My birth year isn't listed! Discrimination! (Maybe Hawkmoon and I can start a class action suit? I'll place a call to Dewey, Cheetum, and Howe, the local law firm.)
White Castle was around early on, but not very near - we seldom went there for "sliders." I was still a young schoolboy when the first McD's opened in my Chicago neighborhood, probably in the early '60s. There was no place to eat inside, just a small glassed-in area at the front of the building so you wouldn't have to stand in the weather when ordering. Over the years, that place went through MANY expansions.
Burger King came along locally some years later - late '60s I'd say.
KFC? Hmmm . . . not sure when that showed up. We used to go to the now long defunct "Chicken Delight" when I was a kid. Original recipe KFC never appealed to us - won't say it was greasy, but fishing a piece of KFC out of the bucket was a lot like trying to pick up a wet bar of soap you'd dropped in the sink. Subway wasn't on my radar until sometime in the 80's.
There were no Dairy Queens around when I was growing up - the local ice cream shop (closed for winter) was "Tastee Freeze." And Dunkin Donuts showed up long after the IMHO superior "Amy Joy" donuts.
Never heard of places like Carl's Jr. or Whataburger until the late 90s when I moved to TX.
There were a lot more "sit down" restaurants when I was growing up - good ones! - than there are now.
