It’s in the name. It’s fast. You order at a drive-thru and you’re on your way in a couple of minutes. I agree though that prices are insane now and doesn’t justify the quality. I’d rather go to an asian restaurant for their lunch specials and get more for my buck.
In a lot of cases it's not actually fast (not just waiting in line at the drive thru, but also the time driving to and from the place), but people would apparently rather sit in traffic than cook, for some reason.
Cooking takes time, ingredients, and if you want it palatable, ability. Fast food takes driving up to a location and saying "give me something easy".
It's not as fast as it used to be, but it's still relatively quick, especially if it's on your way home from wherever you are. Any extra time is just spent doomscrolling on your phone or listening to your preferred media pundit.
I don't drive. At work and at home I have multiple fast food options within a very short walking distance
See, I don't get the fast drive through thing. I pull up to the drive through. They have two lanes. Both are full and there are 10 cars ahead of me. I have to wait 10 minutes or more just to place an order and 10 minutes to get to the window to pay. It's generally not fast at all.
Its not really about the taste - its about the speed and convenience. If you want good food, you make your own. If you just finished a shift in a back-breaking job, and hate cooking, then its a chance to relax and free up some time.
the speed and convenience.
Is this even true?
Relative to cooking a similar meal, absolutely. Getting McDonalds takes like 5 mins and almost no effort. Less if ordering for delivery or pickup. If I want to cook myself a burger its probably going to take me like 40 minutes to makes and fry the burger, and prepare toppings. Im sure a good chef could do it much faster, but thats not me, and esspecially not after a full work day.
Edit: Plus, less directly measurable and comparable, but the time and work for planning, shopping, and dishes afterwards.
Don't forget the time and effort to clean too
Plus the grocery shopping!
the craving for absolute slop rears its ugly head every once in a while. I blame the ennui
Yep. I love high quality food and spend a lot of time learning to copy from chefs I like. I’m very selective about ingredients (e.g. fish, only so much is flown in daily and accessible to normies), often make my own sauces, and have a pretty large collection of dinnerware and lacquerware for accurate plating.
Yet like clockwork, several times a year I will eat multiple McRib patties in a single sitting. That shit has presumably the worst ingredients, the same sauce as every other year slathered inconsistently, and is presented in a cardboard box that has definitely gotten thinner. It is in no way worth anywhere near the price but I do it anyway.
Sometimes slop hits the spot. Plus I can’t make my own heavily processed slabs of… whatever those things contain.
Habits, familiarity, convenience, complacency
The four horsemen of obesity!
Most of this thread is overlooking familiarity, consistency. Aside from regional/international differences, the mcdouble you order at home is gonna be exactly as the same as the mcdouble ordered 400 miles away. Your usual will be there. Many people aren't gonna take a chance on Jeff's Cafe on the road. Jeff's Cafe doesn't spend a billion dollars on ads to tell you they still have the same thing you ate a decade ago. People don't want to spend as much time and effort as it takes to read Jeff's menu, decide what sounds good, and then see if it matches their expectation.
Same as they always have. It's fast. You can grab taco bell in a flash compared to even the best run diner or cafe. And you don't have to sit around with a bunch of strangers that are essentially walking disease vectors to do it, unless you want to.
The draw of fast food joints has never been primarily about the food quality, or service. Yeah, you'll likely pick the place that has what you consider better food, and avoid shit service, but that's a different thing.
Even joints that pretend to not be fast food (like chikfila) only pull a small portion of their consumers on the food primarily. They might draw some customers away from other fast food places, but not from sit-down places like you're talking about
It's addictive, it's marketed well, people are uninformed about how awful it is for them, and think prepping healthy meals is a lot harder than it is.
pfft. sometimes its worth the 5$ to not have to slow down to cafe speed. and i like fast food, its designed to be overtly tasty
Because it's fast and good enough. Not looking for a restaurant experience. I just want to eat and I forgot to defrost my chicken.
Do they have options?
I gave up Taco Bell after college as “not actual food”, and for decades only went to McDonald’s in a road trip or Wendy’s for a frosty. There was a cheap local-ish burger joint that sometimes took their place but it was a bit out of the way ….. then we got Chipotle and Panera!!! Fast food that’s actual food and not quite as bad for you. And now it’s the same price or cheaper.
My burrito cost less than your Big Mac meal while being more filling. It has less sodium, less saturated fat, actual fiber and vegetables, and tastes so much better.
We do have at least one authentic burrito place that’s even better and cheaper but you can’t order online. Chipotle group orders are the god of food apps
Do they have options?
Returned to Atlanta after a vacation out west in a small town where there were tons of small biz cafes and restaurants... My entire street is lined with nothing but fast food bullshit. In a quarter mile radius we have McDonald's, Arby's, Freddy's, Wendy's, Chick-fil-A, Zaxby's, Domino's, Buffalo wild wings. Fast food has basically conquered medium to large size towns and forced out any sort of small business that's healthy or has real food. You won't find them anywhere, so you get exhausted and tired of driving and what is left for you? Fast food. No one wants to drive 25 minutes every time they need to get something to eat
Well, that's sad. Corporations have taken over our lives.
Because it's fast... Because I can take it home... Because it doesn't feel like I'm trashing something nice when I order it to be delivered...
I think you answered your own question. It's still "cheaper" than your second option.
It's not about the quality, it's about the speed.
That said, i generally plan ahead and rarely eat fast food. And rarely eat out in general. That shit is expensive
I mean, McDonald's is an insane ripoff. At Taco Bell I can get veggie cravings box for $5.99 - that's a Black Bean Crunchwrap Supreme, Bean and Cheese Burrito, Fiesta Potatoes, and a drink. It's like 1500 calories for $6 and takes 5 minutes to get. We get it every couple of weeks when we're just feeling super lazy and don't feel like cooking, and we can make two meals out of it.
I live in southern CA and burritos are cheap ✌️ Once a week it’s nice to not have to cook.
Where are you going to a cafe or restaurant that didn't also double their prices? Fast food is still eaten cause the restaurants also jacked up the prices. I'm Canadian and I took my wife and two little kids for breakfast. Our bill came out to over $100. For two full breakfasts and a couple of orders of pancakes You're also assuming everyone lives where you do and cafes and local eateries are abundant. Most places don't have anything but fast food and pizza available.
I genuinely have no clue. I only ever have it once in a blue moon if I stop during a road trip and don't have another option. I wish I had money to open a fast food place with because holy shit, how can you even fail, given what is successful???
It's actually more expensive than other options, truly awful service, usually much slower than it was in the past (I've literally never gotten my food in a McDonalds in less than 30 minutes in the last 10 years because they prioritize drive through and online orders), it tastes like shit and makes me feel like shit after I eat it.
If you can limit it to just the sandwich you can save some. But otherwise, it's just baked into our society for all the reasons already mentioned. Seems like the choice for a cheap meal is gone however.
I don't want to be waited on. I don't want to have to wonder when or if someone might refill my drink. I don't want to have to ask for extra napkins. I don't want to be put on the spot deciding what sides I want. I don't want to have to ask what salad dressings there are.
I want to interact with other people as little as possible. McDonald's might be basic, but give me a kiosk to order from every time.
What I do want is to know exactly what I'm getting. Fast food has continuity of product down to a science.
Me 2001: Mcdonalds is running an anniversary special. Cheeseburgers are $0.10. Fuck yeah! I'mma order 20 them sumbitches!!!
Me today at age 41: I haven't had Mcdonalds since before the pandemic.
"Hi, I'll get a double quarter pounder with cheese meal, large, and I'll wait for new fries."
"That'll be $26.69"
"HAHAHAHA, right??? Could you imagine??? what's you're name? James? Could you imagine that James? Charging that much for some Mcdonalds? HAHAHAHAHA!!!! Ok James. That's a good one. Now what's the actual price?"
"$26.69"
"HAAAAAAAA, ok, ok, funs fun, but c'mon. I gotta pay for my food. What is it really?"
"$26.69"
"Wha---are you being serious?"
"Yes."
"ARE YOU HIGH???"
"Yes."
"Well.....uhhhhh......"
checks the board and does the math
"WHAT THE FUCK??? IS RAY CROC HIGH???"
"He's dead."
"WELL I DON'T THINK YOU CAN BE HIGH WHEN YOU'RE DEAD JAMES!!!"
"I know. That's why we gotta spend the time that we've got on this planet doing what we love, with the people that we love. We don't have a lot of time on this planet, and someday, maybe someday soon, something could happen. Then your best friend is just taken from you. With no warning. Maybe a lightning strike. Maybe hit by a drunk driver. You never know. So you gotta live your life doing what you can while you can to make sure that you have no regrets. Last thing you want is for someone to die before you can tell them you love them."
"Wow. That was beautiful. I'm sorry about your friend."
"Oh no. All my friends are still living. I tell them I love them all the time. And they love me too. Not in a romantkc way, but in a pure of heart real human connection kind of way. We love each other like brothers."
"That is a surprising level of introspection from someone of your age. You have a real sense of emotional maturity."
"Hey, thanks! That'll be $26.69"
"FUUUUUUUUUUU-----"
where I'm waited on
That’s the problem. I’m hungry and on the way home from work. I don’t want to sit anywhere but in front of my TV.
I don't know, but I can tell you with certainty that I don't.
I'm not sure where this cafe you can get waited on is selling a hamburger, fries, and a coke, with tax and tip, coming out less than $20, but if it's edible, definitely, I'd eat there if I had the choice. The difference between the cheapest sit down restaurant and fast food is almost down to nothing, but fast food is still the cheapest thing you're going to find, and the fast food companies know this, which is why they're comfortable raising the prices. They're attitude is if you don't want to pay our prices, eat at home, but we know you're not going to do that.
Not sure who would buy it full price but in most of the apps if you're not picky there's always some amount of deals to get a meal under $5. I only go occasionally as the deals aren't as good as they used to be across the board and the quality is universally terrible. Taco Bell is also its own unique thing which no other Mexican restaurant will get you so occasionally it just sounds good.
That being said in my area you can go to nearly any proper restaurant and get carry-out under $15 with Texas sized portions. As someone with an unhealthy work/life balance particularly in the evenings, this or bulk curry is how I usually eat dinner.
I buy fast food because I can get it quickly and because it tastes good to me. There's nothing quite like getting a fresh serving of battered fries covered in sauce when you're hungry and too tired to cook! 😋
I buy it for my kids because they are on the spectrum and McDonald's French fries are literally 1 of 7 foods one of them will eat. I would eat it, because I love it, but I have celiac and can't.
Because most of the non-fast food restaurants in my rural town are priced highly for the rich yuppies LARPing blue collar living.
The general consensus seems that people pay for the convenience, not having to cook or clean and not having to wait very long for it. Which is kind of crazy because that seems like such a luxury to me lol. Like a lite version of having a personal chef.
I wonder what the price point is where people will stop paying for the convince and just do it themselves because it costs too much. I would've thought most people reached that point but apparently not.
I personally have adopted a mantra of if I'm going to eat fast food it's going to be as frugal as possible so I have all of their shitty mobile apps. I check them when I want fast food, and I generally won't eat out unless I find a good deal.
Stop ordering the fries and a drink. Shit's bad enough already. Dinner's $5 and I bring a drink with me.
Consumerism is killing us and corporations will not self-correct until you hit them on the nose with a curled up newspaper.
Because when its good, and I mean everything is correct... its fucking amazing.
Last time I got Kentucky it was all perfect. The bun was fresh, the lettuce was fresh, just the right amount of mayo, the chicken was hot and crunchy. The chips were hot, fresh and had just too much enough salt and the pepsi was just a shade away from being frozen. It was the best chicken burger I've had in recent memory.
Now, this was an isolated incident. Normally I wind up slightly disappointed in something. But when its right...
Until recently fast food was faster and cheaper than sit down joints and it's easier to eat while you drive. Since it's only been recent that is gotten slower and more expensive people still reach for it when they want quick calories. Unless fast food becomes faster and cheaper again it will probably decline from gas station food which is faster and getting better in most parts of the US and ordering ahead from local joints.
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