Throwback Thursday: A Decade of Fatburger and the Mighty Rise of Beijing's Burger Scene

Throwback Thursday takes a look back into Beijing's past, using our twelve-year-strong blog archives as the source for a glance at the weird and wonderful of yesteryear.

After a long hiatus, our Throwback Thursday time machine is up and working again. Turns out all it needed was a bit of grease.

It was ten years ago this month that after much anticipation, California burger chain Fatburger finally opened its first restaurant in Beijing. Fatburger flipped its first patties in Beverly Hills during the American renaissance of fast beef. More than half a century later, they sensed a hankering for burgers happening across the Pacific. 

Precisely 20 years earlier, Beijingers had gotten their first taste of an American burger with the opening of the city’s first McDonald’s, and juicer burgers were starting to hit the scene with Blue Frog and Lily’s American Diner opening in 2008 and 2009, respectively.

And while Fatburger may not make the list of Beijing’s favorite burgers anymore, there’s no denying that the presence of an international burger brand helped to pave the way for a series of independent joints to bring the beef, with names like Home Plate, Q Mex, Great Leap, and Slow Boat popping up in the years that followed, eventually leading to the Beijinger’s first Burger Fest in 2013.

As we reported upon its opening, Fatburger had a bit of a bumpy ride leading up to its grand opening. The franchise had originally planned for a January opening but had a bit of trouble sourcing their beef. When the question, “Where’s the (high quality, low price) beef?” was finally answered, dozens of foreigners and locals alike poured into the diner-style restaurant to enjoy burgers and shakes at much the same prices at which they are purchased today, only now with two additional locations.

While it may seem a world removed from the many delicious meat and veg burger options that we're now lucky enough to choose from today, Fatburger's arrival in Beijing, and their subsequent success, was proof that the market was ready for lesser-known international brands to deliver the good people of China meals that they could get their greasy mitts around.

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Images: Fatburger, Jerry Chan