A fast food restaurant, sometimes known as a quick service restaurant or QSR, is a specific type of restaurant characterized both by its fast food cuisine and by minimal table service. Food served in fast food restaurants typically caters to a Western-style diet; is cooked in bulk in advance and kept hot to order; and is usually available ready to take away, though seating is provided. Fast food restaurants are usually part of a restaurant chain or franchise operation, which ships standardized foodstuffs to each restaurant from central locations.The first fast food restaurants originated in the United States of America during the 1950s. Today, American-founded fast food chains such as McDonald's and Pizza Hut are multinational corporations with outlets across the globe.Variations on the fast food restaurant concept include fast casual restaurants and catering trucks. Fast casual restaurants have higher sit-in ratios, and customers can sit and have their orders brought to them. Catering trucks often park just outside worksites and are popular with factory workers.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Starbucks Corp (NasdaqGS:SBUX - News) is testing $1 coffee and free refills in its Seattle outlets as the global gourmet coffee chain grapples with slower consumer spending and rising competition from fast-food rivals...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O: Quote, Profile, Research) is testing $1 coffee and free refills in its Seattle outlets as the global gourmet coffee chain grapples with slower consumer spending and rising competition from fast-food...

Starbucks is testing $1 coffees and free refills, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, as the global coffee chain faces increasing competition from fast-food rivals.The report said Starbucks is experimenting with a "short" $1 cup as well as free refills for brewed coffee in its Seattle-area stores.

Two men charged with malicious harassment under Washington’s hate crime for threatening a group of gay men in entered a plea of not guilty in connection to the June 20 offense. Brian Bell, 21, and Benjamin Davis, 22, are accused of threatening the men with a knife at a Capitol Hill fast food restaurant. Both men face three to nine months in jail if