The term ‘fast food’ was first coined in the early 1950s - almost inevitably in the United States. As with much that originated in America - popular music, films, technology and the like - branded takeaway food was always going to end up on this side of the Atlantic too. McDonald's, for example, began trading in San Bernadino, California, in 1940 when the first restaurant was opened by Richard and Maurice McDonald.
But it wasn’t until 1974 that McDonald's set up shop in the UK, opening their first outlet in Woolwich, south east London. An advert from the time shows you could pick up a hamburger for 15p, a cheeseburger for 23p, a quarter-pounder for 40p, a Big Mac for 45p, while fries were priced at 10p (regular) and 13p (large), with hot and cold drinks - including tea, coffee, and Coke - from 8p to 15p. It would be another decade and more until folk in our part of the world could tuck into a ‘Maccy D’.
The first Tyneside restaurant opened in the Metrocentre, Gateshead , in 1986, with stores in Newcastle, South Shields and elsewhere opening soon afterwards. These days, if we don’t fancy McDonald’s, Burger King, Five Guys or whatever, the other go-to fast food of choice is often KFC. It’s 45 years since the first KFC restaurant - or Kentucky Fried Chicken to give the brand the full title it originally traded under - opened on Tyneside.
Admittedly a relatively minor footnote in the cultural history of our region, the Newcastle store opened its doors on Monday, S.
