When it comes to counter-service food and drink, there are few more ubiquitous names than McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE:MCD) and Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ:SBUX).

The former, of course, is the longtime burger flipper with something of a tarnished reputation in an increasingly health-minded America. The other took coffee and turned it from a mere drink into a nationwide cultural revolution.

If you look at the past year, SBUX has run off with 25% gains vs. a slightly in-the-red MCD … but will momentum be enough to make Starbucks the better overall pick?

McDonald’s (MCD)

While McDonald’s hasn’t been hot of late, it has been one of the better stocks to own over the past few decades. MCD did, after all, transform the way Americans ate by popularizing fast food. It perfected the supply chain and assembly-line-style food prep, and offered meals for cheap.

It takes consistently great management teams decades to accomplish what McDonald’s has been able to do. There are more than 36,000 locations worldwide, so clearly, no single executive team can take credit for that amount of success.

The issue with McDonald’s is that it no longer appears to be that innovative world-beater it once was. McDonald’s has been stagnant for years, and sales woes even forced CEO Don Thompson to step down earlier this year.

Changing customer tastes — namely, from cheap to quality — has left McDonald’s reeling and suffering from a negative public perception.

The only positive that has come from MCD’s listless stock price has been a slow ballooning of its dividend to a current 3.5%.

Starbucks (SBUX)

Similar to McDonald’s, the beauty of Starbucks is that it produces a consistent product all around the world. But unlike McDonald’s, Starbucks never really focused on value — it always tried to convey a reputation of quality. It used to be that holding a cup of Starbucks coffee in the U.S. was something of a status symbol. While that isn’t the case here anymore, it still is elsewhere around the globe, including in China.

This type of marketing and brand power has given Starbucks the ability to raise prices on customers without losing market share — a very attractive quality for investors.

Now that Starbucks has gobbled up the coffee market, the company is expanding into tea, pastries and other food beverage items. These markets open up new streams of revenue for Starbucks, which should send the company’s $17 billion in annual sales even higher (perhaps eventually eclipsing McDonald’s $27 billion in a few years’ time).

Of course, the issue of adding food is that you have to compete not with other coffee shops, but the rest of the food & beverage industry, which means Starbucks’ products must be the best if the company wants to keep its stellar reputation and high price points. And, SBUX must do so while keeping production costs in line — something many companies struggle to do when expanding into offerings outside their expertise.

It will be interesting to see how this experiment works out. If it turns bad, it will be costly for the company and shareholders, and leave everyone wondering what Starbucks can do next to expand. If it works? More good times for SBUX.

Our First-Round Pick: SBUX

While McDonald’s perfected the fast-food concept, fast food is hurting, and McDonald’s own brand is now a handicap. Starbucks, on the other hand, is cherished by customers who are willing to pay for quality.

MCD certainly isn’t going to fall to $0 tomorrow, but the days of go-go growth are long gone and could be absent for some time. Meanwhile, we might be entering yet another ramp for SBUX.

This is a fairly easy pick. I like Starbucks to move on.

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As of this writing, Matt Thalman was long SBUX. You can follow him on Twitter at @mthalman5513.