McDonalds to open first pure-vegetarian outlet at Vaishno Devi next year

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McDonalds will open its first vegetarian-only restaurant at the foothills of the Vaishno Devi shrine at Katra, Jammu & Kashmir, next year. Further, the restaurant chain plans to open another pure vegetarian outlet near the Golden Temple, Amritsar, according to a report by Writankar Mukherjee and Rasul Bailay in The Economic Times. McDonalds has 33,000 outlets across 119 countries, serving 69 million customers everyday.

Worldwide, the beef-based Big Mac is McDonald's signature dish, but in India, vegetable products account for half of the restaurant’s menu and sales. The popular McAloo Tikki burger accounts for 25 per cent of the company's total sales, and there are plans for more vegetarian items. Vikram Bakshi, who manages McDonalds restaurants in East and North India as a joint venture partner of the US giant, said that there is no organised restaurant at Vaishno Devi to serve the one million pilgrims visiting the shrine every year. "Every time I go there, my resolve to open a restaurant there becomes stronger," he said. McDonalds has signed up a property at Katra. It opened its first outlet in Jammu last month, thus creating the necessary supply chain in the region.