Fast Food: First Big Marx, Now Big Mac

The Soviet Union may be more outward-looking under Mikhail Gorbachev, but a feature on Moscow television last week was nonetheless a stopper. The news program International Panorama showed a favorable five-minute report on McDonald's. Filmed at one of its restaurants in New York City, the segment highlighted the efficiency of the fast-food operation, an uncommon tribute in a land devoted to disdaining capitalism. The salute encouraged McDonald's to hope that its ten-year effort to open restaurants in the Soviet Union will at last succeed.

But Pizza Hut also hopes to win the fast-food race to Moscow. The PepsiCo subsidiary announced that it was in the final stages of negotiations to put as many as 100 Pizza Huts in the Soviet Union beginning in late 1987.