College student with a few questions about daily life and culture in Poland

I am currently taking a marketing course in which we are studying the restaurant industry in Poland. The questions in this interview will be helpful in my research on how American marketing firms can research other countries to implement new or existing companies in new countries (similar to how KFC and McDonald's has done in the past). If you can, please answer the following questions in as much detail as possible. I appreciate your time and generosity with your assistance in my research.

1. How do people in Poland shop? Do they visit the market/grocery daily or stock up weekly as we do in the States.
2. What are the most popular restaurant chains in Poland? (Ex. McDonalds in U.S. is cheap and everywhere)
3. Storage of Food? (In refrigerators or market daily?)
4. What types of people frequent the milk bars? (Elderly people, university professors, students, etc.)
5. How often do they go to the milk bars? (Hours of Milk bars?)
6. How diverse are the restaurants and types of cuisine in Poland? What is the most popular?
7. Average price of a meal at a restaurant. (from prices at breakfast, lunch, and dinner compared high end to low end or regular restaurant)
8. According to our research that gifts such as Vodka, Flowers, Dessert should be given to the dinner host, but never carnations or white flowers, lilies. Are there any qualms in the Polish culture about certain themes, colors, words, etc. ?

9. Where are the restaurants located? (near certain major land marks, certain areas, etc. Ex: city centre, by a university, near major housing, etc.)
10. If you have any other comments or would like to mention something we have missed, by all means place it here.

Whenever we go to Warsaw or visit other cities/towns during summer vacation, we always frequent milk bars. I am a high school professor and my kids are elementary school pupils.

In Poland, as opposed to North America, cut flowers are offered in odd numbers, so you can even give a single flower. But this rule applies only to small number of flowers: one, three, five, seven, etc. and is of no importance for bigger bouquets. This rule is not due to a superstition of any sort, but it is due to compositional consideration - three flowers look better than two in a bouquet, five look better than four and so on. This guide also applies to grouping flowers with similar features - preferable composition are groups of three or five flowers. It is of no importance for large bouquets because then the number of flowers is unnoticeable and the composition principles are not ruined.

However, even number of cut flowers is usually reserved for funeral ceremonies.

Avoid giving flowers that are specific to certain circumstances. For example, do not offer chrysanthemums or calla lilies (Pl: kalie) to your friends, because they are associated with funeral ceremonies - unless they are their favourite flowers and you know for sure that they will not evoke any unpleasant associations. Carnations could as well to be avoided, because for many people of the older generation, they are associated with communism; they were the only flowers readily available everywhere then.

To avoid blunders, you might want to know what is the symbolism of flowers and of their colours. This is not a rigid binding canon, but if a recipient of a bouquet attaches heavy weight to such symbolism, it is better to avoid unnecessary embarrassment. It is good to know, for example, that the white colour indicates innocence, red - hot feelings, and yellow - jealousy.

Formerly it was thought that a bouquet of red flowers, especially roses and carnations, could be only given to a woman by a man of her life. Today, this rule is not adhered to rigorously. But it is worth to know the "language of flowers", especially when you are shy and you have problems to verbally express your feelings. At the same time, please remember that these days trends and habits change rapidly, so the symbolism of flowers should be treated with tongue in cheek.

Here is a link, in Polish, to a very long list of various flowers and their associated symbols, asflor.pl/mowa.htm

Personally, I never cared for such symbols and offered flowers, which I liked myself, for example freesias. But here are some examples:
Freesia - Give me your love
White Freesia - Delicacy, only with you
Red Freesia - I'm happy with your presence
Lilac freesia - You intimidate me
Pink freesia - Let us dream, flirt
:-)