There is a reason why Frank Bruni drove through the South and not, say, Montana, on his hunt for the best fast food in the country. It is because there is more fast food eaten in the South than in any other part of the country.
According to Scarborough Research (pdf), while the average American adult eats fast food about 5.2 times per month, residents of Birmingham, Alabama dine at fast food restaurants 6.5 times per month. Given that the examples used by the research firm were McDonald's and Subway, it seems likely that they only included major chain restaurants in their survey, too. Rounding out the top five for fast food consumption were Louisville, KY; Austin. TX; Memphis, TN and Raleigh, NC, ranging from 6.4-6.2 average visits.
The company also looked at the cities in which "sit-down" quick service restaurants, like Applebee's or TGI Friday's, were frequented. Orlando, Florida came out on top, with 4.5 visits per month. The other top cities included Cincinnati, OH; Fort Meyers, FL; Tampa, FL and Atlanta, GA.
Cities like Syracuse, NY and Philadelphia, PA were towards the bottom of the fast food visit rankings, with only 4 visits per adult per month, and Honolulu, HI, Buffalo, NY and Spokane, WA had the fewest "sit-down" visits, at 3, 2.9 and 2.5, respectively.

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6-03-2006 @12:16PM Franz Hemingbeck said... This article isn't really much of a shocker. Anyone who has visited the South for any period of time (I'm from there) will note the morbid obsesity of a large portion of the population. The South is a petri dish for what happens when a human being eats a diet high in hydrogenated and saturated fats, chemical additives, and high fructose corn syrup.
Some of the best food in our country came from the South and it's pathetic that most people down there have abandoned it to eat fake highly processed Yankee food.
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6-03-2006 @1:42PM yelena said... this is sooo not a surprise. having lived in florida for two years it was ridiculous how many fast food places there are! every other person i knew worked at a fast food place. now i like some mickey d's fries as much as the next person, but some people i knew ate there EVERY day. that's just not right.
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