Meatless fast food restaurants are catching in

McDonald's, known worldwide as the “standard-bearer of the hamburger,” will be opening its first two vegetarian restaurants in India in 2013, BBC reports.

The fast food giant will be setting up the meat-free outlets near the Golden Temple in the Sikh holy city of Amritsar and the small northwestern town of Katra, which is located near the Hindu Vaishno Devi shrine, India's second busiest pilgrimage spot, notes the Financial Times.

The vegetarian outlets are part of an ongoing effort by the fast food chain to increase its popularity in a country that has yet to fully embrace the franchise.

“There is a big opportunity for vegetarian restaurants as many Indians are vegetarian,” said Rajesh Maini, a spokesperson for McDonald's in northern India. “At the moment, India is still a very small market — we just have 271 restaurants in India, and across the world, we have nearly 33,000.”

(BBC)