If you're a Curbed fan you probably saw these when they were posted, but I'm still catching up with my reading, so please forgive my tardiness in blogging about the Astoria fast-food conspiracy. If it's indeed a plot by the Greeks to reclaim their turf and replace seedy chain restaurants with seedy tavernas, I'm all for it and I'll be on the next N train out there.

(Edit: The below excerpt speculates that the Greek community wants to keep out "a certain ethnic group that really loves fried foods," but in my case I just want to keep out the fast-food industry. No need to read anything more into my post.)

Wanted to tell you about whats going down up on the Ditmars area in Astoria. First of all, Burger King closed without any explanation, which was really odd because it was popular (busy).

THEN..... McDonalds burned down in a "mysterious" 3-alarm Fire.

THIRD.... KFC "lost its lease".......how does a billion dollar international company lose its lease?

All of these places had been operating for years. And you can't blame gentrification; there are still lots of nasty-ass shops on the 31st street where these places are. One dude who tried to raise the rent on the medical office space he owned has had to eat about 14 months of vacancy.

The upshot of this is that there are now no fast food joints near the Ditmars station. Been hearing some wispers that it's some sort of Greek conspiracy to keep out a certain ethnic group that really loves fried foods.