>>when you're much more likely to get a nice little coffee shop\eatery.

Not sure why you are assuming it won't be a 7-11 or a Starbucks or a Subway or a McDonalds - because statistically, that is what you are going to get - drive thru almost any city , and that is what you have. Hoping you get some small mom-and-pop bakery is just a fantasy. Reality says you will get big well funded chain stores that most people don't want in their neighborhoods.

That's what you get in US cities who treat pedestrians as a 3rd class citizen behind cars and more cars, so again, it's due to lack of good city planning.

Walk through European cities and Asian cities and you see a nice mix of local and yes also bigger corporation shops. But you can also find in neighborhoods of some US cities such as NYC, Philadelphia, Boston, Seattle, etc.

But I also doubt most people wouldn't want a Starbucks down the street.

In a walkable neighborhood, the result may be different. For instance, NYC has a lot of local shops, enough that NY state as a whole has the lowest per-capita rate of fast food chains in the US. And I see multiple local coffee shops here for every 1 Starbucks (though Starbucks is still quite common; far more likely than a McDonald's). I think it may be related to walkability since chains are more common in NYC's more car-oriented neighborhoods.

Outside that, I still don't think you're most likely to get a McDonald's in the middle of a residential neighborhood: it'd most likely be a corner store, since that's what walkable areas are most full of. At least in NYC, it's uncommon to have fast food outside of a busy shopping street. The shops embedded in the middle of residential neighborhoods are largely corner stores and delis, and to a lesser extent cafes / bakeries and barber shops / hair salons.