I declare bankruptcy the big fast food franchises are loved everywhere right well not so fast here
are 10 times fast food restaurants failed internationally Taco Bell in Mexico what did
you say yeah you heard that right in the literal land of Mexican food America's largest and most
popular Mexican fast food chain has failed to penetrate the market not once but twice twice
twice two times there are over 6 000 Taco Bell locations around the world but the company has
never been able to grab a foothold in Mexico founded in California in the 1960s Taco Bell had
expanded to nearly 4 000 restaurants by the early 90s and it was at that point that the company made
the seemingly no-brainer decision to sell Mexican food to Mexican people their first South of the
Border location opened up in Mexico City in 1992. operating as a taco stand food cart the concept
was an immediate and spectacular failure their attempt to compete with authentic Mexican fare
was disastrous with one cultural critic from the Associated Press noting that bringing tacos to
Mexico was akin to Bringing ice to the Arctic they already have plenty of it and it's the real deal
customers were puzzled by the concept of a crunchy hard shell taco seeing as those do not and haven't
ever existed in Mexico the stereotypical names of the menu items also puzzled customers with
hard tacos having to be renamed as takastatas so that customers had a better concept of what
they were about to sink their teeth into Lost in Translation from the start the experiment Ended
as a dismal failure after only two years stubborn for Success however the Taco Bell
Chihuahua licked its wounds and came back for another round in 2007. tweaking its strategy
that Shane decided to Pivot away from being a direct competitor to authentic Mexican eats and
marketed itself as unabashedly American french fries and ice cream dominated their advertising
strategy in an attempt to separate itself from Taco Bell's traditional reputation a
brick and mortar location opened up in the city of Monterey and the chain planned expansion in
the following year but again the locals couldn't get into it this attempt went as bad as the first
try and Taco Bell retreated to the United States in less than a year dominoes in Italy
Riverdale Italian food in Italy what could possibly go wrong well when it's Italian-American
food it might not fly in the land of the Original Pizza Pie Domino's first descended on the city of
Milan in 2015. with their CEO firmly believing the key to success was their tried and true delivery
method noting that in Italy there's a lot of pizza but there's not a lot of delivered Pizza typically
Italians dine in with their hot and fresh pizza at a physical restaurant and Domino's figured
the convenience of having it brought to your door would win customers over they were so confident in
the strategy that the chain publicly announced plans to open up almost 900 Domino's locations
across the nation over the next decade and a half to capitalize on Italian tastes the chain catered
to more traditional Pizza styles that the locals were accustomed to as well as pushing Americanized
pies like the Hawaiian barbecue chicken and cheeseburger pizza they even sourced all their
ingredients within the country to appeal to the local palette by but whatever the reason
it never took off not good enough soon enough other restaurants got into the delivery game to
cut into that Cornerstone of domino strategy in today's New Normal doorbells ringing with
delivery is the standard instead of the exception and the pizza giant was pushed out of the market
in favor of those traditional Italian pies in the summer of 2022 Domino's said arrivederci to all 29
locations across Italy and close their doors for good anything except McDonald's in Italy well what
do you want Michael I'm a DLT no I already told you they don't make those anymore realistically it
isn't just Domino's that struggled to get on the map in the beautiful country the nation's demand
for rustic and traditional eateries has had most of the population snubbing fast food expansion
into the marketplace Far and Away the only true success in the fast food restaurant game has been
the world famous golden arches of McDonald's we love McDonald's and even then they aren't as big
in Italy as they are in other countries with an estimated 600 locations in Italy they only have a
third of the number of Donalds and neighboring countries with comparable population density
and size like France for example which has over 1500 franchises compared to the 1200 McDonald's
locations in the United Kingdom Italy's mere 600 locations are barely noticeable and with dominoes
being chased back to North America the location numbers are staggeringly low for otherwise popular
fast food franchises Dunkin Donuts had already retreated to America in 2003 after discovering
they were no match for authentic Italian espresso there are only 17 Subway sandwich shops in the
entire country struggling to compete in the home of the panini press even Colonel Sanders himself
can't get Italians to swap the pasta for the bucket as KFC's famous herbs and spices have
only slightly better performance with 50 stores whatever the reasoning unless they're packing
Bellissimo Big Macs it seems that most fast food chains are better served to avoid The
Rustic scenes of Tuscany altogether McDonald's in Iceland I'll have the big please great joy
well it's basically the measuring stick for fast food success that doesn't mean McDonald's has
worked out everywhere Mickey D's first set up shop in Iceland in 1993 opening three locations
in Iceland's Capital City the idea was initially quite popular with Iceland's prime minister even
doing a quarter pounder photo op at one of the new restaurants Iceland had been known as an isolated
nation that kept to itself and stayed in the background on the global stage so the introduction
of a foreign food chain had the entire country intrigued but after the initial novelty wore
off and other American competitors like Burger King entered the Icelandic Market McDonald's
got lost in the shuffle of new and exciting fast food Outlets the chain held on until 2008 when
a global recession crippled the Icelandic economy the value of their currency sank and suddenly the
cost to import McDonald's 100 pure beef patties from overseas became unsustainable sorry you guys
but I can't pay that it's too much money the company raised prices is to retain its profit
margins but the higher cost to struggling citizens simply drove customers Away by 2009 McDonald's
shut down all of its remaining locations in Iceland the fond fast food memories remain
with the last cheeseburger and fries ever sold in the country being encased in a Hotel Lobby's
glass public display to this very day everybody knows McDonald's leftover is hit a bit different
but hanging on to them for that long is pushing it McDonald's in Vietnam I want a cheeseburger this
is a special soup called Pho Mickey D's tried its luck in another New Market back in 2014. deciding
to expand into Vietnam for the first time and capitalize on the 97 million potential customers
that live there the first McDonald's opened in the city of Ho Chi Minh and was a major success
I'm rich I'm rich reports estimated over 400 000 customers visited in the first month of business
alone often waiting in long lines just to get their first taste of the Famous Burgers and
Fries that they had seen on TV and in movies but the initial honeymoon period was short-lived and
the chain ran into trouble one major issue for the fast food giant was borderline unbelievable their
fast food wasn't fast enough Vietnamese culture is always designed to be on the go so the concept of
food that could be prepared by Street vendors at lightning speeds had been around for decades and
had already been perfected the local options also tended to be healthier and more flavorful using
fresh local products and time-tested recipes while McDonald's still has a lingering 22 Vietnamese
locations today they've never been able to expand Beyond those numbers or recapture the huge sales
of those first few months they haven't pulled the plug yet but Ronald McDonald's grip is slipping
Dunkin Donuts in India eat the donut America runs on Duncan that slogan might be more on the
money than Duncan had hoped with the company's previous 2003 exit from Italy after four dismal
years the donut giant from Massachusetts would aim to roll out their brand of breakfast fare in
a different part of the world fingers crossed in 2012 they decided on India their rationale
being that more people from India are traveling and they'd have developed a taste for franchises
found in other parts of the world Dunkin Donuts opened 10 restaurants through a mix of food courts
mall kiosks and a few Flagship brick and mortar locations in their first year of business in India
the expansion hit several snags almost immediately starting with the fact that nobody was showing up
the Indian population tends to dine out every 45 days as opposed to the United States where it's
every 48 hours and when Indian customers did show up they found the prices too high and when they
decided to spend the money anyway they didn't like what they got six years after rolling out
their Joe on the go in India Dunkin Donuts cut its losses and cut half of all their Indian locations
in 2018. Chick-fil-A in South Africa County Fried Chicken best damn chicken in the state Once Upon
a Time the southern USA's favorite chicken chain decided to expand their Market further south Way
South as in the country of South Africa their robust 1990s expansion plan had long-term goals
to develop a total of 50 stores and in August of 1996 Chick-fil-A opened its first ever location
outside of North America with a restaurant in the city of Durban South Africa just over a
year later they opened a second location in the city of Johannesburg and that's where they ran
into trouble ten years prior the famous South African chicken chain Nando's had opened its
first spot in the same city of Johannesburg and was already the king of poultry in the region not
only did Chick-fil-A fail to grab customers but they probably wish Google Maps existed in 1996.
Chick-fil-A's founder was on record as saying they didn't know how far South Africa really
was at least in a logistical sense he said that it would was so awkward trying to get
merchandise there as well as employees it was too far too fast it's too much it's too much
the company didn't reach those lofty Heights of 50 restaurants and never expanded beyond the
original two Chick-fil-A clucked back to Georgia when they permanently shuttered South African
operations in 2001. it may have been a long way to go logistically but it's a lot longer to get
back home doing the Walk of Shame Baskin Robbins in South Africa it's an ice cream cone another
famous fast food treat tried its hand at playing the long distance game in South Africa when Baskin
Robbins brought their 31 Flavors to the African continent at the end of 2016. projected to open
70 locations throughout Johannesburg in Cape Town the company figured cool ice cream would be a big
seller In the Heat of the Southern Hemisphere and it was sort of there were sales but locals were
perplexed by the 31 flavor system when most food in their culture is simple and straightforward
oh and after they finally decided what they would like they found the price wasn't as
cool as the ice cream it turns out having to ship and chill ice cream all the way to Africa wasn't
cheap and the Baskin-Robbins stores had to jack up their prices to compensate for the costs the low
sales continued to drop and coupled with a Local Economic recession in 2018 the company claimed a
loss of over 18 million dollars in that year alone after only three years Baskin Robbins made their
slow and steady exit with profit margins melting faster than a scoop of rocky road Subway in Japan
Japan what is what's happening in Japan why is she going to Japan the slogan enough eat fresh
figured to be a Surefire success in Japan where they serve fish so fresh they eat it raw yeah
that's what you wish Steve but when Subway brought their cold cut combos to the Land of the Rising
Sun it was the total opposite of successful this was despite an aggressive strategy with
20 locations opened across Tokyo and pushing to outnumber McDonald's locations when they peaked
at 200 locations across Japan however the Subway sandwich idea just never caught on sandwiches
aren't a traditional Japanese food and they never have been and when customers did show up they
found locations to be run down and unwelcoming Subway's Japanese division officially filed for
bankruptcy in 2019 having shuttered most of those 200 locations in the Years prior Wendy's in Europe
I'm hungry though those things look good bet your ass they do Morty that's the breakfast Baconator
Frosty Chino and honey butter chicken biscuit while Dave Thomas brought his famous Square
burger patties to Europe back in the 1980s he didn't stick around long when the customers in
Belgium the Netherlands and Luxembourg where it is fired up about old-fashioned hamburgers
as they were back home after Wendy's cleared out a local fish and chips restaurateur trademarked
the name Wendy's for his tiny shop and was awarded the trademark in 1995. the trademark
now extends throughout the entire European union and prevents the American chain Wendy's from
using their name should they try to get back into the European market no God the Baconator
Bunch has been fighting the trademark in court since the year 2000 but the Wendy's name on the
European continent remains connected to fish and chips instead of frosties better luck next time