Ultimate symbol of US capitalism finally reaches Hanoi

McDonald’s yesterday opened its first branch in the Vietnamese capital, a conservative city renowned for its traditional and cheap street food loved by food-obsessed locals.

Hungry customers lined up for Big Macs and Chicken McNuggets at the fast food chain’s first Hanoi outlet, overlooking the tree-lined Hoan Kiem lake.

The restaurant is the first outside the southern commercial centre of Ho Chi Minh City, where 16 branches have opened since McDonald’s came to Vietnam in 2014 to much fanfare, especially among the rapidly growing middle class and America-obsessed youth.

The chain received a similarly warm welcome in Hanoi as hungry diners crammed into the two-storey restaurant for a first taste.

Tran Dinh Luyen, 84, who fought against the US in the Vietnam War, said the restaurant was a sign of warming ties with a former enemy.

“I am happy that McDonald’s has opened a restaurant in Hanoi,” Mr Tran said after eating a Big Mac with his daughter and granddaughter. “It’s a very famous American brand, so it shows how far US-Vietnam relations have come.”

But not everyone agreed. “It’s a rip-off. This fast food is for kids only. It’s not good at all,” said Ta Xuan Huong, 90.

Some curious tourists stopped to see what all the fuss was about, perplexed that a brand ubiquitous in the West would draw so much attention.

“It’s kind of random to see McDonald’s opening,” American Dan Moore said. “It’s an interesting cultural experience to see how important it is that the store is opening here.”

His wife said that she might not have expected to find one of the most obvious symbols of capitalism in the communist country. The one-party state has seen great economic growth in recent years as it opened its doors to foreign investment, which has included western chains such as Starbucks, KFC and Burger King.

Growth in the fast-food sector has been buoyed by rapidly rising incomes. Annual per capita income has more than doubled in the past decade to about US$2,100 (Dh7,712), especially among the under-30s who make up half of Vietnam’s population of 93 million people.

The fast-food industry in Vietnam has experienced double-digit growth annually for the past five years, and the country this year has the highest growth in the Asia-Pacific region for fast food chains, market research company Euromonitor International says.