I would consider myself a fast food connoisseur, despite having what I would call above average cooking skills.

The likes of McDonald's and KFC have never been in the same leagues as proper burgers/chicken. No one is comparing a Big Mac to a normal burger from home or a restaurant, so many of the comparisons here are unfair at best, and detached from reality at worst. You have McD because you want McD, not because you want a burger.

The fundamental problem is that fast food needs to be both fast and cheap. It's neither, because companies skimped on staff post-pandemic, and prices are just too high. Now, that cheap treat that you enjoy has to be worth both the price and the wait - and these restaurants are finding that it's just not justifiable any more.

They lost the battle the second you made it about low-income diners. These restaurants were about spectacle for the kids, and about value at speed for the families. When you market your food as "poor people food" people aren't going to want it, especially if someone with a good income still balks at the price tag.

I don't really know how many of them are going to survive, outside of revisiting what make them great places for kids and families. That's harder to do today than it was, but they really need to revisit who their customer actually is - because if your value proposition is "you'll be less surprised at how expensive the food the poors eat" then you're going to see fewer customers. Ultimately, that's probably what some execs want, because that real estate is probably worth a ton...