Global burger behemoth McDonald’s opened its first branch on Saturday in the historic heart of communist Hanoi, a conservative city renowned for its traditional — and cheap — Vietnamese staples beloved by food-obsessed locals.
Hungry customers lined up for Big Macs and Chicken McNuggets at the Vietnamese capital’s first location overlooking the tree-lined Hoan Kiem lake, in a city that draws millions of tourists annually to see French-era colonial buildings and sample street-food favourites like pho noodle soup and banh mi sandwiches.
16 branches
The restaurant is the first outside of the southern commercial hub Ho Chi Minh City, where 16 branches have opened since McDonald’s first came to Vietnam in 2014 to much fanfare, especially among the rapidly-growing middle class and American-obsessed youth.
The global fast food chain received a similarly warm welcome in Hanoi on Saturday, as hungry diners crammed into the two-storey eatery for a first taste of the Golden Arches.
For 84-year-old Tran Dinh Luyen, who fought against the U.S. in the Vietnam War, the restaurant was a sign of warming ties with a former enemy. “It’s a very famous American brand, so it shows how far U.S.-Vietnam relations have come,” he said.
The one-party state has seen dizzying economic growth in recent years as it has opened its doors to foreign investment, which has included an influx of Western chains like Starbucks, KFC and Burger King.
Fast GDP growth
Growth in the fast food sector has been buoyed by rapidly rising incomes — annual per capita income has more than doubled in the past decade to about $2,100 today — especially among under-30s, who make up half of Vietnam’s population of 93 million people.
The fast food industry in Vietnam has seen double-digit growth annually for the past five years, and the country has the highest 2017 growth in Asia-Pacific for fast food chains, according to market research firm Euromonitor International.
