Icelanders flock to McDonald’s on news of the chain’s exodus

It’s a sad week for Icelandic fans of the Big Mac. As we heard in late-show monologues, McDonald’s is closing its restaurants in the Nordic country, which is still reeling from a massive financial meltdown. The last burgers will be sold on Saturday. Upon hearing the news, Icelanders flocked to the three locations — all in Reykjavík, of course. From the Iceland Review:

Icelanders evidently intend to give the McDonald’s fast food chain a heartfelt goodbye as people have been flocking to its three outlets in Reykjavík this week after it was announced on Monday that McDonald’s was closing shop in Iceland for good.

“We have all been working as hard as we can. The average sale is 4,000 hamburgers a day but for the last few days we’ve sold at least twice as much,” managing director of McDonald’s Iceland Jón Gardar Ögmundsson told Morgunbladid.

Ögmundsson said he believes that this heartfelt goodbye shows how big a share this international hamburger chain has in the national spirit.

The reason McDonald’s is closing in Iceland is the rising prices of imported goods necessary for making the hamburgers.

The operation isn’t profitable anymore and so a new fast food chain will open instead, which sells Icelandic hamburgers with Icelandic ingredients.

Even if Iceland’s economy recovers, Ögmundsson said, the McDonald’s Corp. is unlikely to return.

IcelandReview – Online .