As the story goes, McDonalds had a very sophisticated system for finding locations. They were constantly doing geographical analysis, looking at development plans, and so on. Meanwhile Burger King did not. Burger King would look where they were opening a McDonalds and try to place a store nearby.
Eventually Burger King figured out that the McDonalds' locations were generally more prominent and easily accessible than their own. For example, a McDonalds might be convenient to rush hour traffic, while the nearby Burger King was on the wrong side of the freeway or required a U turn to access. They may have also realized that, when given the choice, more people prefer McDonalds. Their copycat approach was hurting sales.
Eventually, Burger King built up their own location-finding capabilities and started locating stores in places where McDonalds was not.
A simple rule of thumb for fast food, petrol stations and other "drive by" businesses is that they will position themselves on the side of the road dominated by "homeward" traffic.
Most folk in the morning are anxious to get to work on time.
But on the way home, you can catch them on an impulse.
It's not an ironclad rule, but look around and you'll see what I mean.
Having worked closely with a Mcdonald's franchisee for some time, I'm pretty sure your observations are merely anecdotal. If you look at Mcdonald's revenues by average franchise, and adjust for number of hours served, breakfast & dinner revenues are roughly equal (in the simplest case just measuring rush hour breakfast revenues of 7-9am with rush hour dinner revenues of 5:30-7:30pm).
Anecdotally the petrol station thing aligns with my experience, and my preference for filling up on the way home.
Slightly different situation for Mcdonalds though - they're trying to market convenient, fast breakfast food to morning commuters. If the location is most convenient to city-bound traffic, I think it would have a bigger positive impact on morning revenue than the corresponding negative impact on evening revenue. People are in a hurry in the morning!
This reminds me of the second mover advantage aka fast followers. You are essentially letting the first mover do the hard work looking for validation while you use it as an opportunity to iterate. If one is only considering payoffs, the Nash equilibrium is clear. However when taking initial costs into account, these fast followers can generate higher profit margins just by this scavenger mentality. For more on this concept, check out the area of economics known as judo strategy.
I've heard this story one better. According to my father (a physician), hospitals being established in cities used McDonalds as a proxy for good locations or at least narrowing their search.
I have no idea how accurate this actually is, but it seems to have at least urban legend status among doctors.
Eventually Burger King figured out that the McDonalds' locations were generally more prominent and easily accessible than their own. For example, a McDonalds might be convenient to rush hour traffic, while the nearby Burger King was on the wrong side of the freeway or required a U turn to access. They may have also realized that, when given the choice, more people prefer McDonalds. Their copycat approach was hurting sales.
Eventually, Burger King built up their own location-finding capabilities and started locating stores in places where McDonalds was not.