Poll: Readers say Maricopa has enough fast-food restaurants

The respondents to this week’s InMaricopa reader poll have spoken and their position is clear: the city needs more sit-down restaurants.

Our poll asked, “Are the many fast-food, drive-through restaurants coming to Maricopa a good idea?” A huge majority said no.

The top response among the voters was, “I’d rather see family sit-down restaurants with healthier menu choices, garnering 72.07% and 480 of the 666 votes. A distant second was, “No, we have enough already,” with 107 votes for 16.07% of the tallies.

There were some holdouts for fast food, with 60 voters choosing the response, “Yes, they are inexpensive and quick,” good for 9.01% of the total, with 19 voters having no opinion, accounting for 2.85% of the total.

The fast-food industry is enormous, with 197,653 fast food restaurants in 2021, generating revenues of $296.6 billion last year. As the numbers indicate, Americans love fast food, with 37%, or 50 million Americans, consuming fast food every day.

McDonald’s has the highest revenue by far, with $40.4 billion in sales in 2021. Starbucks was second at $21.6 billion, followed by Chick-Fil-A and Taco Bell at $11 billion each.

Subway has the most location with 24,798, followed by Starbucks at 14,608 and McDonald’s at 13,914.