Max Burgers

Curt Bergfors and Britta Fredriksson opened the first Max in 1968 in Gällivare, a mining town in Swedish Lapland. The name came from Bergfors’s nickname, borrowed from the actor Max von Sydow. For two decades Max was a northern Swedish thing, with just one restaurant outside Norrland, before expanding across the country in the 1990s.

It has a rare distinction: it beat McDonald’s on home turf. In 1991 McDonald’s closed its restaurants in Umeå and Luleå, where Max was already dominant, and in 2007 it pulled out of several more northern towns. Max is still family-owned, and it prints the climate footprint of every burger on its menu, something few chains do.

About 155 restaurants in Sweden, plus branches in Poland, Norway, Denmark and, through franchising, Egypt.

• Hans im Glück (Germany, since 2010). The Munich burger grill with birch trunks inside and a fairy-tale name. Also built on beef and cheese.
• Jim Block (Germany, since 1973). Hamburg’s own burger chain since 1973, the burger sister of the Block House steakhouses. Also built on beef and cheese.
• Pasibus (Poland, since 2013). Wrocław’s food-truck burger brand turned Polish chain, with freshly ground beef and cheeky names. Also built on beef and cheese.
• Eddie Rocket's (Ireland, since 1989). Ireland’s favourite 1950s-style American diner chain, serving Irish-beef burgers and shakes since 1989. Also built on beef and cheese.