McDonald's says goodbye to Iceland, land of fire and ice (but not fries)

Updated

On Tuesday, McDonald's (MCD) announced its plans to leave Iceland. This weekend, the global restaurant's three franchises, all located in Reykjavik, will close their doors, as the country's weak economy has made Big Mac's prohibitively expensive.

McDonald's has only been in Iceland for a few years. The first golden arches arrived on the island in 1993, and then-Prime Minister David Oddsson ate the country's first Big Mac. Ironically, the Big Mac outlasted Oddsson by a few months; the Prime Minister later went on to become governor of the country's central bank, but was fired by Iceland's Parliament in February of this year.

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