A restaurant is a different thing. In places like Spain, France or Italy when you say "restaurant" you never refer to "MacDonnals", "BurgerKing" or "FostersHollywood".
There are thousands of web pages like this s one using restaurant to describe McDonalds in Spain - https://www.quora.com/What-is-mcdonalds-in-Spain-like
Sure you can use restaurant as a term to refer to a "place where food can be ordered" -- but if someone speaks the word, fast food is not what comes to mind.
a business establishment where meals or refreshments may be purchased
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/restaurant
My impression of the food service industry is that you have big companies like MCD that control their own supply chains, really expensive places where the chef goes to market every morning, and 95 percent of everything else where they serve whatever arrives on the Sysco truck. There's no need to get uptight--it's all just calories with a 1000 percent markup.
Once more: this is a very American view.
Here’s the site for the Barcelona airport. By Spanish/Catalan - http://www.aena.es/es/aeropuerto-barcelona/todos-restaurante...
I should have provided better links.
The issue is that McDonalds is a type of restaurant (fast food). But still a type. Arguing that fast food or takeaways or whatnot isn’t a restaurant is pretty pedantic. (So is arguing at all, like I’m doing)
I wouldn't call TGIFriday a restaurant either.
TGI Fridays is a "chain restaurant" if we want to distinguish it from a "restaurant".
I actually can't think of a collective term that I would use for these places. If someone asked what a McDonalds was, I'd honestly probably reply "It's a fast food place that sells shitty burgers"