Goody’s Burger House

Three partners, Ioannis Dionisiadis, Achilleas Folias and Nikolaos Pappas, opened the first Goody’s in Thessaloniki in 1973. It grew into the country’s leading fast-food chain, was taken over by the food group Delta in a hostile bid in 2001, and is now part of Vivartia, headquartered in Spata, east of Athens. In 2014 it renamed itself Goody’s Burger House to lean on what it sells most.

What makes Goody’s Greek is the patty. The company says it is made in Greece to a traditional recipe: beef kneaded with rusk crumbs, egg, spices and herbs, more like a Greek biftéki than an American hamburger patty, and cooked only on the grill. Most burgers come in three versions: Classic, the larger Extreme on a brioche bun, and Small Farms, with a patty of beef from small Greek farms.

Goody’s is also a fixture of Greek popular culture, from a hand-drawn 1984 television advert by the animator Costas Kapakas to the Junior Goody’s kids’ meals with Dragon Ball and Shrek toys, and a 2018 campaign built on a slang phrase that split the country. The menu runs from burgers and club sandwiches to breaded chicken fillets and salads.

About 150 restaurants, almost all of them in Greece.

• Patty & Bun (United Kingdom, since 2012). The London burger joint that names its burgers after TV characters and soul singers. Also built on beef, bacon and cheese.
• Burgermeister (Germany, since 2006). The Berlin burger chain that started in an old public toilet under the U-Bahn. Also built on beef, bacon and cheese.
• Honest Burgers (United Kingdom, since 2009). The London burger chain that comes with rosemary salted chips. Also built on beef, bacon and cheese.
• Sunset Boulevard (Denmark, since 1996). Denmark’s biggest home-grown fast-food chain: a sandwich shop from Odense that became a burger chain with a béarnaise habit. Also built on beef, bacon and cheese.