There's some increasingly big competition out there for the likes of McDonald's, Domino's and KFC. We take a look at six of this new wave of fast food chains taking on the traditional heavyweights.

Move over Domino's and Pizza Hut, there's a new kid in town. MOD Pizza first opened its doors in Seattle in 2008 after founders Scott and Ally Svenson turned their love of authentic street pizza and the UK Mod movement of the 60s and 70s into a fast food pizza restaurant.

Their aim was to create a place where busy families could go for a quick, affordable meal. This was when the first original super-fast pizza was born. MOD pizzas are made in front of customers to allow them to choose from a number of different toppings, all for the same price.

The completed pizzas are cooked in just three minutes; a service not currently offered by any other fast food pizza chain.

After successfully taking off the in US, MOD has now made its way over to the UK. First launched in Leeds, MOD said its model tends to fare best in areas where there is a "strong sense of community". The chain also looks to hire staff from an underprivileged background to allow them a better chance. The chain is now located in several cities across the UK and doesn't plan to stop there.

Swooping in on McDonald's burger and milkshake fans is gourmet fast food joint Shake Shack. In 2001, restaurateur Danny Meyer opened up Shake Shack as a humble hot dog and hamburger cart in Madison Square Park, New York City, to support a local community art project. Diners lined up for three days straight to get a taste, leading Meyer to open a new kiosk-style restaurant in Madison Square Park itself, which became Shake Shack's first official restaurant (pictured).

Meyer, who owns upmarket eateries like the Gramercy Tavern, expanded the menu but, in keeping with his high standards, only uses the best-quality produce. His hamburger meat was from the same butcher that supplied his high-end restaurants and the “special sauce” was made in the kitchen of his Michelin-starred eatery Eleven Madison Park (later sold in 2011).

The menu began featuring the likes of SmokeShack, a classic cheeseburger topped with 'ShackSauce' and all-natural smoked Niman Ranch bacon, crinkle-cut fries smothered in cheese sauce, which soon became its signature dish. The equally famous frozen custard can be had in a cone, as a shake or as a concrete (a shake-like drink where the custard is mixed with ingredients like malted marshmallow sauce and cookie dough).

Due to popular demand, in 2010 Shake Shack started expanding, opening up in locations throughout New York and in Miami. By 2015, there were 63 locations all around the world, including London (pictured), Moscow, Dubai, Istanbul and Kuwait City.

In January 2015, Meyer (pictured) took the company public. Shake Shack’s stock price soared to highs of $92 (£71) by mid-May 2016.

Later that year, Shake Shack announced a price hike to offset the rising minimum wages across America. Shake Shack has always maintained that its staff be paid above minimum wage.

The move could be the reason the company’s share price has dipped. But it hasn’t lost its sizzle. Today, you can get yourself a ShackStack at Shake Shacks in South Korea, Turkey, Kuwait, Bahrain, Japan, Russia and Saudi Arabia, amongst others.

Teasing KFC lovers over to the spicier side of chicken, is Nando's, the peri-peri chicken restaurant the world has gone mad for. The chain was first founded in 1987 in Rosettenville, South Africa, after Fernando Duarte invited his friend Robbie Brozin to sample mouth-watering peri-peri chicken at local café Chickenland. They borrowed money from friends and family and bought the business and renamed it Nando's.

They soon opened a second eatery in Johannesburg, where diners loved their Afro-Portuguese menu featuring whole, half or quarter chickens, marinated in spices and served with chips and salad.

Nando's opened its first London outlet in 1992.

In 2011, the dining format was tweaked from a simple take-out model to a combination of counter and table service. A step-up from McDonald’s, but more relaxed than other restaurants, the world began to love this casual way of dining.

Nearly three decades later the business has grown to over 1,000 outlets around the world as far reaching as Australia, Bangladesh and Namibia. Global chief executive Andrew Lynch recently revealed that Nando's plans to increase the number of restaurants in the UK by 30 every year, and add 20 to 30 annually in the rest of the world.

People can’t get enough of its famous peri-peri sauce, so Nando's began selling a range in supermarkets around the world.

Among its legion of fans are some famous faces including David Beckham, Beyoncé, Rihanna and Ed Sheeran (pictured), who even posted a picture of his special members-only Nando's card on his Instagram account, which has millions of followers.

Competing with Burger King and McDonald's, American burger company Five Guys started in Washington DC in 1986 after Jerry Murrell gave his four eldest sons an ultimatum: go to college or use your college fund to start a restaurant. They choose the latter and used $70,000 (£54,000) to open their first eatery in Virginia (pictured).

Originally Five Guys referred to Murrell and his four sons Jim, Matt, Chad and Ben. But when fifth son Tyler was born in 1987, Five Guys officially became about the siblings. By then they wanted to open a second store but the banks said no, so they turned to 100 friends and acquaintances and asked for loans of $10,000 (£7,717) to $30,000 (£23,151).

Despite rapid expansion – Five Guys had five stores in the DC metro area alone by 2001 – Murrell was adamant about keeping the menu the same, serving good-quality burgers and fries. The hand-cut fries are never frozen and the burgers are juicy with the open kitchen allowing customers to see exactly how their burgers are made.

In 2002 they decided to franchise the company. Former Washington Redskin kicker Mark Moseley came on board as the head of franchising. Within three days the franchising rights in Virginia sold out.

News of Five Guys' delicious burgers spread and the fans grew, including some famous faces like former US President Barack Obama, who stopped by in 2009 with an entire camera crew in tow for a couple of burgers.

Despite the company’s incredible growth, Jerry Murrell, his wife Janie and those five guys remain incredibly dedicated to the business. The seven of them live within driving distance of each other, meet every Tuesday at 1pm to talk business and decisions can only be made by unanimous vote.

At present there are over 1,500 outlets across the world and the company reports plans for a further 1,500 in the coming years.

Also in the race for the burger crown is Carl's Jr, which has been trying to push McDonald's, Burger King and Wendy's for years. Carl Karcher (pictured) and his wife Margaret founded the predecessor of burger chain Carl's Jr. back in 1941, after starting as a hot dog cart in Los Angeles. Just four years later, the Karchers moved to Anaheim and opened their first restaurant, Carl’s Drive-In Barbeque.

As the restaurant started to become more successful, Karcher expanded the business by opening the first two Carl’s Jr. restaurants in Anaheim, initially because they were smaller versions of Carl’s traditional drive-in restaurant.

But the name stuck, and the chain soon expanded to have almost 4,000 franchises across 44 states and 38 countries.

In 2014, the chain introduced the ‘All-Natural Burger’, which featured all-natural, grass-fed, free-range beef with no added hormones or steroids, becoming the first of the major fast food chains to offer an all-natural beef patty. The following year, the company introduced the ‘All-Natural Turkey Burger’, also an industry first.

Despite its success, Carl's Jr. is infamous for its provocative and racy advertising campaigns featuring supermodels such as Heidi Klum, Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton.

The supermodel-centric marketing strategy was launched in 2005 and showed Paris Hilton washing a car in a bikini – aimed at bringing “hungry, young guys” to restaurants. Although research found over 50% of viewers found it offensive, Carl defended the marketing in the name of success.

In-N-Out Burger has also been taking the world by storm recently, eating McDonald's leftovers left, right and center. But despite its more recent fame, it was actually founded back in 1948, by newlyweds Harry and Esther Synder, as California’s first drive-thru hamburger stand.

The In-N-Out name derived from the first venue, which had a two-way speaker system for drive-thru ordering. The intercom system meant you could literally drive “in and out” of the tiny hamburger shack. Up until this point, the norm were drive-ins with carhops who took your order and delivered your food.

Although In-N-Out is headquartered in Irvine, California, it has slowly expanded away from California into areas such as Arizona, Nevada, Texas, Oregon and Utah, with hundreds of stores across these states.

However, the chain has actually resisted franchising its operations or going public, mainly due to the prospect of quality of customer service being jeopardized by size. The chain continues to be adored for its 'animal-style' sauce, which consists of cheese and thousand island sauce. Customers can add it to fries or their burgers.

People around the world are now so keen to get a bite of In-N-Out that, when it opened a pop-up in London for just four hours, hundreds of people lined up to sample its goods.