At the midpoint of the London Olympics, official restaurant sponsor McDonald’s reports that turnover through the world’s biggest burger restaurant is running at twice the expected rate.

As the photo here shows, the 20-register mega-restaurant with a staff of 500 constructed at the Olympic Village has been constantly crammed with customers since the Games commenced.

McDonald’s, a top Olympics sponsor with exclusive rights to sell branded food products inside the venue, says its two-story restaurant can seat 1500 diners at a time and was designed to serve up to 14,000 people a day. Actual throughput has been up to 27,000 customers daily.

If each ordered a Quarter Pounder, the volume of beef patties required would be 3.4 tonnes a day.

McDonald’s imported 2000 of its best staffers to run four outlets at the Olympics venue: the vast flagship site, another restaurant for spectators, one in the Athletes’ Village and a fourth in the Media Centre.

All will be dismantled after the Games end, and executives stressed the efforts to which designers have gone to ensure that the restaurants conform to Olympic organisers’ sustainability ambitions.

Three-quarters of the furniture and fittings at the flagship restaurant are set to be reused in other McDonald’s restaurants after the Games conclude, and special waste-sorting facilities will ensure that most garbage gets recycled, executives said. All the beef  comes from British farms, McDonald's said.