be overweight.

These are the requirements.

If there are waitresses, it isn't fast food.

But anywhere you have to get the food and bring it to your table yourself, it's 'fast.'

Considering a restaurant "fast food" is two part. The first part is the type of food they serve and the second is how they serve it.

If a restaurant serves food from under a heat lamp through a drive-up window, then more than likely it is fast food. If the type of food lacks real nutritional value then and has a lot of negative health aspects then it would be considered fast food (pizza). There are exceptions to this rule, such as Boston Market which has healthy food as well as unhealthy options but is a quick trip.

"Fast Food" is slang for the technical "Quick Service Restaurant". McDonald's, Wendy's, etc. are Quick Service. Places that hover somewhere between fast food and casual dining are "Quick Casual"—Qdoba, Noodles & Company, etc. Easy way to tell the difference? If they sell alcohol or something in the name indicates they're a bakery (Panera Bread, Atlanta Bread Company) they're not technically fast food.

It has to be a CHAIN and it has to be fast. I don't consider local burger places chains although I realize that they are also bad for you.

Which brings me to the next requirement: They have to be bad for you. The only chains I don't really consider fast food are Quiznos and Subway. Although, Quiznos is certainly more unhealthy than Subway if you order certain things-but still not deep fried.

To the person who posted before and said they did not consider Taco Bell fast food: you are kidding yourself.

Anyway, although I sometimes love the taste of fast food I stopped eating it completely (save for Subway and Quiznos). I also rarely have In-N-Out, which is fast food--but has better quality standards than most burger places.

Whether or not you have to sit down. Most restaurants will have you sit down and order from the menu, or with pizza places or Chinese food restaurants, you can sit and wait there, wait to have it delivered or wait to pick it up. In fast food restaurants you don't have a whole lot of time to sit down, and most people don't, they wait by the counter or use the drive thru (doesn't count in this case since you never got up to begin with). If a restaurant allows enough time from order to presentation to let you sit down and relax a little, it's not fast food.

Google says:

Operations that specialize in one or two main entrees such as hamburgers, pizza, or chicken. These operations may also provide salad and/or ice cream service. Preparation of food products is generally simple and involves one or two steps

If there are two of these restaurants within equal driving distance from your home.

To be labeled fast food in my mind, a restaurant MUST meet the following constraints:

1. Orders are placed at the counter/register
2. Payment is made before the food is exchanged
3. The menu is posted on the wall
4. There is no wait staff
5. Patrons seat themselves
6. Orders can be packaged to go

The following constraints are optional, but help tip the scale:

1. Orders are prepared relatively quickly
2. The presence of a drive-thru window
3. Menu items are highly customizable
4. Alcohol is not served

Forget fast food, I'm just amazed how quickly the "Question of the Day" has become stupid. Who picks these topics?

Fast Food restaurant seems like an oxymoron, but here are some of the key points for a business to be considered fast food:

• Food is either pre-prepared or lined up to be thrown together
• When the business is not busy, the order can be completed in 5 minutes or less
• Meals consist of one main item, one or more side item, and a drink for around $5
• If you were trying to impress a date, you would not take him/her to this business
• Food items come in throw-away containers, so even an "eat in" meal can just be thrown in a bag and taken to go
• The average employee would not be educated enough to consider this a really lame Question of the Day

I would define a fast food restaurant as being an establishment with overpriced, low quality food. In addition, said establishment must have an average individual serving time of less than five minutes; usually accomplished by having food precooked and kept warm by heat lamps.

Any food that is sold in a restaurant with a drive-through or that can be delivered to you in under 30 mintues.

This is easy. Your kids want to eat there.

Where I live, fast food means getting your food in anything under 30 minutes. At my local Mickey D, ordering 1 Bic Mac, one fry, and one soft drink, takes 20 minutes. That is considered "fast" in my neck of the woods.

-Easy...A Drive Up Window, food that is so unhealthy that nobody should eat it, and employees that don't speak any English!

If it takes the same amount of time to prepare as it takes to come up with the Question of the Day, it's fast food. Any faster and it's TV dinner.

If it makes you crap blood, it was probably fast food. The other stuff is food fast.

A restaurant is considered "fast food" if it meets the following criteria: -- Food can be ordered and received in fewer than 5 minutes. -- Operations management (i.e., queue mgmt, supply chain mgmt) is critical to long-term success. -- The price point is $4-$6 for a single meal and price elasticity of demand is relatively high (think $0.99 menu at McDonalds and effect on revenue). -- Many of the menu items contain > 20 grams of fat and too much sugar (read, not very good for you). -- The "food" usually tastes pretty good as it enters your mouth, but the "meal" is often followed by a stomach ache.

You go on line, order your food, pay, then get your food handed to you less than a minute later.

A Waiter/Waitress.

Personally I class Denny's and IHOP as fast food, mostly because of the price as well as the selection.

If it's the first to cross the finish line, it's fast food.

Fast food is food that can be made quickly, served to you quickly and eaten rather quickly. All for a somewhat cheap price.

Anywhere you can get instant (or near instant) gratification through food.
There are many food outlets that are not "fast food" places, but they serve burgers and chips (french fries to the Americans)

The main thing that defines normal restaurants from fast food restaurants is the social obligation to tip, but tipping is generally a western phenomenon, as is fast food.

It seems to be, the more upscale the food the more snobbish the environment is, generally classified by waiters that turn their nose up if you were to ask for ketchup. Also i is denoted by a drive to experiment.

The fast food end of the scale is reversed, you expect the same thing all the time, exactly what you ordered and you feel like there is no need to be particularly polite to the staff, as you're not giving them very much money.

Well I guess the surefire indicator is that if it has a drive-thru, then yes, it's definitely fast food. But looking closer I think it has to do with the nutritional composition of the food. Traditionally this means most items will be high fat, high sodium, and high sugar (simple carbohydrates), combined with being very low on the vitamins and minerals scale, not to mention a general lack of complex carbohydrates (whole grains).

Where the line blurs is the modern neighborhood sit down place, e.g., Chili's, Applebee's, etc. where they function under the guise of not being fast food but really they are, i.e., most dishes are loaded with high fat, high sodium, and high sugar. The food is presented differently but the nutritional content is essentially the same. And to boot, it costs quite a bit more! (See Carls Jr. $6 burger ad campaign.)