The McDonaldization of Restaurants
It started with a chair… One of those familiar beer-branded chairs. The same model you see in Lagos, Albufeira, Faro, Amsterdam and Barcelona. Different logo on the back, otherwise exactly the same.
Then I noticed the menu.
Wagyu burger. Crispy chicken burger. Burrata. Tuna tataki. Truffle fries. The same cocktails. The same playlist. The same beer-branded chairs.
It's as if there's a global handbook with the fifty mandatory things every restaurant has to offer. Different restaurant. Same experience.
And then there's the staff.
No longer fully focused on the guests, but wearing earpieces. Listening to the manager. Or the POS system. "Table twelve needs the bill." "Upsell the desserts." "Keep moving."
Meanwhile, the guests are still sitting there, hoping someone actually notices them.
More and more restaurants look identical. The same lighting. The same industrial interior. The same Instagram-worthy corners. Even the welcome often sounds like it came straight out of a training manual.
That's the McDonaldization of hospitality. Not because it's bad. But because everything is becoming the same.
CONCEPTS
Restaurants have become concepts. Carefully designed brands, polished interiors, marketing strategies and operational manuals, all rolled out with military precision.
Instead of living places with a personality.
More often than not, it's no longer the owners making the decisions. It's managers, consultants and accountants. Everything is optimised. Labour costs. Table turnover. Profit per square metre.
All perfectly logical.
But you can't put soul into a spreadsheet.
That's why I keep returning to those old Portuguese restaurants. Places that feel alive. Where the owner pours your wine himself. Where grandma is still cooking in the kitchen. Where the tables aren't perfectly straight. Where the menu hasn't changed in ten years, and nobody feels the need to apologise for it.
You're not tasting a concept.
You're tasting a life.
DARE TO BE DIFFERENT
If I could give restaurant owners one piece of advice, it would be this: dare to be different.
Start with your why, just as Simon Sinek wrote in Start With Why.
Why should someone choose your restaurant instead of one of the other 5,000 in the Algarve? What makes your place impossible to copy? Is it your grandmother's recipes? Your local wines? Your hospitality? Your chef? Your vegan options? Your terrace or view? Or simply the feeling people get when they walk through the door?
People rarely remember the perfect burger or steak. They remember how you made them feel.
That's why, in my restaurant reviews, the food accounts for only 25% of the final score. The other 75% is based on three things: service and hospitality—do you genuinely feel welcome? Ambience—the atmosphere, interior, terrace or view. And finally, value for money—is the price fair for what you receive?
Because if the first three aren't right, the price is always too high.
Let's be careful not to optimise authenticity out of existence.
Because if every restaurant becomes the same, it won't really matter where you are anymore.
You might as well be living in Dubai…
