How? Is rent lower for chain restaurants? Do they charge more than non-chain for the same food? And they still have the franchise fees on top of the same costs as the non-chain restaurants. How are chain restaurants surviving and others not?
I'd expect what nradov describes: That the space stays empty.
Sometimes they increase margin on price. But more often, they do it on labor and cost of goods. McDonalds takes no-skill workers, applies its systems, and spits out 5 billion cheeseburgers at five nines consistency. And then it buys in quantities that move world markets, unlike your locavore restaurant.
Five Guys will have lower margins, but still be 4-10x the margin of a one-off restaurant. Same for Cheesecake Factories, and all the Darden-owned restaurants.
The only reason fast-food franchises are better commercial tenants is because they're usually better capitalized than bespoke restaurants. (McDonalds franchises also don't worry about rent since the parent corporation owns all the land).
I don't have any specific insight into the EU, but in the other global markets I'm familiar with (mostly China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan) locations are either owned by McDonald's directly or franchised by large corporations that have significant bargaining power with (and sometimes are) landlords.
The China/HK franchise, for example, is operated by CITIC (a Chinese SOE) and Carlyle.
"The company owns about 45% of the land and 70% of the buildings at their 36,000+ locations (the rest is leased)."[1]
This article is from 2015, but I don't have any info that disputes it.
[1]https://blog.wallstreetsurvivor.com/2015/10/08/mcdonalds-bey...