A fast food restaurant, also known as a quick service restaurant (QSR) within the industry itself, is a specific type of restaurant characterized both by its fast food cuisine and by minimal table service. Food served in fast food restaurants typically caters to a "meat-sweet diet" and is offered from a limited menu; is cooked in bulk in advance and kept hot; is finished and packaged to order; and is usually available ready to take away, though seating may be provided. Fast food restaurants are usually part of a restaurant chain or franchise operation, which provisions standardized ingredients and/or partially prepared foods and supplies to each restaurant through controlled supply channels. The term "fast food" was recognized in a dictionary by Merriam–Webster in 1951.
Arguably the first fast food restaurants originated in the United States with A&W in 1916 and White Castle in 1921. Today, American-founded fast food chains such as McDonald's and KFC are multinational corporations with outlets across the globe.
Variations on the fast food restaurant concept include fast casual restaurants and catering trucks. Fast casual restaurants have higher sit-in ratios, and customers can sit and have their orders brought to them. Catering trucks often park just outside worksites and are popular with factory workers.
Read more about Fast Food Restaurant: History, Cuisine, Technology, Criticisms, Legal Issues
Other articles related to "fast food restaurant, fast food, food, restaurant":
... Donald Duck Magazine 7716 QUICK Good Guy White Released through QUICK fast food restaurant promotions 7717 QUICK Bad Guy Green Released through QUICK fast food restaurant ...
... Fast food is the term given to food that can be prepared and served very quickly ... While any meal with low preparation time can be considered to be fast food, typically the term refers to food sold in a restaurant or store with preheated or precooked ingredients, and served to the customer in a ... The term "fast food" was recognized in a dictionary by Merriam–Webster in 1951 ...
... The house-elves at Hogwarts amongst other duties provide all food to students and staff ... At meal times the food is magically transported up, giving the façade of appearing for the students ... The majority of the food prepared are traditional British dishes ...
... Comfort food Fast food Junk food Natural food Organic food Slow food Whole food ...
... was sued in a New York court by a family who claimed that the restaurant chain was responsible for their teenage daughter's obesity and attendant health problems ... By manipulating food's taste, sugar and fat content, and directing their advertising to children, the suit argued that the company purposely misleads the public about the nutritional ... A judge dismissed the case, but the fast food industry disliked the publicity of its practices, particularly the way it targets children in its advertising ...
Famous quotes containing the words restaurant, fast and/or food:
“In a restaurant one is both observed and unobserved. Joy and sorrow can be displayed and observed “unwittingly,” the writer scowling naively and the diners wondering, What the hell is he doing?”
—David Mamet (b. 1947)
“There was a literary gentleman present who who had dramatised in his time two hundred and forty-seven novels as fast as they had come out—and who was a literary gentleman in consequence.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.”
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 3:4.