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How Far Can You Get From McDonald's?
- jasonkester 15y agoBack when Starbucks first exploded to such ludicrous levels that you'd sometimes find two of them sharing a single parking lot, the expectation became that there would always be a Starbucks nearby. So much so that when I tried to drive from Phoenix to Los Angeles early one morning, I was surprised, then baffled, then amazed, then outraged that there was no Starbucks at all on I-10. I spent nearly 4 hours driving with no mocha in me at all, and was likely a hazard to other drivers. I wouldn't be surprised to find that somebody had driven off the road on that stretch and sued Starbucks for negligence in not providing the requisite number of restaurants per square meter that its customer base had come to expect. Fortunately, they've now put one in Blythe, so the drive is much less perilous.
- twoodfin 15y agoStarbucks' expansion was interestingly "clumpy". Not surprising, I guess, when you realize they have to deal with the same supply chain issues as anyone else in a similar space. They didn't open a freestanding store in Tulsa until 2002, years after seemingly every other corner in Manhattan had one.
- patio11 15y agoStarbucks also has a very sophisticated siting operation which predicts demand similar to how an oil company predicts oil. For green fields, you measure proxies, look at formula based on historical data, and guess. If you sink one well and hit a gusher, though, your expectation of profitable exploitability in the vicinity goes WAY up, so you start going nuts. You'd think that two Starbucks across the street would cannibalize each other, but you'd be betting against very smart people who have made this their lifes' work and been richly rewarded for succeeding at it. Source: anecdata from my father, who works in commercial real estate and thinks they (and Walgreens) are the two savviest businesses he's ever worked with in his industry. P.S. A software solution to turn any arbitrary firm into Starbucks would be worth tens of millions of dollars if you sold it correctly. Billions if you went the next step and started flipping properties based on the software. (e.g. "101 Main St. on foreclosure auction for 200k, predicted value to a banking customer is 1.2 million, expected cost to work deal is 200k. Placing bid now.")
- Kaizyn 15y agoAs I understand their placement of stores, the "cannibalization of customers" is how they determine if they have sufficiently saturated a metropolitan area. Basically, they keep building stores in a city until adding one more doesn't increase their overall business. The basic idea is that if they haven't saturated an area, then there's room for competitors to put in stores. I wish I could remember which publication I read this in.
- itmag 15y agoP.S. A software solution to turn any arbitrary firm into Starbucks would be worth tens of millions of dollars if you sold it correctly. Whoa, that is seriously interesting. Would you mind emailing me more details about your idea? :)
- itmag 15y agoYou'd think that two Starbucks across the street would cannibalize each other Speaking of that, would they operate as two competing entities? Or would they help each other out? Ie lend each other supplies, direct overflow customers across the street, refrain from price wars, things like that.
- twoodfin 15y agoFreestanding Starbucks stores aren't franchises, so they have every incentive to coordinate for maximum benefit. I'd be surprised if SBUX management had set up any incentives for it to work any other way.
- itmag 15y agoInteresting. Even if they were franchises, there might still be some game-theory advantage to cooperating. After all, a happy customer at one Starbucks is going to be positive toward all Starbuckses.
- tptacek 15y agoFor whatever it's worth: Jim Collins coverage of Walgreens in _Good to Great_ focuses on how Walgreens pioneered this siting concept.
- DanBC 15y agoStarbucks knew that local competition helped them.
- Tossrock 15y agoThis post is from 2009, he updated it in 2010: http://www.datapointed.net/2010/09/distance-to-nearest-mcdonalds-sept-2010/ http://www.datapointed.net/2010/09/distance-to-nearest-mcdon... He also visited the spot http://www.datapointed.net/2010/10/the-farthest-place-from-mcdonalds-lower-48-states/ http://www.datapointed.net/2010/10/the-farthest-place-from-m... which makes for a pretty entertaining tale.
- pyre 15y agoAlso, previous discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=840542 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=840542
- 51Cards 15y agoWhat's interesting is to "View Image" on each in two separate tabs and flip between them. Notably there was one closure in the west that left an even bigger black hole.
- davidw 15y agoThe followups are nicer than the original one, and I think that, in spirit, NW Nevada/Southern Oregon are a better fit for 'far away' places. The desert out there is very high and lonely, in a hauntingly beautiful sort of way. It's also extremely empty. One place in particular that merits a visit is Steens Mountain - you can drive most of the way up it and hike around. The view from the top is amazing - you can see for miles, and there are very few signs of people visible.
- steve-howard 15y ago>Which begs the question: just how far away can you get from our world of generic convenience? And how would you figure that out? I'm an insomniac much of the time. Some weeks/months I don't sleep until it's light out. Out here in suburban Chicago, the only places still open to me when it's late and I'm hungry are 7-11, McDonald's, and Burger King. So I'll take "generic convenience," because it at least makes my life a little easier to be able to get something resembling food when there's nothing else open. (Yes, I could plan ahead and put things in my fridge and cook food. I'll get back to you when I have the energy or the inclination to do that).
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- nawariata 15y agoDon't expect high energy when you munch on McDonalds, look into what proper nutrition can do for your body and mind.
- steve-howard 15y agoMy energy level problems stem from something else, because I've not had any of it since I was 12. Still trying to find the cause.
- HeyLaughingBoy 15y agoMaybe it's your diet.
- steve-howard 15y agoMy diet was very different before I got to college.
- JonnieCache 15y agoThis sounds like a vicious circle to me.
- bryanlarsen 15y agoThe place I grew up was 103 miles away from the closest McDonald's. There were people there that would drive to McDonald's for breakfast.
- narcissus 15y agoI know it's not really related but still... this article reminded of the section in the book 'Behind The Golden Arches' that discussed that although many people think that there are too many McDonald's restaurants around, there are still more car dealerships. And how many times do you buy a car compared to a burger? So this article claims around 13,000 McDonald's restaurants, and I just found a page that claims 37,500 separate car and truck dealership franchises. I don't know exactly what it is about those numbers that amaze me but every time I think about it I'm gobsmacked...
- ars 15y agoDon't forget people go to dealerships also for maintenance and repair, not just to buy a car.
- jackalope 15y agoDoes that include all car brands? What happens when you include all fast food burger joints (Burger King, Wendy's, etc.)?
- narcissus 15y agoThat's a good question and I really don't know. To be perfectly honest, though, in my head, at least, any number less than maybe 10 fast food restaurants to each car dealership is low on the fast food restaurant side I reckon... but again, that's just my gut feeling about the ratio.
- Retric 15y agoExcept, a single McDonalds can serve ~5 orders a minute. Yet, a car dealership that can sell 2 cars a day is doing Ok. Let's assume 2 cars a day over 5 years = 3,650people before you get repeat customers. (Average salesman sells 7 cars a month * 8 sales guys.) Edit: http://www.bluemaumau.org/6057/ten_largest_restaurant_franchisors_systemwide_sales http://www.bluemaumau.org/6057/ten_largest_restaurant_franch... 2 million / store per year / 52 weeks / 6$ a meal = 6,410 people averaging 1 vist a week per McDonalds.
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- tzs 15y ago> Which begs the question: just how far away can you get from our world of generic convenience? An interesting kind of related question is to ask what is the farthest you've ever been away from other humans. For most of us, we've never been more than a few miles from others. I've read that the record is probably held by one of the Apollo astronauts who remained in lunar orbit while the landing party landed.
- T-hawk 15y agoApollo 13 holds the record for farthest distance from Earth, because in its aborted mission, it swung farther around the moon at higher altitude rather than dropping into lunar orbit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13#Mission_notes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13#Mission_notes
- graywh 15y agoBut there were 3 of them together in the capsule.
- eftpotrm 15y agoApollo 13 holds the record for furthest men have been from the earth. If we're looking for the furthest any inividual has been away from the nearest second human, we're looking at command module pilots. I think that record goes to Michael Collins, from memory. Furthest from nearest humans on the earth's surface is probably unknowable; my bet would be on a liferaft somewhere in either the Pacific or Southern oceans about 100 years ago, and the poor individual concerned not making it.
- HeyLaughingBoy 15y agoAre you sure? I didn't think lunar orbit was more than a few hundred miles. People who cross oceans solo are much farther away from others than that.
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- jxcole 15y agoNot only is this an interesting factoid, but the author is also a very good writer. I recommend reading the follow up articles.
- grecy 15y agoI grew up in rural Australia, and we used to host a ton of exchange students from North America. Driving from Melbourne back to my home town, there is a huge billboard saying "Next McDonalds 100km" (60 mi.). Many times we would have to pull over so the American exchange students could take a photo, as they were in disbelief they were so far away from one. On that same road you're easily 250km (130mi.) away, but there is no sign.
- vacri 15y agoAh, but there may be a McDonalds behind you that's much closer!
- grecy 15y agoHaha, no. It's a 500km (310mi.) drive, and there is only a McDonalds at the start and one at the end.
- brntn 15y agoI find this hard to believe (grew up in Swan Hill). Where are you heading to from Melbourne? I doubt you could stay in Victoria and be more than 250km from a McDonalds.
- vacri 15y agoMaybe in the Wimmera? You're certainly far from Macca's when you head up the Cobb in NSW, though.
- femto 15y agoEyeballing Macca's Australian website [1], I'd say that the furthest point would be equidistant from Kalgoorlie, Broome and Alice Springs. That's pretty close to the north-eastern corner of the Gibson Desert Nature Reserve [2], 800km from the nearest McDonalds. [1] http://mcdonalds.com.au/find-us/restaurant http://mcdonalds.com.au/find-us/restaurant [2] http://g.co/maps/pehrm http://g.co/maps/pehrm
- imjk 15y agoFrom a cursory look, the plots just seems to correspond with population density more than anything else.
- Dove 15y agoVery closely, I'd say: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Population_density http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Stat... The major difference I see is the McDonaldses following highways in the western states -- for example, look at the sparsely populated parts of Montana. And even there, it's possible that the McDonald's density matches the population density. That's just not what's graphed.
- andersh 15y agoIf you look closely you can see his coloring algorithm is broken. The "spheres" of close restaurants appear to "squash" each other rather than just intersecting. The result is grooves between restaurant spheres that should be more brightly coloured. If anyone even notices this comment and replies to it, I expect them to be disagreeing with me. TL;DR: I can tell by the pixels.
- mdonahoe 15y agoThis was the top comment when I connected, and I agree with your analysis.
- dandelany 15y agoThe algorithm isn't broken, the zones you're talking about are squashed together to show you, at any given point, which McDonalds is the closest to that location. It's like a Voronoi diagram (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voronoi_diagram http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voronoi_diagram).
- andersh 15y agoFor a map intended to show the distance of points from the nearest McDonalds' that isn't the best algorithm; equal pixel colour should => equal distance. I was thinking it'd be cool if distance were represented by height, in a 3D rendering. Also, make it a flythrough, with music :)
- andersh 15y agoIf you look closely you can see his coloring algorithm is broken. The "spheres" of close restaurants appear to "squash" each other rather than just intersecting. The result is grooves between restaurant spheres that should be more brightly coloured. If anyone even notices this comment and replies to it, I expect them to be disagreeing with me. TL;DR: I can tell by the pixels.
- wtvanhest 15y agoI would like to see a similar analysis based on venture funded, active startups. Obviously in the valley they are concentrated, but outside the valley it would be an interesting analysis.
- rhplus 15y agoI think this visualization would be far more interesting at the city level. At the country level, it's basically a map of population density. At the city level, I think it might reveal much more about demographic differences between neighborhoods and also do a much better job at highlighting key transit routes/hubs.
- chimeracoder 15y agoYeah, in all honesty, that graph looks not too different from a map of lights at night (proxy for population density).
- clintboxe 15y agoLol, I initially read the link as: The United States, visualized by distance to the nearest McDonald's (DISAPPOINTED.net)
- GigabyteCoin 15y agoI can't find the source for the life of me, but I remember reading an article about 6 months back that declared basically "there is not a single square foot of land inside the continental USA that is considered 'silent' any longer". In other words, no matter where you "go to get away" in the USA, you will never truly leave the buzz of the city. EDIT: Perhaps this is it http://geohazards.usgs.gov/staffweb/mcnamara/PDFweb/McNamaraBuland.pdf http://geohazards.usgs.gov/staffweb/mcnamara/PDFweb/McNamara...
- jebblue 15y agoThat was an entertaining but true and worrisome article, enlightening. When I was in my 20's I might have thought wow, South Dakota needs more McDonald's.
- techiferous 15y agoIf you like maps like this and are from Boston, check out http://bostonography.com http://bostonography.com
- bfe 15y agoI think his result might be wrong. It doesn't jump out at you from his map since it's on an edge of the area, but it also has big voids on the northeast corner of Minnesota and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. If you examine carefully, you can pick out Kinross, Gladstone, Escanaba, Marquette, Iron Mountain, Ironwood, Ashland, Duluth, Two Harbors, Hibbing, Eveleth, Virginia, and International Falls. That means the tip of Pigeon Point would put you a good 130 miles or so from the nearest U.S. McDonald's in Two Harbors, Minnesota, compared to 115 miles for the author's spot in northwestern Nevada. The northeast tip of Isle Royale would be a little farther still, if you want to count islands that are part of the lower 48. And the northeast tip of Keweenaw County wouldn't be as far from the nearest McDonald's as the crow flies, but might be the longest drive from any McDonald's, at 143 miles by road from Marquette, in a loop around Keweenaw Bay. I also found it interesting to compare the map defined by distance to nearest McDonald's with a light pollution map of the lower 48, used to find excellent dark sky locations for setting up one's telescope. McDonald's and light pollution largely overlap in tracing population density and major highways, but McDonald's is also overrepresented relative to light pollution in isolated areas that are popular vacation destinations. This jumped out as most apparent in south central Utah, and also holds for Arizona and New Mexico. The McDonald's voids are vast areas that are not only isolated, but also boring.
- svonsvon 15y agoIndeed, the Arrowhead of Minnesota and Isle Royale are farther from the nearest U.S. McDonald's, as the crow flies, but they're only about fifty miles from the Micky Dee's in Thunder Bay, Ontario.
- ibdthor 15y agoWhat I find most striking about this map is that it is eerily similar to maps of distance from or concentration of supermarkets in the US, which are fairly commonly used after Ravenstein's human mobility studies to track things like urban expansion. Simply put, this map would suggest to me that McDonald's has become so entrenched that it actually serves as a reliable landmark for human evolutionary and sociological studies. Which is frightening.
- learc83 15y agoI remember when I was a kid (late 80s early/mid 90s), and I'd visit my aunt in California (I'm from Georgia). It seemed almost like a different country--different stores, different architecture, different culture. The same was true for rural areas closer to home. Now everywhere I go, there's a Walmart, a McDonalds, an Applebees/Chilis/TGI-Fridays, a BestBuy, a Staples/OfficeMax/Office Depot, and a Home Depot, or Lowes. The world feels a lot smaller.
- dasil003 15y agoIt still feels like a different country because it's happening globally. I just moved to London and there's a fucking Whole Foods around the corner! Closer in fact than it was when I lived in Mountain View, Santa Fe, or Minneapolis (all big Whole Foods markets).
- jmilkbal 15y agoSubway became the largest restaurant chain in the world recently. Is it, perhaps, more apt to ask how far one can get from one of them?