What do "The Corner", "Caleb's Kola", and "U.S. Taco Co." have in common?

As tastes change, food companies try donning hipster guises

Excerpt:

At a taco shop in Southern California, milkshakes are served in mason jars and a chalkboard menu lists "The 1%er" made with lobster meat. The logo is a pink skull and instead of buzzers, customers are given license plates so servers can identify them when bringing out orders. Nowhere is it evident that the U.S. Taco Co. is an outpost of a chain better known for cheesy gut bombs: Taco Bell.

Comment: Image sources: Link, link, link.

Venezuela: No hay papas a la francesa

 McDonald's runs out of French fries in Venezuela

Excerpt:

Forget the French fries. How about a side of yuca with that Big Mac? Venezuela's more than 100 McDonald's franchises have run out of potatoes and are now serving alternatives like deep-fried arepa flatbreads or yuca, a starchy staple of traditional South American cooking. McDonald's is blaming a contract dispute with West Coast dock workers for halting the export of frozen fries to the country. The dispute also caused several days of French fry rationing in Japan last month. But Sonia Ruseler, an Argentina-based spokeswoman for Arcos Dorados, which runs McDonald's restaurants in Latin America, declined to say Tuesday why Venezuela's neighbors are not suffering from similar scarcity. Accustomed to shortages of their favorite foods, and equally in the habit of grumbling about the government as they walk away empty-handed, many Venezuelans assume the embattled socialist administration is to blame. "It's because of the situation here; it's a total debacle," said Maria Guerreiro, who huffed out of a Caracas McDonald's with her family when she found out they were serving only fries made of yuca, which is also known as cassava. Her daughter won't eat the super-starchy root, she said, and they'd come for the sole purpose of treating the two-year-old to a Happy Meal.

Comment: There's probably no toilet paper in the restrooms either! And it has nothing to do with socialism! Image source. 

More: Venezuelan Textbooks Teach Math, Science, Socialism

Math lessons include calculations of how much production has increased as a result of the government's agrarian reform initiative, and how much land the government still has to reclaim from private owners. Students are asked to figure out how much shoppers save at government-subsidized appliance stores created by Chavez. Learning English? Answer the question, "Where was Hugo Chavez born?" "They are brainwashing our kids, erasing our nation's history, and replacing it with their own version," said information technology worker Hector Cuevas, who was appalled when his son brought home the books as a sixth-grader.

The New Breakfast

As Cereal Slips, a New Battle Over Breakfast Dollars - Kellogg Gets Squeezed by McDonald's, Taco Bell as Tastes Shift to High-Protein Foods

Excerpt:

... as consumers back away from cereal to experiment with more protein-rich foods, their habits remain otherwise entrenched: most Americans still eat breakfast at home and follow morning routines more rigid than during the rest of the day. "People are time-pressed in the morning and know exactly where they're going, and that doesn't vary much," said Alex Macedo, Burger King's North American president, in a recent interview. That chain claims 2.8% of the $47 billion spent each year on fast-food breakfasts in the U.S., according to brokerage firm Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. This year it started offering its value-menu items at breakfast and added burgers to the morning menu in an effort to boost sales. Many fast food and fast casual restaurant chains smell opportunity around breakfast. Of consumers who eat out at least twice a week, 30% say they do so for breakfast, compared with 40% for lunch and 50% for dinner, according to Bernstein.

Comment: See "How We Eat Breakfast - By the Numbers". Our daily breakfast M-F is Cherrios for Kathee and Grape Nuts for me. Saturday is pancakes. Sunday is single fried egg with English muffin.

Not Ray Krok's way

McDonald's COO urges franchisees to open on Christmas
Excerpt:

"Starting with Thanksgiving, ensure your restaurants are open throughout the holidays," Jim Johannesen, chief operations officer for McDonald's USA, wrote in a November 8 memo to franchisees - one of two obtained by AdvertisingAge.

"Our largest holiday opportunity as a system is Christmas Day. Last year, (company-operated) restaurants that opened on Christmas averaged $5,500 in sales," Johannesen said.

...

The push to open on the holidays goes against McDonald's cultural history, said Adams. In his first published operations manual, McDonald's Corp founder Ray Kroc said the company would close on Thanksgiving and Christmas to give employees time with their families, Adams said.

Comment: Image source. We had to make an emergency trip on Christmas day back in 1999. My Dad had just died and we drove from Minneapolis to Fort Worth. We did appreciate restaurants open that day.

Investing in the Golden Arches

McDonald’s Upgraded to Buy at Janney on Higher Sales Estimates
Excerpt:

It’s been a rough couple of months for McDonald’s Corp. (MCD). Its stock is down 6% since mid-October, and its last set of same-store sales, for October, saw a global decline of 1.8%, and domestic drop of 2.2% — its first such drop since 2003. But that hasn’t deterred analyst Mark Kalinowski at Janney Capital Markets, who on Friday upgraded the fast-food chain’s stock to Buy, and raised his November U.S. same-store sales estimate to 1.7% based on proprietary research. Kalinowski also raised his December estimate to flat.

Comments: We have McDonald's in our brokerage account and in both my and Kathee's IRAs. Investing in them is not an endorsement of every menu item, but I can tell you that we occasionally will eat at McDonalds. Almost always on a road trip we will stop at McDonald's for either breakfast or lunch. And at times when I work from home I will go through the drive-in for lunch. We like it because:

• The mass appeal
• The quality of their product
• The seeming efficiency of their restaurants
• What we perceive to be friendly, customer-oriented staff
• And it pays a 3.5% dividend

Associated articles and links:

• MCD at Yahoo Finance
• McDonald's Lagging Competitors But Looks Ready For Turnaround (Seeking Alpha)
• Trefis analysis

McVeggie burgers for the Indians

McDonald's to open vegetarian restaurant in India

 Excerpt:

Billions and billions served won't mean burgers at a new outlet in India.

The fast-food giant reportedly plans to open its first vegetarian-only restaurant next year in India.

The Oak Brook, Ill.-based company has been known to tailor its menus to suit local demographics. In India, for example, it already uses chicken instead of beef for its Maharaja Mac sandwich. But this will be the first McDonald's without meat on the menu.

The first location will open near the Golden Temple in the Sikh holy city of Amritsar in northern India. The second store will be near the Vaishno Devi cave shrine in northwestern Indian Kashmir, a holy Hindu temple that sees millions of pilgrims each year.

"It will be the first time we have opened a vegetarian restaurant," a spokesman for McDonald's in northern India, Rajesh Kumar Maini, told AFP. "There is a big opportunity for vegetarian restaurants (in India) as many Indians are vegetarian."

Comment: Important because (as the above image illustrates) the US is saturated with locations.  Source of image. Stock has a dividend return of 3%.

Distance to McD's ... visualized

Comment: Select for larger. Why McDonalds is a good stock! People buy 'em

McD's SUPERSIZED!

World's biggest McDonald's to open... on the OLYMPICS site

Excerpt:

Sports-loving spectators at the London 2012 Olympics could have a battle of will power on their hands - as McDonald's has announced it will open its biggest ever branch close to the park.

The 3,000 square-metre restaurant stretches over two floors and is equivalent to half the length of an American football field. It has 1,500 seats and will be one of four stores opening including one in the athletes' village in Stratford, east London.

The restaurant will employ 470 staff to serve around 50,000 Big Macs, 100,000 portions of fries and 30,000 milkshakes during the Games.

Comment: Whatever one thinks about their food, it is a great stock

It is on our buy list. I like their food, by the way.

Job's report: Half Burger Flipping

Half of Last Month's New Jobs Came from a Single Employer — McDonald's

Excerpt:

McDonald’s ran a big hiring day on April 19 — after the Labor Department’s April survey for the payrolls report was conducted — in which 62,000 jobs were added. That’s not a net number, of course, and seasonal adjustment will reduce the Hamburglar impact on payrolls. (In simpler terms — restaurants always staff up for the summer; the Labor Department makes allowance for this effect.) Morgan Stanley estimates McDonald’s hiring will boost the overall number by 25,000 to 30,000. The Labor Department won’t detail an exact McDonald’s figure — they won’t identify any company they survey — but there will be data in the report to give a rough estimate.

Comment: 9.1% unemployment.

Europe: McDonald’s "a symbol of cosmopolitanism and a modern urban lifestyle among the young"

McDonald’s Economics

Excerpt:

McDonald’s in Europe are different, the economists explain, and not just because in France a Quarter Pounder with Cheese is known as a Royal Cheese. “Unlike in North America and in some other parts of the world, McDonald’s restaurants are considered in Europe to be a symbol of cosmopolitanism and a modern urban lifestyle among the young rather than simply a caterer of fast food to low income people,” they write.

Comment: Image Source: My Trip to Paris. Meanwhile in Wisconsin: What's it like to eat 25,000 Big Macs? Ask Don Gorske. I like Big Macs. Our Plymouth McDonald's has great service. I would like to buy McDonald's stock (on my potential buy list)

Chasing McRib

Bona Fide Fans Chase Rib-Free Rib Sandwich

Excerpt:

Before traveling to visit his parents in Nebraska last winter, Jeremy Duensing consulted what he always checks before a trip: the "McRib Locator" website.

To his delight, he found a McDonald's restaurant near Omaha that, unlike most of the burger chain's 14,000 U.S. restaurants, had the McRib on its menu. He bought six of the pork sandwiches, ate one right away at the restaurant, and carried the rest home to Burnsville, Minn., in an ice-packed cooler.

"Either you find places that have them or you're out of luck for the rest of the year," says Mr. Duensing, 34 years old.
Journal Community

The McRib actually has nothing to do with ribs. It's a boneless pork patty molded into the shape of a rib slab and adorned with pickles, onions and barbecue sauce on a bun. The sandwich made its debut in 1981.

But McRibs are almost never available at all McDonald's restaurants at the same time. Instead, the Oak Brook, Ill., company offers them in different cities at different times, rarely for longer than a few weeks.

The sandwich's elusiveness has created a fan base of people who go to considerable lengths to munch on a McRib. Ryan Dixon of Burbank, Calif., once drove 10 hours to Medford, Ore., after hearing a McDonald's there was selling the sandwich.

Comment: Never had one. Doesn't look good. Any of my readers had one? Views of?

Other sites:

McRib locator

Archive of www.bonelesspigs.org

Wiki

The real "Who's your patty?"!

Who’s your patty? Not McDonald’s

Excerpt:

A Minnesota hamburger parlor and McDonald's Corp. have settled a federal lawsuit over the phrase, "Who's your patty?"

Michael Lafeber is an attorney for The Lion's Tap in Eden Prairie. He says the parties reached a "mutually beneficial amicable resolution." McDonald's also says a satisfactory agreement was reached.

The lawsuit says Lions Tap registered the phrase, "Who's your patty?," in Minnesota four years ago and also applied for a federal trademark. McDonald's recently began using the phrase in conjunction with its Angus burgers.

Comment: The real one! The Lion's Tap in Eden Prairie

Big Mac leaves Iceland ... and why you should care

The Big Mac's Currency Lesson - McDonald's departure from Iceland is a suggestive economic indicator

Excerpt:

.... McDonald's Icelandic franchisee noted, in explaining his decision to throw in the patty, that unlike his local competitors, McDonald's imports most of its raw ingredients, from beef to special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions and, we assume, sesame seed buns. This reliance on imports has undercut McDonald's margins in the island nation, which saw the krona plummet by more than 80% after the financial panic took down the country's major banks.

But the lesson here is not about the dangers of globalization or the virtues of buying local. Since Iceland's banks collapsed last fall, and its currency with them, the cost in local currency of all imports, and not just fast food, has soared. This has done nothing to "cushion" the blow to Iceland's economy from what amounted to an international run on its banks. What it has done is added a currency panic to a financial panic, and made Iceland's prospects bleaker than they otherwise might have been.

In countries such as Ireland, some critics of the euro have claimed that membership in the currency bloc has made its economic woes that much more painful, and that Ireland would have been better off if it could have depreciated its way out of trouble. In the U.S., too, there's a chorus arguing that we can devalue our way toward prosperity. But debasing one's currency makes a country poorer, not richer. Just ask the residents of Reykjavik ...

Comment: Why you should care: Because that national debt clock that keeps ticking (upper right on this blog) and that just a little more than a year ago was 7 trillion and now has passed 12 Trillion (in just a year!!!), is an indicator that we as a nation are digging a deeper and deeper debt PIT. And that the dollar is worth less and less!