I guess it is likely because when I was growing up there wasn't a great deal of fast food franchises around. We as a family had our favorite restaurants and pizza places some a lot more casual than others but growing up with fast food meals was not part of our life.
When maybe I was middle school age a burger king moved to town but it was cross-town. Maybe ate lunch there a few times a year as it was a drive not a walk. About the same time we also had a Yankee Doodle Dandy move to our side of town. There in my early teens we'd sometimes meet friends for lunch.
What I always remember being around and going to fairly regularly was Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors and Dairy Queen, earlier in life in the City it was a
Tastee-Freeze, there was also a House of Pies. Guess my town was more into
dessert. DQ stays open March till October. Boards go over the windows for the winter.
The weird part of my McDonald-less childhood is the Original McDs was the very next town west of ours.
1955
As teens we'd go to that town but we never went to McDs. Just wasn't on our radar in the late 70's early 80's but in the 80s they franchised the heck out of McDs Not a big fan of most of their food but they certainly have the best french fries. Slurp.