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Roman Londinium: Did the Romans bring fast food with them when they established Londinium in AD 47-50? We know that in Pompeii and Rome they had thermopoliums — early versions of fast food joints, serving lentils, meat and wine to go. If they had thermopoliums in Londinium too, that's where Londoners' fast food obsession began.
1740s: Pleasure boaters sail to Twickenham Ait and an inn called Eel Pie House, where they buy — that's right — eel pies, to picnic on along the riverbanks. Twickenham Ait is later renamed Eel Pie Island.
1844: Henry Blanchard's 'Eel Pie House' on 101 Union Street, Southwark becomes the first dedicated pie shop on record, setting a precedent for the East End staple that is pie, mash, liquor and jellied eels. Pie shops don't always enjoy a great reputation, and the penny dreadful series The String of Pearls, published between 1846-47, which introduces the world to evil Sweeney Todd and his neighbour, Mrs Lovett — who conspire to make pies out of slain humans — doesn't exactly help.
1851: 500 million oysters are going through Billingsgate Market each year. Though London's had a thing with oysters since the 15th century (and even before that, Roman times), the mid 19th century marks a high-water mark, so to speak, with stalls hawking them on street corners everywhere, and working class Londoners slurping the bivalves down with gusto there and then. As Sam Weller points out in Charles Dickens's The Pickwick Paper, "poverty and oysters always seem to go together". By the end of the 19th century though, over-fishing means oyster eating is a culinary pursuit for the wealthier gastronome.
1860-ish: London's first fish and chip shop opens on 78 Cleveland Way in Bow, east London. It's run by Joseph Malin, a Jewish immigrant, and is thought to have opened somewhere between 1860 and 1865. In 1859's A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens (yup, it's that man again) has already referred to chips being sold in Paris: "Husky chips of potatoes, fried with some reluctant drops of oil".
1934: The Olivelli Italian restaurant in Store Street is possibly the first restaurant to serve pizza in London. In 1993, the new owner of the establishment found a shoebox stuffed with photos of celebrities, and a crumpled piece of paper bearing a recipe for 'Pizza Margherita'. Sadly, the historic item was later stolen.
1960s: While London's first kebab-peddling eatery, the Istanbul Restaurant, opens in Soho in the 1940s, it isn't for another 20 years or so that the mighty doner kebab is thought to arrived in the capital. The internet has it that Hodja Nasreddin Kebab House in Stoke Newington was the first place to serve Londoners doners, in 1966. Exclusively perhaps, but we found a Tatler article showing you could get your chops round a juicy doner at the International Restaurant in the swanky London Hilton hotel as early as 1963. Then we found another Tatler article, published in 1960, proving that Chez Auguste in Soho served doner kebabs on Thursday and Saturday nights, "... this is something special. Cooked on a vertical spit rotated by hand in front of a gas brazier, it consists of roast lamb and veal, garnish with sweet herbs, served with spiced rice, green peppers and grilled tomatoes." Not chips and a can of Dr Pepper, then.
November 1968: Kentucky Fried Chicken opens its first London branch, in North Finchley, although the capital is late to the finger lickin' party; Preston got a KFC in 1965.
1974: The UK's first McDonald's opens on Powis Street, Woolwich. Americans make a beeline from the West End to get their fix of a 'Mac Burger' (like the Big Mac, but smaller), fries and coffee all for 50p. "And we are hoping to have one restaurant bang in the centre of London," announces McDonald's's PR at the time. Wonder if they ever realised that dream...
1980: US burger chain Wendy's opens its first UK branch on Oxford Street, although for trademark reasons, it's called 'Wendy'. A second branch opens on Strand in 1981. The brand goes on to struggle in the UK, disappearing around the turn of the millennium, only to have a second coming in 2021, with its first new London branch in Stratford. Time Out lauds the hefty sides menu but begrudges not having the Preztel Bacon Pub Triple burger, as they do in the States.
1981: Newsround broadcasts a segment in which John Craven goes for a McDonald's in Hammersmith, demonstrating not only that fast food really is fast (25 seconds!), but that London is at the epicentre of a trend/epidemic that'll soon invade the rest of the UK. Wimpy, still using cutlery and china plates, is clearly quaking in its boots, although it's places like Trumps (not by you-know-who), and Huckleberry's featured in the Newsround that will eventually crash and burn. As of 2024, Wimpy still has 12 branches in London.
1985: Sri Lankan-born Kannalingham "Indran" Selvendran opens a family-run fried chicken shop on Sydenham High Street. It's called Morley's, and despite having far less in the way of marketing spend than the big players, the brand mushrooms thanks to a cult following — with the likes of fried chicken fans Stormzy and Krept using Morley's stores as backdrops for their videos. To date, Morley's has 100+ stores in south London and beyond.
1988: McDonald's opens its 300th UK restaurant in Dagenham.
2005: Look Around You delivers the best send-up of fast food of all time: the Big C casserole skit. (The clip below cuts out before the properly hilarious bit — for the full thing, check out this episode on BBC iPlayer.)
2006: Takeaway food delivery company Just Eat, which had been founded in Denmark in 2001, moves its base to London. In 2023, it generates £2.66 billion in revenue.
2012: The biggest McDonald's in the world opens in Stratford, east London, to feed hungry spectators as part of the 2012 Games. The irony is not lost on Londoners, although the chalet-style structure is only up for six weeks.
February 2013: Will Shu and Greg Orlowski found their online food delivery company Deliveroo, in London.
March 2014: The first episode of Amelia Dimoldenberg's Chicken Shop Date airs on YouTube, with grime MC Ghetts as her guest, at a Chicken Cottage in London. Dimoldenberg asks burning questions such as "Do you like pets, Ghetts?" The show goes onto huge acclaim, shot in a number of chicken shops across London, and attracting names including Ryan Reynolds and Cher.
15 March 2016: Nando's honours Croydon rapper Stormzy with a #MERKY Burger, the catch being it's a Photoshop jobbie and doesn't actually exist.
25 February 2019: In a bid to curb childhood obesity, TfL bans advertisements of junk food across London's transport network. In 2022 a study reveals the ban has been very effective, although it does mean that a poster for the show Off Menu is forced to replace a hotdog with a cucumber — something Ed Gamble cites as a "career highlight".
20 November 2021: The first Popeye's — a fried chicken joint originating in New Orleans — arrives at Stratford Westfield — shortly after Wendy's arrives here (see above). It's all going on in Stratford. (Fast food wise).
