I will never understand the American obsession with mediocre fast food. I watched this happen with literally every new fast food place that opened in a small city off an interstate in Alabama. I can at least understand why small towns get excited for something new, but it's always just shitty food or in this case just some fucking chicken tenders?
My experience in the US is that as soon as you leave a densely populated area, the good, interesting food options drop off a cliff. In car dependent suburbia, these are often the best they have
Sometimes, yeah.
But I've been to plenty of rural areas that have great Mexican restaurants and Hmong restaurants but most of the white people there preferred to eat at an Arby's. Some of those white people were friends and they simultaneously acted like they didn't even know those restaurants existed and as if it were somehow risky to go there.
For those instances, I'd suggest that it has to do with a few factors:
more rural areas tend to be more right leaning,
https://source.washu.edu/2020/02/the-divide-between-us-urban-rural-political-differences-rooted-in-geography/
right leaning people are more likely to be more racist,
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/08/12/deep-divisions-in-americans-views-of-nations-racial-history-and-how-to-address-it/
and right leaning people tend to be more uncomfortable with things they are unfamiliar with
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S019188699900135X
I'm sure that is related but as my friends were "progressive" Democrats we might need to use a wider definition of what it means to be right wing. Plenty of "progressive" white people still have racist hangups.
Plenty of "progressive" white people still have racist hangups.
Some of them think they aren't racist when they see the world as a series of tourist attractions and try to flex on their dinner guests by bragging about the authentic exotic experiences they had with authentic foreign people while wandering into tourist traps.
Oh 100%
Also, people are influenced by the beliefs of their community, even if they don't agree on everything.
I have had good chicken tenders from restaurants, but never chains. Chains I don't understand why people get them. For the same price and better taste you can just go to the store, get some frozen ones and pick them in the air fryer. Heck season them a bit and I'd argue they're the same as any fast food ones
This was the case in my town when In-n'-Out burger opened up. The line there is still huge years later now after it opened. We tried it to see what the big deal was and it was...slightly better than Burger King? Yet it costs the same as a local burger joint who have way better food. I do not understand American taste buds.
Yeah I actually live on the West coast now and saw that in a nearby city that has a lot of options for food. I actually really like in n out but I don't like any food enough to wait in a line like this. I would skip at least one meal first.
Before I left CA, I remember seeing one of these fucking places opening up in my area. Yes, the line was very long and remained so for months every time I went past it.
Why?
I really, really don't understand treat hogs that can wait an hour or longer for that, sucking in exhaust all the while.
I will never understand how someone can justify waiting in their car for over 40 minutes for fried chicken. Not to mention the parking lot is empty! How do they not just think "I'll just park and go in"?
Seriously I don't even wait at nicer restaurants for an hour. I'll find something else.
It truly is car brain, including the car brain belief that drive thru is always faster.
As a former drive thru worker, I can tell you that that is untrue, but the drive thru chuds were pretty much definitively more aggressive, more obnoxious, and more likely to further delay the transaction by being boomer assholes and inspecting their food and making petty demands if anything is even slightly out of place (or if they're fishing for a refund and lying).
Hey, also former drive thru worker! Unless drive thru was pretty much empty it was almost always guaranteed to be a longer wait. Exact same experience as you, people took longer getting situated in their cars slowing everyone else down
And god help me how in the living hell do you wait for over 10 minutes in a freaking drive thru only to get to the menu and say "uhmmmm what do I waaaant....". Ffs it's a MCDONALDS. You're going to order the number 3 and a diet coke like you do all the time Sharon.
And god help me how in the living hell do you wait for over 10 minutes in a freaking drive thru only to get to the menu and say "uhmmmm what do I waaaant...."
My most common and hated experience every day in drive thru:
bing
static
recorded pitch starts
"UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH* "UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH*minute or two passes, horns honking
"ARE YOU THERE?! HELLO?! HELLO?!"
In my town there is usually a long drive thru line for Raising Canes, but it snakes around the parking lot rather than the stroad. The few times I go there I park, walk in, and walk out with my food before the person who would have been ahead of me at the drive thru has even ordered.
I would quit the first day as worker there seeing that line.
Raising Cane's is such a garbage operation. HQ staff had to help run some stores to meet opening dates. They couldn't get enough staff to open on time because "no one wants to work anymore."
People's argument:"Yeah m'aurica, those fat bastards"
But hey Europe, do you remember post covid when the first fastfoot reopened? Yeaaaah exactly, the same happend every where in the world post covid...
We are just addicted to processed food, sugar and whatever ! Before laughing about our neighbors, take some time and look at your own plates see if they are all shiny and such.
