The final days of McDonald's?

The Chick Fil A in my town is impossible. Always a line of cars around the building for the drive thru. And rarely any parking spots for people who want to dine in. Fortunately, a second location just opened a couple miles from my house. Hopefully, I can actually use it.

 

I eat at McDonald's probably once every three months or so when I'm in a rush. I used to get Bic Macs but their quality was so inconsistent I gave up. Now I get McDoubles. Those seem to be too simple for the "cooks" to screw up. Can't remember the last time I had their breakfest -- it's probably been around 18 months.

I live in a town with a high amount of poverty. McDonald's is huge here. They are all always packed. I just checked on Google maps, and even I didn't realize how popular they must be. There are six in the town (under 100,000 population).

For a fast food burger, Wendy's is my choice. I avoid Burger King. I can't remember ever liking any burger I've ever gotten from there. However, if I get fast food breakfast (which is rare), BK is the choice. Their sausage croissanwhich is good.

I hate Chick. Can't stand their sandwiches. Only ate their a couple of times, but both times the chicken was bone-dry and cold. It certainly wasn't worth the clusterf--- I had to endure to get in the restaurant. And though some of you may like it, I can't stand pseudo-hospitality of the workers. I don't want to have a chat about my life with the worker taking my order. I want to give my order and get out and go on with my life.

 

There's a sandwich place in Chicago called Specialty's, right next door to my office. I ate there a few times. It's good and convenient. But I won't go back, because the cashiers have this whole schtick in which they act like goofballs and try to banter with you. No thanks.

 

Weird. I've never gone through my life story with a cashier at CFA.

 

We have four now in my end of town (outside of malls) and all seemed determine to shoehorn into the smallest, most awkward space possible so that you have to loop around to get to the drive-through lane. Cars in the line make it hard to back out of parking spots, and you have terrible exits to busy roads.

It's crazy how unecessarily difficult each is.

 

Weird, I've been in Chick-fil-A with siblings and their hordes of children. We had a worker meet us while we were standing in line and ask it they needed to put tables together for us. Then they set up boosters and high chairs to handle the kids. It was the first place I had seen where if you flip the high chairs over, and that makes them the perfect holders for baby carriers.

The CFAs around here also do all kinds of little things like keep baby wipes and diapers in the bathrooms for emergencies.

Maybe in yanqui land, they operate differently but around here they're about as family friendly as a place can get.

 

I was teasing about that. I hate the way the restaurants are shoehorned in, but they are about as helpful and fast-moving as a restaurant can be. When it's busy, they go outside and start taking orders, and they will help get tables ready or ask if you need anythign.

 

Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded.

 

For about a two-year period in the mid-'90s, I worked a week out of every month in a town called Grand Prairie, Texas, just outside of Dallas. On the ride to the airport on Friday, I always stopped for Chick-fil-A. Those chicken sandwiches were damn good.

I hear there is one coming to NYC soon or maybe it's already here.

 

So, are you trying to tell me that the patrons of CFA are more likely than those of McDonald's to try and cut the line, or jockey for position in the drive thru lane? And it's because they're overwhelming white vs. the McDonald's clientele?

I find this hard to believe.

Either way, I don't see us feeding our child a lot of meals from either CFA or McDonalds.

 

In 1998, about a month after we got married in Tuscaloosa, (the then) Mrs. Dixiehack and I went to Chicago to see our former roommates marry each other. Both women worked at Chick-Fil-A and the bride-to-be wanted their chicken for the wedding reception, because at the time it did not exist in Chicago.

In order to accomplish this, the CFA operator sold his (by now ex-) employee all the chicken (plus dipping sauces) at cost, packaged it just so in coolers with precise heating instructions and gave the Dixiehacks his old minivan to drive there and back so that all the coolers would fit.

Most of the Yankee guests thought this was the strangest idea ever. Then they ate the chicken, which somehow came out perfectly, and suddenly we were hotter than the Romanian caterers from The Blues Brothers.

 

Grand Prairie, home of Randy Galloway.

I love the name of that city. I often refer to the North Texas area as the grandest prairie of them all.