Who has the audacity to say that ... even think it? Nobody is bigger than McDonald's Corp. (NYSE: MCD). After all, didn't McDonald's change the way we Americans eat? Didn't fast food and drive-thrus become the norm? Didn't McDonald's capture the hearts and, therefore, the appetite of every little kid with its Happy Meals and Ronald McDonald character? Didn't McDonald's even say that the world was ready for their menu and actually expand around the world? Even in France!

The answers to all the above questions is yes. McDonald's set the table (pardon the pun) to the way we view and eat fast food. Its success fostered major competitors like Burger King Holdings (NYSE: BKC), Wendy's International (NYSE: WEN) and Sonic Corp. (NASDAQ: SONC). It boasts a number of celebrities who have worked there in the past.

But McDonald's is still McDonald's. It has tried to be hip and cool by actually offering salads, but do you really go to a McDonald's to eat a salad? The movie Super Size Me did not do anything for its image either; yet McDonald's still marches on.

McDonald's went public in 1965 and a $2,250 investment back then would be worth nearly $2 million today. What a great success story; 31,000 units spread out over 119 countries. It is truly one great American export. The brand name alone is among the world's top 10 most recognizable and worth untold billions of dollars.

So, who is going to be bigger than McDonald's? The answer is Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX).

It was about eight months ago that a Starbucks opened on my corner here in SE Portland, Oregon. It wasn't much later that breakfast sandwiches, yummy-looking concoctions with eggs, cheese, sausage, black forest ham, spinach, and all kinds of savory goodness started appearing in the case. It was new to me, because the sandwiches were served warm, a big change from Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX)'s usual refrigerated deli-case fare.

Manhattan, prepare to be second in something for the first time. A wire story peaked up on my screen this morning: "Starbucks offers warm sandwiches, cookies in N.Y." I was wowed to see the menu items I've been getting in my own local 'Bucks will be rolled out in Manhattan Starbucks stores over the next several months, not arriving in all New York metro area locations until summer 2007.

I can't help but feel a bit superior as I trip back in my file photos and find a warm, toasty, delicious breakfast sandwich -- bacon, egg, and cheese -- taken back in April. Hee. Hee. Teehee.

It's an interesting peak into marketing strategy. Isn't New York always the first? And the press release about the warm sandwiches: I never saw one advertising warm sandwiches being rolled out in the Pacific Northwest. I guess we're first here in the rainy west, but Starbucks isn't bragging on us.