by Paula Johnson
Fast food isn’t something that I crave or really even enjoy. I think my arteries thank me, but it has more to do with a variety of good food choices rather than speed and convenience. I rather like the dining experience. Enjoying a meal with the farmer or with friends – good conversation with little interruption.
Not that I got this from my father, but when he was alive and I would visit them in Arizona, he didn’t like going to restaurants that even had a salad bar. He felt that he was paying for a dining experience and he didn’t want to get his own salad.
Now, that is different from most men and even many women that I know. They love not only the salad bar but even miss the “boo-fay” layouts that have suffered under the pandemic. The more food and choices – the better.
In the first half of the 1900’s, there wasn’t the plethora of fast-food places we have today. Not that Ike had fast food joints as a plan, but the system of interstates that he instituted during his administration gave the concept an instant life. Within a decade, fast-food places also developed the drive-thru.
By the 1960’s, there was barely an off-ramp that didn’t have a host of fast-food choices. McDonald’s was slow on the bandwagon for drive-thru windows, but once they started in 1975 it took only about a decade for 50% of their sales to come from the window.
One of the first fast-food restaurants was the Automat. I think one of the best places to see an Automat in action is to watch the movie ”Touch of Mink.” Doris Day and Audrey Meadows have some great scenes in the Automat. It was a personal vending machine.
Hamburger (ground meat) had a slow start in this country because many people were still reeling from the danger and gruesomeness of meat-packing after Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. But in 1921, White Castle began the concept of fast-food burgers.
McDonald’s didn’t even come in second. Kroc was a milk-shake mixer salesman. He went in to a McDonald’s Bar-B-Que and was impressed with the “Speedee Service System” of the McDonald brothers. He bought them out in 1961, almost ten years after both Whataburger and Burger King opened their fast-food doors.
Kroc took the McDonald’s brothers speedy serving system and built Hamburger University. This was to ensure that every new franchise would follow the exact same process and standard.
Burgers weren’t the only fast food available by the 1960’s. KFC had over 600 franchises by the early 60’s. Close on their heels came Taco Bell.
Burger stops even added more menu variety in order to compete. The first non-burger McDonald’s offered was the Filet-O-Fish, followed by the Egg McMuffin and Chicken McNuggets.
The fast-food drive-thru window helped launch another invention we enjoy today – the car cupholder! Chrysler was the first to have the cupholder as standard equipment in their 1984 Plymouth Voyager minivan. By 1990, it became standard in every automobile.
What I love that has become standard in automobiles today is the navigation system. While I’m driving, the farmer can search for nearby restaurants where I can go in, sit down, order, relax and have a great meal. “You are welcome, arteries!”
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