It smelled of juicy burgers, flipped by a cheerful Iranian teenager named Jahan. His kitchen was crowned with a flashing logo that looked remarkably similar to the golden arches of McDonalds, perhaps the best-known symbol of American fast-food imperialism.
The global chains other well-known trademark, the white-faced, ever-smiling clown with a red jacket, yellow pants and red oversize shoes, was also present on a large poster waving to lure customers.
No, McDonalds has not opened in Tehran only weeks aftera nuclear deal was reachedthat will ease international sanctions and possibly portend a change in Iranian revolutionary attitudes toward American companies.
This is Mash Donalds,Irans homegrown version.
We are trying to get as close as we can get to the McDonalds experience, said the owner, Hassan, who did not want his family name published out of fear of Iranian hard-liners and American trademark lawyers.
He was rearranging the red plastic chairs outside his hole-in-the-wall restaurant, placing them next to a bright yellow trash can.
Mash Donalds and other knockoffs of American food culture are increasingly dominating the streets of major Iranian cities, symbols of the increasing disruption to the official revolutionary anti-American narrative that has more or less predominated since the 1979 overthrow of the shah and the siege of the American Embassy.
This narrative is about to come under even more pressure if the nuclear agreement succeeds and Western companies return. Irans leaders are hoping for major petroleum companies to invest, since the country has some of the worlds largest reserves of oil. The Iranians also need hundreds of airplanes and are seeking partnerships for their technology industries.
But the arrival of foreigners with money and different ideas might also further undermine the values propagated by the state, hard-liners warn. Their message: Foreigners can come, but they cannot bring their symbols of capitalist indulgences.
So when perusers of the corporate website for the real McDonalds noticed recently that aninternational franchise application for Iranhad been posted, it created quite a buzz here. Some politicians were quick to warn that there would be no McDonalds in Iran.
In astatement on its website, apparently meant to calm but not kill the speculation, McDonalds said, We have not set a firm date for the development of McDonalds restaurants in Iran, while also inviting any Iranians interested in a franchise opportunity to complete the application.
Gholamali Haddad Adel, an influential lawmaker, said he was dismayed when looking at the front pages of some Iranian newspapers, seeing their giddy accounts of foreign businesses expected to come to Iran.
Where is the news of the oppressed people of Yemen? They speak of the return of McDonalds, he said in an interview on Khabaronline, a conservative website. Here lies a danger. They are opening their arms wide for the United States and zealously talk about its companies.
Iran is not exactly uncharted territory for McDonalds, which had outlets here before the 1979 revolution.
In 1994, a brave Iranian entrepreneur sought to open an official franchise of the hamburger giant in Tehran, exciting many citizens but also drawing the attention of hard-liners. After two days, the restaurant site was burned down, and the judiciary overruled the Health Ministry decision that had allowed the restaurant to open.
If I had called my restaurant McDonalds, Id get a visit from the hard-liners, the Mash Donalds owner said, wearing a red cap embroidered with an M.
So my son advised me to go for Mash Donalds, he said. It sort of sounds the same.
Government officials and vigilantes for revolutionary purity still visited to inquire about the name, saying it was too Western. After a while, they got used to it, the owner said.
No genuine American food chain has an outlet in Iran, mainly because of the governments hostility and the sanctions that make such businesses impossible. Instead, American fast-food replicas have proliferated, with quirky changes in the names to give the owners some plausible deniability.
Besides Mash Donalds, Tehran has a K.F.C. (Kabooki Fried Chicken) a Pizza Hut (Pizza Hat) and a Burger King (Burger House).
The official distaste for American-brand products is by no means absolute. Coca-Cola and Pepsi, to take two examples, are ubiquitous here, to the surprise of many visitors. It is also no crime for an Iranian to chat on an iPhone, jog in a pair of Nikes or brush with Crest.
When President Hassan Rouhanis more conservative predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, threatened to impose a boycott of American products in 2010 after the United States imposed tough new sanctions, many Iraniansridiculed the idea.
At Mash Donalds, Hassan, the owner, said he used the McDonalds logo to attract customers.
McDonalds means quality. People in Iran know this too. So they stop here when they see Ronald McDonald, he said, pointing at the clown poster.
The resemblance to the American counterpart stops at the food. On a Photoshopped poster outside showing a McDonalds truck, an advertisement beckons: Try our Mash Donalds 1.5 foot long super sandwich. Another poster reads: Mash Donalds Falafel sandwich!? The falafel sandwich costs $2.10, the 1.5-foot-long sandwich about $3.75.
Inside, Jahan and a co-worker, Karim, stood for hours amid the smell of old frying oil, making the Mash Donalds version of the Big Mac.
Instead of calling it the Big Mash, however, the owner chose Mash Donalds baguette burger, a hefty mix of meat, cheese and turkey ham (cost: about $3).
It is not the kind of meal Hassan would eat himself. I prefer my wifes home cooking, he said. Fast food makes you super fat.
Mash Donalds customers, however, are happy with the food on offer.
This Falafel sandwich is fantastic, said Siavash Mirteki, 29, a navy conscript from Isfahan. But, he added, of course if McDonalds comes, Ill go there too. When I went on pilgrimage to Mecca we would go to McDonalds every evening.
One day, Hassan said, he would like to really represent McDonalds, but he doubted that would happen anytime soon.
In our country, we have two governments, Hassan said. President Rouhani represents the official one, he said, complimenting him for seeking to improve relations with the United States.
But there are other groups, too, that still dont like America, he said. They can barely tolerate Mash Donalds, let alone the real thing.
This article was written by for the opinion page of The New York Times on AUG. 3, 2015
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