I think you are mixing up 'good food' with 'good business'. Even if we grant that McDonalds or Subway are bad food, they are often good business because they h

I think you are mixing up 'good food' with 'good business'. Even if we grant that McDonalds or Subway are bad food, they are often good business because they have a value proposition. For me, it's consistency, low price, a basic degree of hygiene and food safety, which is important when visiting developing countries, and occasionally food that I like to eat. On the other hand, the generic mom-and-pop burger shop might sell a decent burger, but they might still be fundamentally undifferentiated businesses perpetually operating at the brink of bankruptcy. It's no surprise that the restaurant business is Peter Thiel's classic example of a very likely to fail business.