French fries must be shaken fifteen times, no more, no less. Onion and bacon go below hamburger patties, pickles and tomatoes go above.

That’s from this story about the Five Guys burger chain and its adherence to standards.

Five Guys was founded in Northern Virginia in 1986, 18 years after I left the area. There’s a pattern here: In-N-Out Burger was founded in Southern California in 1948, but their big expansion didn’t begin until the 1970s, 18 years after we moved away. Even when I was going back and forth to LA in the 1980s I don’t remember seeing any of their locations in the West LA area.

Hawai’i isn’t a prime location for fast food chains. Oh, we have McDonald’s and Burger King and Pizza Hut and Taco Bell and Jack-in-the-Box, but the regional ones like Sonic and Tommy’s and In-N-Out and Five Guys haven’t expanded here. We have a few Carl’s Jr.’s, but the big growth here over the years has been the mid-range seated restaurants like Chili’s. We were seeing national ads for Red Lobster for years before one was finally opened out here.

I suspect one of the biggest reasons the smaller chains don’t come here is the price of land and land use, whether leased or purchased. The minimum space requirement for a fast food emporium seems to be between 2,000 – 3,000 square feet. At $1 – $2/sf per month, that’s $2K-$3K at the low end and $4K-$6K at the high end. That can be a big fixed expense off the top line. Add in the cost of electricity (which is 85% fuel-oil generated here) and water, and you’ve probably got $7-$10K/month you’ve got to get before you start adding in food cost and labor.

If we want to try the regionals we have to go to the Mainland. Maybe that explains why so many Hawai’i folks go to Vegas so often.