One part is the core downtown area of Minneapolis is tiny compared to the rest of the city, or even the whole metro area. I'm not saying no fastfood, just no McDonalds, BurgerKing, Wendys. etc. There are tons of Subways of course. The core downtown area is only 2.5 to 3 square miles or so. (Compared to the whole metro area stretching out 40+ miles all ways out to the edges around the two downtowns). Just surrounded by many rings of suburbs out to the exburbs. We've had a McDonalds in the past, and a BurgerKing (neither drive-throughs, no room for that), but they all left because the foot traffic wasn't that good. (hard to park in downtown). Plus, there are a ton of pretty decent stand alone restaurants. I can go have a burger in a number of decent pubs or restaurants. I would pass a dozen good places walking 6-7 blocks, such as Red Cow or Hell's Kitchen.
Its not like there are many drive through restaurants in the Minneapolis city bounds as it is. Hell, there isn't even a fastfood burger place of any kind of in Downtown Minneapolis. I'd have to cross the river to NE to get anything drive through. Anybody in the core Minneapolis city area isn't looking for a drive through place, and building any new one would be super prohibitive cost wise as there isn't any decent spots to take over to build one. Most core city dwellers would probably just visit any of the much better restaurant options available. Minneapolis is surrounded by many suburban cities oh so many layers out (making the whole Twin Cities metro area much larger than ranking 46th per the article), and the suburbs have a ton of drive throughs already. Anybody looking for one just has to drive 5 to 10 minutes out to a suburb.
We've had a McDonalds in the past, and a BurgerKing (neither drive-throughs, no room for that), but they all left because the foot traffic wasn't that good. (hard to park in downtown).
Plus, there are a ton of pretty decent stand alone restaurants. I can go have a burger in a number of decent pubs or restaurants. I would pass a dozen good places walking 6-7 blocks, such as Red Cow or Hell's Kitchen.
Minneapolis is surrounded by many suburban cities oh so many layers out (making the whole Twin Cities metro area much larger than ranking 46th per the article), and the suburbs have a ton of drive throughs already. Anybody looking for one just has to drive 5 to 10 minutes out to a suburb.