mcDonalds in Poland used to be the luxury brand. This is the part Americans don't get.

It used to be the new, western chain that you only saw in American movies, and then you could experience it for yourself. When I was a kid (middle / solid working class family), we'd semi-regularly do mcDonalds trips as a treat. The experience of going to mcDonalds because you were too poor to do anything else was unthinkable to us.

Other brands that are staples of the American experience were also like this. CocaCola definitely comes to mind here; most of our tapwater is drinkable, and bottled water is much cheaper than coke, so that was the default option for most people, along with coffee and tea of course.

Somebody did the calculations on Polish Twitter recently, and apparently taking a 4-person family to Pizza Hut in the early 2000s used to cost more than our average daily wage.