I’m having lunch and a beer at this awesome cafe in town for the third time this month. I love this place! They have amazing, quality food, a wide variety of food/drinks to choose from, and stellar atmosphere indoors and out. I just got in line to order my meal and got to stand awkwardly in between 2 customers that were pissed about things taking so long and being very vocal about their inconvenience. I had to bite my tongue to keep from going off on both of them. “This is not McDonald’s! Look at that menu! Your meal is being made NOW, not two hours ago!” I wanted to scream… but I didn’t. I knew it wouldn’t turn into anything good and I didn’t want to cause a scene in front of everybody else enjoying their afternoon.
The first guy was a tourist who’d been waiting “almost 20 minutes” and demanded his money back from the manager (who obliged and also offered a few gift cards, plus his apologies on training new kitchen staff). The second was a woman who made sure everybody knew she had a dog and screaming kids in the car waiting and that this shouldn’t take this long. She was in line about 30 seconds before I was. The whole scene took about 4 minutes. She ordered a muffin and a juice box…
When I got up to place my order I told the manager about this great sign I saw at Cheese Plus in San Francisco a couple months ago. I suggested he make something similar; either the same sign, or alter the wording just a bit (the title of this post).
It just got me thinking of how much the drive-thru has negatively altered our minds’ views on what REAL food is, how quickly it should be prepared, and how much it should cost. People are so used to the low price and “efficiency” of fast food that they simply don’t think about what they’re actually putting into their body. People are cooking so little these days that I’m not sure if they even realize how much time it takes to prepare a real meal.
Hint: it’s more than 90 seconds.
image via
In the drive-thru it’s fast because it’s already been prepared… a really long time before you got there. #shitaintfresh. It’s cheap because the ingredients are either poor quality, or not not real food to begin with. If you want real food, it’s probably going to take a few minutes. And it’s probably going to cost more than the dollar menu. I’m not saying you have to spend $100 on a meal to make it great. I’m not saying you should wait 2 hours for a quality meal to be prepared. I’m just saying to chill the hell out and don’t be an entitled ass. If you don’t care about quality and you want it RIGHT now, and you’re not worried about putting fake food into your body, then keep going through the drive-thru.
For the record, my Southwestern Burrito (black bean mix, red peppers, corn, yam, chipotle sauce, aged cheddar, wheat tortilla, organic blue corn chips and salsa) was delish. It cost $10 and took about 11 minutes… and I didn’t implode because I had to wait for it to be made.
Thanks, Communitea… for the awesome service and quality, yummy food.
Speak Your Mind