St. Louis Avoids Ignominy of Being a "Fast-Food Capital"

By Ian Froeb Wed., Feb. 9 2011 at 2:00 PM

Categories: Media, News of the World

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Jared is everywhere -- watching you.

The Daily Beast is back with yet another of its rankings of American cities. This one charts the top 40 "Fast-Food Capitals" as defined by the number of fast-food restaurants per 100,000 residents. Having driven all over the metro area as part of my restaurant-reviewing duties, I was certain that St. Louis would rate a mention in this list. I was certain we would rank highly.

I was wrong. On both counts.

St. Louis isn't included, and I choose to believe that this is because we really aren't the fast-food mecca we seem to be -- rather than the more likely explanation that the study considered the City of St. Louis rather than the larger metro area.

Orlando nabbed the top (bottom?) spot with 196.3 fast-food restaurants per 100,000 citizens. To the surprise of no one who has visited the state, Florida is very well represented in the list, as is Texas.

As a bonus, listed with each of the 40 cities is the chain most "prominent" there. In all but nine of the cities, that chain is Subway. Not sure how to interpret that except to conclude that the $5 Footlong song is one hell of an earworm.