Ok, let me elaborate on that. Peggy Sue's is a traditional American burger bar located in San José's San Pedro Square restaurant district. The type of food it serves would be instantly recognisable to anyone who has ever eaten at that place with the big yellow M. You get burgers with a variety of fillings; you get fries in a variety of shapes; you get milk shakes and coffee. You even get to order at the counter, just like you do in any fast food outlet.

So what is the difference? Firstly what you get is food, not processed organic produce that has been scientifically optimised to provide the maximum speed of delivery at minimum cost. There is much more variety too. Peggy Sue's has a wide range of different burgers on offer, and you have to love a place that calls one of its offerings the "Ed Sullivan" because "it is the most boring thing we sell".

The décor is different too. Whereas a McDonalds is clinically low maintenance and inoffensive, Peggy Sue's is overflowing with American culture. About half of the walls are covered in movie posters and photos of movie stars. The rest are covered in pictures of sporting heroes. Given San Pedro Square's proximity to the Shark Tank, most of the sport emphasis is on ice hockey. There are signed hockey sticks hanging everywhere.

Basically Peggy Sue's is the sort of place that you expect real teenagers to hang out (or at least they might have done in the 50s before they discovered drugs). It has style, it has character, it has a pinball machine and bubble gum dispensers. What is more, you won't find a store exactly like it in every town centre in every country in the world.

Of course this is not the sort of place that you would go for gourmet food. Burgers are burgers, after all. I was particularly disappointed with the milk shakes because, in the American style, they tasted more of sugar than anything else. I wish I had tried the cheesecake instead. But it is cheap, it is convenient, it is fun, and it doesn't make you feel like part of a factory production line.