Tag: fast food

Posted in Food, Life

A slow food restaurant

Posted on by William Douthwaite

As we walked into the restaurant, I noticed this sign at the host station. This was a small breakfast/lunch place with both indoor and outdoor seating, lots of diners enjoying a meal or a cup of coffee brought by the waiters. No drive through window. No tablet ordering kiosks. Nothing resembling a fast food restaurant.

So I couldn’t help but wonder, “What have you experienced here that would make you order and post such a sign?”

I didn’t get the chance to ask anyone that question, but I can just imagine some of the comments and behaviors they have had to deal with. Patience is a virtue, but it is not a common virtue. People want want they want when they want it, and generally, they want it right now.

There may be another dozen tables in the restaurant, but some want you to get to work on their order immediately. Ten minutes has become too long to wait for food?

It could be that people just don’t cook that much at home. They forget how long it takes to prepare a meal. The longest they ever have to wait is two minutes for something to come out of the microwave.

I wonder if the customers who need to read that sign are the ones who see those words? Does a sign like that silence the impatient and demanding clientele? Do words like that really change anyone’s behavior? Do folks read that and react, “OK. I guess I’ll go somewhere else”?

If you don’t have time to wait for a table, don’t have time to sit and have something to drink and look over the menu, don’t have time to wait for the cook to prepare your food, and have to eat and run, then why did you come here at all?

There is something so nice about not having to rush, not having to cook, and not having to clean up. You can focus on the people you’re with, enjoy the place and sometimes the view, and be off the clock for a while.

Posted in Food

Burger King!

Posted on by William Douthwaite

I vividly remember when the Burger King came to Ridley Park. I don’t remember the year, but I it was somewhere around 6th or 7th grade, so that would put it about 1969? Not only did it come to our town, but they built the restaurant less than a quarter mile from my house. We were so excited! All we had to do was walk down the hill and down the pike (Chester Pike) and we were there.

These were the years when fast food franchises started popping up everywhere. I can’t remember if there was a McDonald’s in town. But there was a Gino’s where we would sometimes get a sack of hamburgers for supper. Wendy’s and Arby’s didn’t arrive till high school.

Now just because Burger King was a stone’s throw away doesn’t mean I went there very often. But it seemed like all the other kids on the block did. They always seemed to have money for fries or a coke. My parents only gave us money on allowance day. I might have gotten $1 a week or maybe every two weeks when my dad got paid. Even though a burger only cost about $.15 back then, I didn’t often blow an allowance on fast food. Come to think of it, I don’t think I was even allowed to go there by myself.

In retrospect, I’m amazed at how enthralled I was with fast food while growing up. It was new, convenient, exciting and delicious for young palettes. I ate plenty in college and as a young adult. Now, I hardly ever eat fast food. Chick-fil-A might be the exception, but even’t that’s getting old. Either that, or I am.

Posted in annoying people

Motionless

Posted on by William Douthwaite

2087561_fed-up1_jfxeaqbh63vorhnrwcs4oomcjs2ptt7hevj74cagwi5qbj2htjuq_757x567On the way home from the Orlando airport, I stopped at a McDonald’s on 436. (Yes, I know, two visits to McDonald’s in just a few months. Don’t worry; I worked it off.)

Not much of a line, not much of a wait. Order placed, money paid. One white car ahead of me at the pick-up window. Sweet. This won’t take long.

They get their drink and their bag, and they…just sit there. No movement. OK, maybe they are waiting for one more item. I’m in no hurry. How long could it be?

Much longer than I thought. Ten minutes later, with a line of at least a dozen cars behind me, no movement. Horns start beeping. People are getting out of their cars, looking to see what’s going on. One person gets out of his car and walks up to the car ahead of mine, looking in the window. Another guy demands his food from the payment window and roars off. I’m stuck in-between windows and can’t do that.

Now it’s been fifteen minutes, and still no movement. Won’t the car start? Have the people inside expired? Should we call 911? No one gets in or out of the cars, but suddenly, a blue car ahead of the motionless car, that I hadn’t seen before, guns it and squeals out into the road. The roadblocking white car keeps up, burning rubber out onto a busy 436.

So what was going on up there? Finishing up a phone call? Watching a video? An argument? Yelling at the kids? Simply oblivious to the world around them? Possibly all of the above. Just because they call it fast food doesn’t mean you’ll get out of there quickly.