KUCHING: Fast food restaurants, whether foreign or domestic, have always been a part of the daily lives of urban people, but in this city, there are not many to choose from compared to other cities such as Kuala Lumpur and Penang.
Currently, there’s McDonald’s the number one fast food restaurant in Sarawak and there’s the old Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) as their rival. While they are well-accepted by locals, many people want more varieties.
One of the establishments often mentioned is Domino’s Pizza which is said to be the best in Malaysia but sadly not in Kuching as they have yet to expand to Sarawak.
Yu Xing Fang, 26, wished to see A&W Malaysia re-open its branch here as it would bring back her childhood memories.
“During kindergarten years, there was a party … I don’t remember what it was about … and my teacher brought us to A&W to celebrate. It was one of my favourite memories,” she said.
Cleo Fröstl, 21, also wants A&W Malaysia to re-open its branch here in Kuching, at least for the big affordable float cups.
As for Nurashikin Louis, 24, she wants Jollibee (a Filipino multinational food-chain) to have a restaurant here. Her reason is she wants to check out the menu because foreigners often prefer their chicken meals instead of KFC’s.
“When it comes to chickens, I personally love KFC but after finding out that a lot of people like Jollibee’s chicken, curiosity just got into me. I want to find the world’s ultimate chicken meal,” she explained.
Shazreena Ali, 28, wants to see Domino’s Pizza opening up their branch here to rival Pizza Hut.
She insisted that competition is business is good for consumers, so Domino’s should challenge Pizza Hut.
“I really love the lava chocolate cake that Domino’s. The taste is just like a freshly baked Oreo cookie with warm, thick, sweet chocolaty syrup in the centre instead of vanilla cream,” she said.
Aisya Bidari, 23, stated that she also wants Domino’s Pizza here because “the price is lower”.
Arazi Kuno, 19, and Danish Hakeem, 20, both suggested In-N-Out Malaysia and Fuel Shack “for the sake of variety of burgers”.
Still on burgers, Joel Kyle, 21, likes Five Guys Burgers and Fries because he had a lot of their stuffs when he was in London.
On the other hand, Jerry Foo, 21, prefers Texas Chicken because anyone who eats there can get free refillable drinks.
The problem for food companies, just like other businesses, is they can’t just set up their restaurants quickly enough. They need to find the right places and conduct customer surveys to find out how many people would likely become their customers. For now, it appears that Kuchingites just have to wait until the business climate in this city is right and ripe for restaurants to move in.
