The joke is that McDonald's spends hundreds of thousands of dollars to identify new locations - traffic studies, visibility, demographics, nearby traffic generators, site characteristics, drive-thru feasibility, etc. They have one of the most rigorous processes in the industry. Burger King's process is to open a location across the street.

I think the story was Starbucks -> Seattle's Best Coffee, not McD's --> BK. but it does work I guess.

I actually heard it as Walgreen's -> CVS

makes me wonder if the starbucks story is fiction too :P

reminds me of SBC's (Seattle's Best Coffee) strategy, which was decidedly not Nash: put a store across the street from every Starbucks.