Why Not Burger King?

When Burger King first opened, it was a wonderful alternative...the Burger King burgers were (and still are) much better than the McDonald's ones and their prices then were only slightly higher. But over time the fellows at Burger King jacked up their prices while the McDonald's prices were quite stable...until eating at Burger King is no longer worth it.

When I started this site (about November 2004) they were resorting to gimmicks like eat 8 meals and get a Junior Whopper free (or something like that) while McDonald's was aggressively promoting low cost products like the Double Cheeseburger which price got slashed to RM2.50.

To my untrained mind this seems like bad business sense...you can look at any Burger King restaurant and find that it is almost empty, while McDonald's is usually at least half-full (at meal times, of course). I'm quite sure the bulk of their operating costs is not the food itself but the rent for the place, employees' salary etc. and they should be doing whatever they can to fill the restaurant up. If they were to have nice RM2.50 burgers like McDonald's, I think I would be one of the first to support Burger King.

May 2006 Update

McDonald's no longer sells RM2.50 Double Cheeseburgers, but Burger King's prices have skyrocketed up in the meantime, so the comparison still holds. :-)