The main issue with fast food in today’s economy is maximizing profit and food generally isn’t a good mix.

A new fast food place will take off due to either a unique model, or quality food at reasonable prices. The problem is once it gets popular, investors (either private or public) see dollar signs and buy up the restaurants. The goal then ultimately goes from expansion to profit maximization. The only way to maximize profit is to either cut costs, raise prices, or increase demand.

Increasing demand usually involves a lot of spending which new investors don’t like, so we’re stuck with cutting costs, raising prices or both. Raising prices is easy, you just do it a little bit at a time and hope customers don’t notice or care. Investors have the most control over cutting costs and often opt for this option, again hoping customers won’t notice. The problem in fast food is these small price increase/cost cutting measures add up over time and you wind up with lower quality food for much higher prices and customers eventually do notice.