[prepend]

What are you talking about? BurgerKing is certainly classified as a restaurant in Spain, France, and Italy. What do they call these places? I’m not sure how you validate such an absolute statement. My own travels had many examples of people in these countries using restaurant to refer to both fast food and sit down restaurants.

There are thousands of web pages like this s one using restaurant to describe McDonalds in Spain - https://www.quora.com/What-is-mcdonalds-in-Spain-like

[LandR]

I'm in the UK and know no one who would call McDonalds or Burger King a restaurant.

I wouldn't call TGIFriday a restaurant either.

[ams6110]

What do you call them?

[LandR]

"Shit", mostly.

I actually can't think of a collective term that I would use for these places. If someone asked what a McDonalds was, I'd honestly probably reply "It's a fast food place that sells shitty burgers"

[SippinLean]

Yeah, they aren't restaurants, just places where people pay to sit and eat meals that are cooked and served on the premises.

[DanBC]

The differences are the presence of a take-away option (which is as popular as the eat-there option), and that there's no waiter service. Nor cutlery.

[Symbiote]

Burger King and McDonald's are "fast food places".

TGI Fridays is a "chain restaurant" if we want to distinguish it from a "restaurant".

[DanBC]

take-away; fast food places; in a formal setting maybe fast-food restaurant but never restaurant alone.

[arthurbrown]

You're referencing a quora post by an American about some time spent in Spain. How is this an authoritative source? The following answer specifically rails against fast food and contrasts it against "restaurants and tapas bars", implying a difference.

Sure you can use restaurant as a term to refer to a "place where food can be ordered" -- but if someone speaks the word, fast food is not what comes to mind.

[prepend]

That was just one example because I was searching in English and thought it was obvious.

Here’s the site for the Barcelona airport. By Spanish/Catalan - http://www.aena.es/es/aeropuerto-barcelona/todos-restaurante...

I should have provided better links.

The issue is that McDonalds is a type of restaurant (fast food). But still a type. Arguing that fast food or takeaways or whatnot isn’t a restaurant is pretty pedantic. (So is arguing at all, like I’m doing)

[mynameishere]

Well, the word will come to mind for those of us who use words correctly, rather than twisting them because we feel superior to the people at one establishment or another.

a business establishment where meals or refreshments may be purchased

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/restaurant

My impression of the food service industry is that you have big companies like MCD that control their own supply chains, really expensive places where the chef goes to market every morning, and 95 percent of everything else where they serve whatever arrives on the Sysco truck. There's no need to get uptight--it's all just calories with a 1000 percent markup.

[Luc]

> My impression of the food service industry is ...

Once more: this is a very American view.