Culture Study Podcast - The Fascinating Future of the Chain Restaurant

00:00:00.000 okay so we have to get the triple dipper because there's like there's like 44,000

00:00:08.640 combinations that you can get which one are you gonna get I don't know I mean I

00:00:12.500 think we need to get like boneless wings maybe I don't know also look at these cheese look at

00:00:17.700 these cheese things they're like mozzarella sticks are absolutely like they're like they're

00:00:21.220 like two inches thick yes oh my god should we get like a couple of those a couple of

00:00:26.460 triple triple triple yeah well like different combinations for science we can get to go boxes

00:00:36.040 all right we are at the chilies in miriam kansas i'm with my friends kylie christie haley and

00:00:43.300 taylor and i'm going to ask each of them the last time they had chilies slash what their

00:00:49.160 association with Chili's is? I had Chili's December 26, 2025. Christy, what about you?

00:00:58.140 Okay, it's been a hot minute since I've been to a Chili's, probably like 10 years at least,

00:01:03.820 but I also have very nostalgic associations with Chili's. I love the like cheese with

00:01:10.780 like chunks of beef in it. Do you know, have you had this? It's like, I think it's the skillet

00:01:15.940 beef case and i'm probably gonna need to get it and i i remember like getting that as a meal as

00:01:21.140 a child and being like just inordinately happy and going with my friends in like high school

00:01:27.060 and stuff because that's what we could afford um sorry i'm eating chips i used to come here like

00:01:34.820 every year on my birthday with my with my parents we love chilies we were like a chilies family

00:01:41.300 and then more recent association i have with it is i actually had a fire espresso martini here like

00:01:48.820 a few months ago i was so surprised but it was delicious i knew i was taking a chance and it

00:01:55.840 was the right chance i really feel like if you would have asked or if you would have like told

00:02:01.140 me 10 years ago that you'd be i'd be like almost 40 and the highlight of my day would be going to

00:02:06.740 Chili's. I'd probably, I would have believed you, but I would have been wondering what the

00:02:11.740 hell is going on in my life, that that is the most exciting thing that is happening to me.

00:02:15.600 Where did we go wrong here? Or where did we go right? Oh, right. Yeah.

00:02:27.880 This is the Culture Study Podcast, and I'm Anne Helen Peterson.

00:02:31.320 I'm Austin Frick. I am the author of Barron's Money, Power, and the Corruption in America's

00:02:35.620 food system your expertise very very broadly put is at this intersection of like ag ag policy

00:02:43.200 ag for those who don't know is short for agriculture and antitrust policy so how did

00:02:49.700 you arrive there i think it's it's a great story it's so roundabout like it's it makes sense in

00:02:55.520 retrospect but it was like i never set out to do this stuff i mean i yeah but like like

00:03:01.160 the funniest thing is like so i grew up my grandfather was always my hero growing up

00:03:06.520 spent a lot of time with him and he worked in a slaughterhouse in my hometown cedar rapids

00:03:11.020 and so my college thesis was on slaughterhouse towns in iowa i gotta study them and it was

00:03:16.840 i actually did two because the first one was on schools and just looking at like these are

00:03:21.420 super high impoverished super minority districts in very rural communities yep but then it was like

00:03:27.700 i had a professor and i really i mean says a lot about her she kept pushing me like i this is

00:03:31.740 before we had all these automatic transcribers but she um made me like hand write the transcriptions

00:03:37.120 and she kept noticing like how they would tell you about all the problems they have of having a

00:03:41.600 high poverty student population but they would in the same sentence always praise the slaughterhouse

00:03:46.560 and she kept being like that's power austin so i was like oh this is fascinating what's going on

00:03:51.680 here and so i wrote a second paper on how these are modern day company towns yeah and so that's

00:03:57.120 I've always had this kind of corporate power framework to me. I think being a first generation

00:04:00.960 college student kind of is part of it. But then it's just like, you know, my career kind of

00:04:05.600 snaked this way. But the big moment was 10 years ago, which what is time anymore? But

00:04:10.760 I was a tax economist at the US Department of Treasury. And this is really nerdy, but we have

00:04:17.800 population records on our computer, not samples, but population. And I was writing a paper on the

00:04:22.680 growth of monopoly in the corporate tax base and i was like what is this and you might have heard

00:04:27.220 of this journalist turned public servant lena khan yeah she before she was a went to law school

00:04:33.380 she was a journalist she wrote about chicken monopoly so i researched it found this monopoly

00:04:36.880 stuff and she told me about all this lost history of monopoly and i was like oh this makes sense

00:04:41.220 because also 2016 i was a bernie person yeah and treasuries all these prep school kids so it was

00:04:45.940 like it's such a weird my family's trumpy so it's just like this weird i was like oh this explains

00:04:50.700 everything so it's like so it's kind of a convoluted story but like it all kind of makes

00:04:54.500 sense in retrospect yeah no i for me like growing up as well not in a place that was like very

00:05:00.220 preppy or ivy league or like where most people come from i think when we arrive in higher ed

00:05:07.440 and are given the tools to look around oftentimes it might not happen immediately but at some point

00:05:14.160 you look around and think like how do i explain where i grew up and like for me it's like okay i

00:05:19.960 can explain some things with like timber monopolies and labor and like how did the

00:05:24.080 politics of North Idaho get to be what they are and how did that change over time and then my

00:05:29.720 other expertise through like a long story is getting into film studies and anyone who studies

00:05:35.640 the history of film learns all about monopolies and regulation and then once you get into like

00:05:41.960 okay so why why was the government interested in like the studios not also owning their theaters

00:05:49.320 like why was that important why did they think that this was interesting why did they not want

00:05:53.720 them to own the companies that made television shows like why was that also important to like

00:05:59.280 how growth like worked and that sort of thing and then once you start like poking that beast

00:06:05.500 then you start to see stuff about monopolies and antitrust everywhere and it's like i think

00:06:12.240 of antitrust too as like a garden like a good garden it's like a market like it needs cultivation

00:06:17.000 pruning all this stuff like you have to build a healthy ecosystem and like that's you as you can

00:06:22.600 tell i'm so one of the few people that buy dvds based on like what's behind me uh my husband got

00:06:26.920 me in the movies he loves films too and like you realize that's such a beautiful powerful thing

00:06:31.840 america had for so long and that was because like we intentionally deconstructed power put guardrails

00:06:37.080 on it and we allowed a healthy ecosystem to emerge and it's dying in front of us right right and

00:06:42.840 that's something that we're going to talk about with restaurants which is the subject of our

00:06:46.400 episode today is like, okay, how something that is now understood as a real, I don't know,

00:06:52.740 backbone of commerce and like civilization in the United States wasn't always that way.

00:06:57.660 Yep. How do you keep a healthy restaurant ecosystem going? 0.57

00:07:05.000 So this whole thing happened. My interest in restaurants and monopoly came because I first

00:07:11.240 put out my book. I profiled seven robber barons and they're really narrative devices to tell

00:07:15.580 structural stories yeah and though i kind of joke i have a whole purgatory folder i write down all

00:07:21.080 the barons i miss and trust me you're part of the country people tell me about potato barons all the

00:07:25.260 time oh my god oh my god and i'm sure you know about simplot and their massive complex and

00:07:29.840 yes yes okay um but cisco is one i heard the most and also it was like i know i talk fast so i'm

00:07:38.960 trying to slow down so i've been doing i did a lot of speaking home nursing home gigs in iowa

00:07:43.080 because they really help you slow down and because they will tell you and every one of these it was

00:07:48.960 the worst food it was always cisco yeah so i kept hearing cisco and cisco is one of those things you

00:07:53.360 hear but i never really understood it and when i started diving into cisco to me is a really

00:07:58.200 fascinating example of most of my previous barons like they were kind of cartoonish like

00:08:03.060 there weren't nuance to them but cisco to me is a really nuanced example of it started with good

00:08:08.440 intentions yeah but then it's just one of those things where the thing got ahead of itself and

00:08:12.660 And like you've seen it now play on the movie industries where they break a good thing.

00:08:16.500 Things go too far.

00:08:17.280 Like regulation exists to protect businesses from themselves and stop a race to the bottom.

00:08:22.380 Because once a race to the bottom happens, it's like a self-defeating thing, cycle.

00:08:28.000 Yeah. 0.95

00:08:29.060 I first heard about Cisco when I was working at a dude ranch in middle of fucking nowhere, Wyoming. 0.81

00:08:38.460 So this is like an hour and a half outside of Jackson. 0.67

00:08:41.800 You go over a huge mountain pass to get to this place, Du Bois, Wyoming.

00:08:46.760 It wasn't even in the town of Du Bois.

00:08:48.300 It was outside of the town of Du Bois.

00:08:50.200 But the truck would come and drop off all of the food that was made at this ranch where

00:08:55.700 people from the east, dudes, would come and spend thousands of dollars a week to eat in

00:09:02.000 like a quasi-fancy situation, right?

00:09:05.000 And then go out and get into the wilderness, which was beautiful.

00:09:08.160 but my job i was a waitress and i also did like turn the beds and did laundry and that sort of

00:09:14.380 thing but i also helped with the prep and like until you understand how much of the stuff is

00:09:20.660 all coming from one place like until you are unboxing the mayonnaise that's also coming from

00:09:27.560 the same place where the napkins are coming from which is also coming from the same place that the

00:09:32.640 frozen sausage links are coming from like you don't understand and then the other thing that

00:09:37.560 say is that and we can get into this later in my hometown there is like a mini monopoly

00:09:43.060 of like slightly quirky restaurants all owned by the same company called happy day

00:09:48.480 and it's totally like great middle of the road food right but my mom always says and ever since

00:09:56.640 she first said this to me i cannot ever shake it she says it all tastes like cisco and once you

00:10:02.560 know what cisco tastes like once you can identify it you will see it everywhere and i think like for

00:10:08.280 me the chain restaurant that tastes most like cisco is panera i don't know if you have one

00:10:13.980 that tastes more like cisco than panera perkins oh yeah wait let me back up for a second yeah do

00:10:20.020 you know what cowboy cafe is in dubois no it was just a little restaurant i one of my favorite

00:10:25.520 little things i do and this is a very iowa thing is i love doing drives yeah same it's like yeah

00:10:31.260 Okay, you understand. That's why I've been through Du Bois. And I remember that little town is there

00:10:35.900 was a local restaurant served me like a Nutella pecan pie, which I've never had before. Wow.

00:10:40.580 But the reason why I mentioned this is like, you understand my restaurants go down the Cisco

00:10:44.820 wormhole. Yeah, it's hard. It's really hard to run a restaurant. Anyone has done it. You don't

00:10:49.660 do it to make money. You do it because you love it. And Cisco is the everything store. They really

00:10:53.840 were Amazon before Amazon. Yeah. And you start going down this and you see how people lock in.

00:10:58.740 And then what happens is they do the classic monopoly thing where they freeze out other

00:11:02.280 options or, you know, they engage in lost leaders and then you just get dependent on

00:11:06.660 them.

00:11:06.880 And then you see this race to the bottom.

00:11:08.420 And so people are losing that craftsmanship of making good local food.

00:11:13.820 And then it keeps getting worse.

00:11:15.580 Like you don't think things could get worse, but then it happens.

00:11:17.800 And we all know those restaurants.

00:11:18.900 We all have that chain.

00:11:19.620 We used to love Panera.

00:11:21.020 Like I remember when Panera first came to my town.

00:11:23.900 It was cool.

00:11:24.460 It was hip.

00:11:25.460 Yeah.

00:11:26.060 And now you go there.

00:11:26.920 It's just sad.

00:11:27.600 I mean, but guess what? It's owned by secret private equity family in German. And they also

00:11:34.040 own the Krispy Kreme. So I pulled this up and sent it to Melody before, because when I was

00:11:37.960 reading your chapter, I was like, oh, my God. So the people who now own Panera also own Krispy Kreme,

00:11:46.080 Einstein Brothers, Caribou Coffee, Brueggers, and Pret-a-Manger. All the same. Pret also tastes

00:11:53.620 like cisco it's my favorite thing that's like slide to show especially younger people because

00:11:57.780 it's just like it really hits home a big difference of this era is this illusion of choice like you

00:12:03.520 think you draw different brands around the mall yeah back in the day you said standard oil and

00:12:07.460 that was it and now you you have all these fake local brands yeah totally so this is actually a

00:12:12.100 segue into a little bit more table setting before we get into the questions which like when we first

00:12:17.320 started talking about doing this episode we started thinking about like okay what is like

00:12:22.160 the 30,000 foot view of chain restaurants right now because it's changing, right? It's not even

00:12:28.260 10 years ago and certainly not 20 years ago. It's a different landscape. And I think a lot of the

00:12:33.060 places that we thought would be with us forever are starting to struggle and change or trying to

00:12:40.860 at least shift strategies. Whereas there are other things, as you said, that are trying to look like

00:12:46.680 they're local but are actually chains and yeah so okay tell us honestly the reason why i love

00:12:52.480 this so much is what it says about us yeah like what's what chains are growing which ones are

00:12:57.460 dying um it's something i kind of stumbled into because what i realized researching and writing

00:13:02.660 this stuff is trade publications tend to be the best news sources here love publications yes and

00:13:08.900 you have you have to learn their language because they're never going to critique the industry

00:13:11.760 yeah no um and but no one's going to report on like you know chain my clothes 10 locations here

00:13:19.160 10 locations there um a slow death or a slow rise yeah but what i love doing this is you know i'm

00:13:26.300 traveling a lot so i just made a list um there's this one trade publication list of 250 largest

00:13:32.340 chains in america and i made a list of the chains on that list i've been to so when i travel i just

00:13:39.460 talent i just like work through them my my husband hates us like we're together and here we are in

00:13:46.440 oregon going to sherry's like yes or we're in tulsa and we're eating at brahms you know what

00:13:51.360 i mean like yeah yeah yeah uh but i love you start noticing patterns i mean like i like the two like

00:13:57.220 if you want a ray of hope right now is like the growth of like korean food in america has been

00:14:01.580 underappreciated like korean chains k-pot like like korean bakeries um and also like i don't

00:14:08.520 think i think people know this but i don't think people really appreciate like like the 20 20th

00:14:12.880 century in america was known as the heir of the hamburger the 21st century to me is the heir of

00:14:16.560 the chicken finger like chicken chains are just killing it like you have burger king's dying

00:14:22.680 wendy's is dying which is r.i.p sad love me they're like taco salad but apparently they now

00:14:28.040 taste very different and that's maybe part of the reason they're dying sorry side note yeah no but

00:14:32.080 totally like it's that was always it's funny like that was fancy fast food for my mom and i growing

00:14:36.000 up yeah yeah yeah wendy's but like now you've seen all these chickens like the one i can't get

00:14:40.600 my head around is raising canes like younger americans love it oh i eat there like once a

00:14:45.880 week at least really what is it like melody we don't have it here just so good is it the sauce

00:14:51.440 or what what the sauce is really good i think the texture of the breading on the chicken is

00:14:56.120 really good and the fries are crinkle cut which is the superior cut of fries uh but yeah the sauce

00:15:04.020 is just excellent and it's delicious every time it never lets me down it is it's popping every

00:15:11.280 time i walk by one of those locations they're just so packed with people i mean it's yeah there's

00:15:17.000 always a line at the drive-thru and but that says like that is the chain of the moment like that is

00:15:21.860 what's happening in america is like these type of chicken concepts which i mean that's that shows

00:15:26.080 you the bigger concept over proteins in america because the climate crisis beef is becoming beef

00:15:31.380 expensive yeah it's becoming like a fancy meat whereas chicken's cheap i mean it's really screwed

00:15:36.220 up because because it's rooted in sharecropping the production model right right so that's why

00:15:40.500 you're also seeing like people are naturally shifting to chicken like even mcdonald's mcdonald's

00:15:43.960 sells now more chicken than beef wow interesting well and i think about like the noodle chains that

00:15:50.140 do really well here in the pacific northwest like there are a bunch of like pho chains that are i

00:15:55.820 I think some are more regional than national by it for sure.

00:16:00.620 But like you're using very small amounts of meats in that pho and then it's just like

00:16:05.740 noodles forever, right?

00:16:07.580 And like that's a much more like sustainable model and also appealing, I think, to the

00:16:11.900 clientele.

00:16:12.840 I mean, there's a stat in your book that you were talking about, like, first of all, how

00:16:16.840 we didn't used to go out to meals at all.

00:16:19.240 And now the average American has one meal out a day?

00:16:24.020 Almost.

00:16:24.500 what's so funny here is very few people study this but we all people have the strongest opinions on

00:16:30.420 chains like my favorite it is so my favorite cocktail chatter if i'm at a christmas party

00:16:35.300 whatever i love asking people what's your favorite chain restaurant people will like i mean you saw

00:16:40.720 melody's passion with you know racing games like you know what i mean i love that because it's um

00:16:46.440 and so i say all this because i mean i really toyed with a book here like doing a whole chain

00:16:51.320 restaurant book but it's just it's so volatile it actually moves really really fast yeah but um

00:16:56.200 you realize when you kind of look at the history before world war ii you only ate out is when you

00:17:02.420 went to like a church function a social function and you also brought a dish yeah yeah i love that

00:17:06.700 point i love that like that is um thank you for that uh and then you realize i mean that's kind

00:17:12.780 of the beauty of cisco is like you kind of i don't know if you can tell when you read that chapter i

00:17:16.500 really do adore the man that created it yeah um he's one of those people where he just saw things

00:17:21.760 before everyone else went through a lot of tragedies worked really hard in life was working

00:17:25.480 at a grocery store in houston he's trying to let women be pastors in the baptist church like oh

00:17:31.240 that is okay as a writer no no but i'm glad there's a whole i went down a whole rabbit hole of

00:17:38.080 like baptist fights in the 80s yeah no they're huge it's so interesting i did a bunch of work

00:17:43.040 on waco historically but like waco as a town is so fascinating but it also says so much of this

00:17:48.180 moment because like magnolia table is based there and it's like this weird americana stuff made in

00:17:53.140 china yep yep well and talk about actually like an interesting twinning uh industry right so like

00:18:00.000 cisco starting there and now magnolia which tries to like understand itself as like so hyper

00:18:06.600 personalized and like everyone's little farmhouse is the same and like oh this is so cute but really

00:18:11.120 it's like the standardization of a certain aesthetic like across the united states anyway

00:18:16.440 no no but i think that's i the waco i think is important because it shapes so much of this moment

00:18:22.320 i mean like these things slowly build up and for cisco is you know he comes out of waco the

00:18:28.060 depression had to move to houston to get a job and was at a amp there and saw the creation of

00:18:36.040 frozen food in the 40s, you know, after the war. And I also saw a lot of women enter in the 0.99

00:18:41.240 workplace and just realize, hey, you don't have as much time to make dinner. He thought frozen 1.00

00:18:45.740 food was so cool. This will help cut corners. And then there's a great moment that I discovered

00:18:51.020 where the fancy rich oil guy in Houston, this Irish guy, built a fancy hotel. And he was there

00:18:56.900 on opening night at the docks on, you know, working, selling frozen berries, what he did at

00:19:00.460 the time. And what he realized is, you know, in the day of frozen berries, the frozen berry,

00:19:05.200 But the only competitive advantage he had was, is this supplier buying all the food,

00:19:10.200 you know, he had this big sheet of paper where like 20 different suppliers and like looking

00:19:14.560 at what everyone had and he realized his competitive advantage is to offer as much stuff as possible.

00:19:20.120 Right.

00:19:20.620 So Cisco was created to be an everything store.

00:19:23.140 And so even though he only really operated in Texas, he incorporated in every state.

00:19:27.200 Yeah.

00:19:27.600 And so it started from that.

00:19:28.800 And like, that's, what's fascinating about Cisco is it didn't, it didn't usually, it

00:19:33.200 doesn't compete at acquires.

00:19:34.500 So it tends to just buy things here and there.

00:19:36.540 It'll buy a company in Iowa.

00:19:38.500 It'll buy a frozen Asian food place in LA.

00:19:40.820 So it's kind of like a blob that just keeps on growing.

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00:23:53.060 at checkout for 15% off. So this actually tees up our first question, which is going to make us

00:24:04.320 backtrack slightly, but then get into that understanding of why places that source from

00:24:09.240 Cisco tastes the same. So this question comes from Michaela. In my area of Massachusetts,

00:24:15.320 the rumor is that every restaurant has the same menu, tastes, profile, because they're all sourcing

00:24:21.460 from Cisco. This is the case in chain restaurants and single establishments. It's really hard to

00:24:27.580 find anything unique. So my question is, is this true? Is it true across the country? And aside

00:24:33.960 from the obvious monopoly type reasons why is anyone interested in changing it or does it not 0.97

00:24:40.780 negatively affect chain restaurants so why change it ah gosh she just like prepped you for like that

00:24:48.460 entire chapter she just like asked fundamental questions um let's let's start with the beginning

00:24:54.060 here and say like i think some times you're like oh well if everyone's getting flour from cisco

00:25:00.700 it's not going to make everything taste the same, but it's more than just flour. It's like

00:25:04.180 the jalapeno poppers. So can you talk about when someone is sourcing from Cisco, what are they

00:25:10.060 sourcing from Cisco? Yeah. It's not even just sourcing. What Cisco does too a lot now and

00:25:15.200 companies like it is they will help you design your menu. No, really? Yep. They will. And this

00:25:20.640 is a little thing I realized with my wedding is I got married in a small college in Iowa and

00:25:25.360 a company like Cisco designed the college kitchen and they designed in such a way to do frozen food.

00:25:30.700 because hey if you're starting off you have all these costs someone comes along hey i'll do this

00:25:35.300 for free you're probably going to say yes yeah and so the college even the college i try to get

00:25:40.520 i want my big thing at my wedding was i wanted only iowa food and only pasture me and dairy

00:25:44.620 because that mattered a lot to me and kolaches and kolaches thank you and cottage cheese

00:25:49.260 look at that detail you know what a kolaches yeah yeah because texas oh but those are different

00:25:54.680 yeah they are slightly different i think but it is it's between you're driving from waco

00:26:00.280 to austin you get the collages off the like off the interstate i love that little detail because

00:26:06.840 in like it's like that wyoming example is local place local restaurants make a place a place they

00:26:11.320 maintain tradition cisco doesn't care cisco doesn't sell frozen colatches and like i don't want to

00:26:17.240 romanticize a colatch and like that was like the weird thing about this chapter is i don't want to

00:26:20.280 be too fluffy about this stuff but like life is goldilocks and these things have just gone too far

00:26:27.080 it makes sense like oh cisco might have the cheapest flour let me buy from them yeah what

00:26:31.520 happens is these things get out of hand and like with cisco what tends to happen you see a lot with

00:26:36.060 seafood is for a lot of restaurants they call it center of the plate um it's like an industry term

00:26:42.920 yeah it's how you proteins um it's how people pick their meat it's how restaurants they look

00:26:48.480 at prices and cisco knows like it tends to it's known to sell at cost or at a loss to get you

00:26:54.080 what they tend to use is firstly they have economies they do have economies of scales

00:26:59.500 don't get me wrong there but like they're allowed they're able to essentially engage in a race to

00:27:03.500 the bottom and seafood's really bad just in general in america seafood's usually done really 1.00

00:27:07.880 destructive exploited production models uighurs you know doing essentially slave labor like 1.00

00:27:12.720 things for calamari here's the thing you don't know that cisco doesn't really care all they care 1.00

00:27:17.600 about is offering that restaurant the lowest center of the plate protein and they start locking

00:27:22.040 you in and you get dependent on it you never fully know how much sourcing is going on from a place

00:27:27.520 yeah but these companies tend to do is they offer volume discounts or not volume like more percent

00:27:32.520 of your order you get from us will offer you a discount so there is an incentive to get more

00:27:36.760 and the bigger thing here and what you're probably noticing with a lot of chain restaurants is

00:27:40.780 private equity has been really aggressive in this space yeah i mean the one that's going viral right

00:27:45.780 now on reddit is jersey mics people love jersey mics yep and then private equity i also love

00:27:52.500 jersey mic have you noticed i mean mel do you think there's been a change um i didn't i've only

00:27:59.040 recently come to it and so i can't really compare it over the years okay but right now it still

00:28:04.940 slaps okay because usually it takes a few years for like private equity to really show itself

00:28:09.400 in terms of like quality decoration yeah um panera is the best example of it because like

00:28:14.060 yes it's just i mean they used to do they understood what's really fun about panera

00:28:19.040 just a side note is the guy who helped create panera basically thinks private equity destroyed

00:28:23.820 it so he's making a new version of panera called tate interested so if you're ever in dc or boston

00:28:28.920 right now that's where you see a lot of these tates which they're just modern day versions

00:28:32.240 of panera yeah and we should spell out that the reason why private equity degrades something once

00:28:39.460 it acquires it is because it's trying to basically wring out as much capital as possible. So like

00:28:45.560 lower the bottom line through economies of scale, through cutting corners, through all different

00:28:50.000 things, because like what it understands this restaurant as is not a restaurant. It's a source

00:28:56.260 of earnings for its shareholders, not like a thing where you actually eat soup. Just to add

00:29:02.840 on to that, I think the one example too I like is newspapers. They want to cut faster than you

00:29:07.860 realize yeah yeah and there's no long-term that they don't care about a long-term thing they want

00:29:12.440 to make a short buck and by the time you realize it's too late and they're already out the door

00:29:16.060 and they've made yeah they're gonna sell you and like for a loss whatever it takes like it just

00:29:20.040 they want to ring you out as fast as possible and so a place like Panera actually when we're

00:29:24.280 we're saying that like you can taste the Cisco I actually think part of what it is it's two things

00:29:29.900 it's the bread and it's the soup because the soup comes pre-made and I think they also the other

00:29:36.300 tastes that i always feel like this like it tastes almost like margarine or like vegetable oil

00:29:41.240 right like filler and i know you point out in your chapter that like they found out that like

00:29:46.480 cisco beef patties they had been like patting them with like some sort of fiber filler like

00:29:51.840 they're just trying to make it bigger but less content right like it tastes like nothing

00:29:57.920 i mean that's the whole philosophy my favorite i get these little academic content alerts

00:30:03.100 um and cornell just bragged about how they're doing a study right now to figure out how much

00:30:09.220 apple waste aka like ground up cores and seeds they can sneak into a meatball before you notice

00:30:14.360 which here's the thing they're trying to sell it as like food waste well like we know they don't

00:30:21.100 that's not why they're doing it they're just trying to essentially like figure out how much

00:30:24.660 filler they can get away with like that's all that that's that's just a cost thing or like

00:30:28.460 good for you is it like good fiber to have some apple waste in your meatballs i don't think the

00:30:33.740 american food system cares what they put into you right that's true i mean that is like the point i

00:30:37.860 mean that is like i think that's why we're at this moment and why maha is what it is is because

00:30:42.840 it's just there's so many shenanigans are going on things have just gone so far

00:30:48.060 off the rails like my it's been kind of talked about in the dairy world but like

00:30:52.820 um what's going on now is they're feeding a lot of industrial dairy cows palm oil

00:30:56.300 to increase the butter fat content because people don't like the butter because it's hard. It doesn't

00:31:00.160 spread well. So they figured if we take this destructive rainforest product and feed it to

00:31:04.060 cows, we'll make it softer. Whereas Ireland's like, you know what? We're not going to do that.

00:31:08.280 We're going to keep cows on grass. It turns out they make a good product. 1.00

00:31:11.520 Right. And did you just have to take your butter out of the fridge a little bit longer?

00:31:16.300 But that's like such an ethos of this moment is like, it's so dumb and radical. 0.99

00:31:21.360 Yeah. We're going to table the question about like, why doesn't anyone do anything about it 0.95

00:31:25.640 for a little while, because I think that'll give us a chance to talk about regulation.

00:31:29.280 But first, we're going to take a little detour into franchising, which is so complicated. But

00:31:34.960 if anyone can answer this, it's you. This question comes from Ashley.

00:31:38.720 How have recent trends in franchising and private equity affected the proliferation

00:31:43.320 and in-shittification of chain restaurants? In particular, what happens when PE increasingly

00:31:49.520 owns the franchisors and controls the supply chains to local restaurant owners?

00:31:55.080 otherwise known as the franchisees, are required to use.

00:31:58.420 From your perspective, how has this model affected franchisees' ability to source local, fresh, or higher quality food?

00:32:05.120 How has it pushed many mom-and-pop franchise owners out of business?

00:32:08.940 Many of these mom-and-pop franchise owners are increasingly being replaced by large, PE-backed operators

00:32:14.780 who own dozens or even hundreds of locations.

00:32:18.160 How has that shift impacted the growth of these chains and affected the customer experience?

00:32:22.540 Are these trends just another example of private equity ruining everything?

00:32:27.580 Or is the franchise model with the franchisor's ability and incentive to control and profit from the supply chain to blame here?

00:32:35.440 We're going to probably truncate that question just slightly.

00:32:38.560 But I can tell from this question that Ashley has some experience here.

00:32:43.240 So I'm the son of a franchise owner.

00:32:44.660 My mom's bakery was a franchise.

00:32:46.540 I didn't talk about it in the book.

00:32:48.780 It was a small little franchise.

00:32:50.600 So I grew up in that world a little bit.

00:32:52.540 but just add on to it i kept thinking of um the success of chick-fil-a is so much of it's rooted

00:32:58.980 in the owner has to work the store interesting you have to have skin in the game my understanding

00:33:05.240 chick-fil-a is generally speaking they don't let you have 200 chains right and that's you can

00:33:10.300 usually tell when you go into a chick-fil-a is you can usually spot the owner manager

00:33:13.380 huh they wear a different polo and it's also i think the reason why people love chick-fil-a

00:33:18.340 is um they're just clean like there's a lot of pride and it's just like a nice place to be in

00:33:24.400 where so many of these private equity back chains they don't care they don't have skin in the game

00:33:28.840 they don't it's like every burger king now is just so run down and sticky and smelly yeah

00:33:34.780 but you know what i mean like someone that owns something or you have like there are critiques of

00:33:39.720 the franchise model don't get me wrong but there is you can have a beautiful relationship there

00:33:44.180 but the separation of like labor and capital is like really to me the big problem here and you

00:33:49.400 and this is across the food system i think people like most listeners have some understanding of how

00:33:55.420 the franchise model works but can we just sketch it very briefly that difference within the franchise

00:34:01.020 model between quote-unquote mom and pop owned so individual owned and private equity owned and how

00:34:07.140 that that plays out yeah so like let's say you want to open your own bakery like i'm my mom

00:34:12.940 in position she was in a few decades ago i could just open a place called kathy's bake shop

00:34:17.260 great my own recipes find my own suppliers all that kind of stuff what franchises do is that

00:34:23.260 they simplify and they ease that process being like hey you pay a flat fee and also a percent

00:34:28.920 of your revenue into this you become part of this you get our brand we'll help you with supplies

00:34:34.160 we will do new products we'll do teaching education we'll make you part of a community

00:34:38.680 yeah there's a lot it makes a risky thing safer there's a comfort in it and like there's a whole

00:34:45.120 there's a whole ecosystem there's all these trade publications telling you which are the good chains

00:34:48.200 and franchise agreements and all that right right and private equity did is what they did you know

00:34:52.440 in most times local franchises you might have one location might have five ten whatever and what

00:34:57.640 we've really seen now is just like you have these people with massive pools of capital

00:35:02.300 via private equity what have you come in essentially buy up a bunch that's usually

00:35:07.640 where you see the worst abuse i mean that to me there's a whole other conversation that we had too

00:35:12.020 over i don't think people realize like 2010 to 2020 in america really that cheap money era like

00:35:18.240 zero percent interest really wrecked our economy and all that did was essentially we essentially

00:35:22.480 engaged and trickled down monetary policy where we essentially gave out free money to people that

00:35:26.820 already had it to a massive acquisition sprees and this was rocket fuel for private equity so during

00:35:31.780 that time they were essentially able to buy up a bunch of these businesses because money was so

00:35:35.540 cheap. Yeah. So there aren't any caps on how many, unless the franchisor puts them out themselves

00:35:42.600 on how many franchises you can own and who has to own them. That's all like on the level of the

00:35:49.180 franchise. Yes. And then you also have now a lot of the company stores themselves too,

00:35:53.820 or like, you know, you have franchisees and then the franchisors are even like private equities

00:35:57.180 moving into that space. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The most famous one is Rourke Capital and named after

00:36:00.720 the main character in fountainhead i love that detail sorry because it's just like everything

00:36:06.400 you need to know about the white guy that created it is told right there right there right there

00:36:10.320 right and they're the ones that own all the mall chains right mall chains but like chains people

00:36:15.700 love they own they own a large percent of like culver's people in midwest love culver's yeah

00:36:19.660 they just bought then what's that chicken strip chain boys love um date's hot chicken like every

00:36:26.060 15-year-old boy hangs out there. Sorry, that's like my hot date. They just bought that. They

00:36:30.240 bought Jimmy John's, I believe. If you go to our website, they own like 20 different brands.

00:36:33.400 Yeah. The first thing I thought of when I first learned about how franchisees worked

00:36:38.560 was that in broadcast television, that the FCC put caps on how many stations a single person

00:36:46.100 or even the network, like ABC, how many that they could own and operate in part because they

00:36:53.060 understood that the individual networks like in these places they were potent ideological forces

00:36:59.100 and they didn't think anyone should have monopoly on them and i like restaurants are not the same

00:37:04.760 but i do think that like sometimes when you force something like what you're talking about with

00:37:09.340 chick-fil-a you are forcing a different relationship between the owner and the product

00:37:14.420 those guardrails create a better product i it's so funny you bring that the the tv station thing up

00:37:20.580 because literally my husband and I

00:37:22.200 were having this conversation the other night

00:37:23.360 because my family was an ABC family and he was NBC.

00:37:26.760 And for both of us, it was because the local station,

00:37:29.240 like our favorite local station was an ABC.

00:37:31.100 And like, because of that,

00:37:32.240 that's how we got our programming.

00:37:34.220 And what I love about this example too is guardrails,

00:37:37.300 like we need to create guardrails.

00:37:39.560 How do you take concepts in one area

00:37:41.300 and apply them to other ones?

00:37:42.280 Like that could be an idea for reform.

00:37:44.440 I can tell you from researching and studying this space,

00:37:47.380 people aren't thinking about this stuff.

00:37:49.380 And that's what kind of excites me is like, how do we create a healthy regulatory environment

00:37:55.040 for franchisees and franchise agreements?

00:37:57.880 Yeah.

00:37:58.400 Maybe do we take rules from broadcast or, you know, other markets?

00:38:01.960 But those are being degraded too.

00:38:04.060 Like, I mean, this is the foundational thing is this understanding that unfettered capitalism

00:38:10.800 will always produce the best results when what we're seeing is it actually often makes

00:38:16.620 everything get worse.

00:38:17.960 So feel free to push back.

00:38:19.020 Like, I just feel like this is cyclical.

00:38:20.580 Like, we're just in another laissez-faire era.

00:38:22.400 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:38:23.140 And these things always crash and burn.

00:38:24.440 But the question is, what's next?

00:38:25.700 Like, we cannot have a repeat of 2008.

00:38:28.260 The system crashed.

00:38:29.440 And we didn't do the Glass-Steagall thing where we essentially did structural barriers.

00:38:33.040 Instead, we put, we let big get bigger.

00:38:36.480 And now we're at this moment.

00:38:37.680 So that's why I tell people right now is, like, focus on what should these regulatory

00:38:43.200 structures be in all these different things.

00:38:45.040 Because if you don't have a plan, because when these moments come, they're going to happen so fast.

00:38:51.540 The hope is that we will have what's called a plastic moment where things are in flux and we can actually enact change.

00:39:00.940 My problem is that I really thought we had a plastic moment with COVID.

00:39:04.020 I thought that we would be able to make some significant societal systemic changes.

00:39:09.660 And instead, everything just got worse.

00:39:11.200 So I just I oscillate between that, that real hopefulness, taking the long lens of history that we are in a laissez-faire era and that we will go into a place of more regulation.

00:39:22.580 But yeah, I mean, trust me, like that is like that is like being in America right now is like there's like deep cynicism and optimism.

00:39:32.160 It's like grasping at it. Just like, please come here. Yes, it's.

00:39:37.120 Um, but also like, I guess I should say where my brain's at right now is when we tell the

00:39:43.500 history, we tend to focus on the end result, but we don't show the movements that led to

00:39:47.320 that end result.

00:39:48.160 Yeah.

00:39:48.600 Like an antitrust, the first antitrust laws in the world came from Iowa.

00:39:52.200 It was farmers organizing mad about railroads and bank and grain elevators.

00:39:55.600 Then a few states copied it and eventually DC did it.

00:39:58.300 No president did anything until one came along and did something.

00:40:00.840 And that was decades of activism.

00:40:02.520 Yeah.

00:40:02.760 And I say that now because like the new deal, this is where I'm researching right now is

00:40:07.040 like a lot of the new deal came from wisconsin yeah and even like new york like new york's

00:40:12.020 whole free bus thing a lot of that's rooted in iowa city yeah yeah and so the seeds are there

00:40:17.500 yeah the seeds are there but like i think right now is let's find the people sowing those seeds

00:40:22.360 and how do we elevate them like my personal opinion is oligarchs when when you shut down

00:40:26.580 in moments like this almost demand the opposite like you have to engage the most right now because

00:40:30.720 you see what keeps me going is seeing people doing it right and you see what the system could

00:40:35.560 be like i purposely profiled a woman who created her own like local version of cisco she's ellen

00:40:41.400 she's a farmer in western iowa she farms raises kids runs her own restaurant and has a distribution

00:40:46.320 company she'll get off the ground yeah and you see like oh to me this is the future of i like 0.99

00:40:51.240 this what iowa could be yeah how do we allow some more people like her can prosper because right

00:40:55.240 now she's running a pill she's running herself into the ground yada yada yada but trust me i

00:40:59.280 can be so dark right now how can you not be living in this country but like it's a weird

00:41:02.860 i don't know it's really you need those examples of something like how we could rebuild these are

00:41:08.360 like end of episode thoughts that we got to because i think everything points us in that

00:41:13.540 direction right now um but this is like it does remind me that like the way that our restaurants

00:41:18.720 are working are reflective of like changes in the way that society is is working and so like

00:41:23.360 obviously a conversation about what's happening in restaurants is also a conversation about america

00:41:27.900 but I want to backtrack briefly because a couple of some of our listeners had questions about

00:41:34.020 specific places that I know you know about and that's going to make people really they're going

00:41:38.800 to be like oh my gosh now everything is illuminated so this next question is about

00:41:43.360 in shitification and sweet green this comes from Andrea I spent a decade living in Washington DC

00:41:50.020 and fell in love with the original sweet green location in the first few years of their national

00:41:54.840 explosion, I loved being able to go on work travel and know I could get a reliable salad in many

00:42:00.160 cities around the country. That has changed in the last few years where the quality feels like

00:42:05.180 it has significantly decreased to the point where I do not even consider stopping in at a sweet green

00:42:09.860 anymore. So my question is this, are there any examples of local restaurants turned chains

00:42:15.080 where the quality has not suffered? And if yes, what are the drivers for that consistency?

00:42:20.200 I have to tell you, I had the same, almost same example where my husband first and I started dating 10 years ago in DC.

00:42:27.200 Our date night spot on a Friday night was a place called Cava.

00:42:30.680 But Cava is like, I don't go there anymore.

00:42:32.380 I used to love it and the quality kept getting worse and worse.

00:42:34.840 And I totally feel where this person's coming from.

00:42:38.500 And it's hard.

00:42:40.120 I mean, there's two things going on here.

00:42:41.460 Part of what consolidation does never forget is they don't want to deal with a local provider.

00:42:45.220 these when these restaurants first started off they were procuring locally cisco doesn't want

00:42:50.080 to deal with an ellen they want to deal with a mammoth company that can supply warehouses in

00:42:55.260 all 50 states yeah um so big begets big yeah on the second note i do have like a whole list in

00:43:01.500 my phone of like chains i like and the one on top of my mind right now that i think is consistent

00:43:06.660 and is growing is andy's frozen custard oh interesting walkable from my house is it so

00:43:12.280 good yes i like yes i have like i love like i love ice like i i got their peppermint one when

00:43:18.140 we were in arkansas a few weekends ago and like oh my god brownie jackhammer let's put respect on

00:43:23.000 its name i had my 20 minute conversation with the the it was no one's getting ice cream in

00:43:30.380 december or january when we were there i love talking with the person like what's selling

00:43:35.400 what's not like yeah i mean they're even making like the brownies and stuff in store i mean that

00:43:39.720 made such a quality difference and like i've never had an ice cream that i i i kept like i would buy

00:43:45.780 them like this is my last bite and then i kept picking it up it was so good i i also love that

00:43:51.820 you guys just keep talking about these places that i have no familiarity with partly because i live on

00:43:56.100 an island but also because i think that the pacific northwest is a little bit especially

00:44:00.880 where i live is just a little bit more hostile to change like there don't get me wrong we have a lot

00:44:05.560 of chains but like it is not a place people are like you guys are offering in a new like a chain

00:44:13.060 that's taken over america what's that's bros oh they're everywhere now oregon man um well and also

00:44:19.560 we have the the the innovation that i didn't realize was a unique thing that they were all

00:44:24.700 over when i grew up um of like the coffee hut like basically like a shack that you buy at home depot

00:44:31.760 or wherever and then people just serve their coffee from there and people can drive up and

00:44:35.620 it's like obviously the costs are minuscule because you are only heating and preparing

00:44:41.700 coffee in this very small place but that model has also spread i don't care for dutch brothers

00:44:46.340 i think it's gross but it's fascinating i mean mcdonald's was even scared by it where it made

00:44:51.700 a concept called cosmax just like they were losing a lot of gen c consumers to it oh because it's

00:44:57.740 They also innovated custom energy drinks.

00:45:00.800 Yeah.

00:45:01.320 Yeah.

00:45:01.760 Well, and the other thing that I see spreading, and this is like Utah specific, is the fancy flavored soda places, pop places.

00:45:10.320 I also grew up saying pop because my family's from Minnesota, that really cater to like the Mormon family, like obviously more than Mormons, but a lot of Mormons who don't have a lot of other drink options, but want to figure out like all of these different, you know, have a fun place to go.

00:45:25.780 that's their version of like a fancy starbucks drink right totally and like just thinking about

00:45:32.860 this this question the two things other things i would add on is one the chains that still tend to

00:45:37.320 be good are still privately owned yeah chick-fil-a most notably but the one i mean the one that's

00:45:43.080 fascinating and to me that says the most about this moment like you want to understand america

00:45:46.540 right now you go to a texas roadhouse on a friday night huh people don't realize it's the largest

00:45:51.640 sit down chain now in america for for sales it's bigger than applebee's bigger than chilies yeah

00:45:55.640 it is and here's the thing it's um it's actually a really good memoir from the guy who created it

00:46:01.600 yeah yeah um he fascinating history um he comes out of kentucky he used to run a disco then he

00:46:08.600 ran a binnegan's and then he took all this you know i mean someone who's been in the business

00:46:11.720 for a long time knows how people work like ordering a chain and we created texas roadhouse

00:46:15.960 essentially is like a blue collar version of a fancy steakhouse yeah which there hadn't been

00:46:19.480 before and he realized like from running a disco americans love height levels like they like to

00:46:24.240 look around yeah so if you're going to texas roadhouse there's all these different height

00:46:27.380 levels going on yeah yeah he understands yeah he understands chains are theater so you see like the

00:46:32.320 making buns there's a meat case when you come in like there's all this and on top of it it's a good

00:46:37.460 prop like they make their sides are still made in-house like they still make the mashed potatoes

00:46:41.860 like it's not healthy at all but it's a good meal and i think that's why honestly i think that's why

00:46:47.400 it's doing so well is most of these chains, these private equity chains, they're not playing long

00:46:52.280 term. Where Texas House is. I mean, it is wild how fast it came to become the dominant chain in

00:46:58.060 America. Do you know the Taco Time story? Yeah. I don't know. I know of Taco Time, but what do

00:47:02.900 you mean by Taco Time story? So in the Northwest, there is fierce loyalty to Taco Time, but

00:47:09.500 specifically Taco Time Northwest. So all of them are like under the same front, like they're all

00:47:16.620 taco times but i don't know what year this was it was like maybe a decade ago is when i first heard

00:47:21.880 this these rumblings some people were like wait why are some of the taco times still good and why

00:47:28.560 are some of the taco times garbage now and what they deduced was that the ones that are still good

00:47:35.000 like the ones of our childhood in the northwest are owned by i think like an individual who owns

00:47:42.100 something called taco time northwest or company or something and they have like held to the old

00:47:47.220 ways essentially do you know what i mean and so now like i know which like which ones in which

00:47:53.860 cities are taco time northwest because it's a great like if you're driving through a town like

00:47:57.980 if you're on a road trip like just get a little soft taco with some mexi fries which are just

00:48:02.400 tater tots um but that's like the perfect thing to stop and get and but just that that has become

00:48:08.960 like and I honestly I don't like I have not verified this outside of reading a lot of

00:48:13.680 Reddit threads and everyone knows it it's just lore but that idea right that like the true spirit

00:48:19.740 of taco time lives on in one franchisee's taco times is really interesting to me first of all

00:48:26.860 I'm laughing because taco time came to Iowa a few years ago and it failed and so like it was just

00:48:30.600 but I love I love these these little regional chain types things yes yes it's like very and

00:48:38.360 it's sad when you lose a little bit of your identity when they go away like this whole

00:48:41.620 conversation is we're talking about change you know what I mean yeah the world's on fire but

00:48:45.860 it's like one of these things where like it kind of like there's a comfort in the stress of life

00:48:49.880 to have these certain things when you're like okay I know when I go here I'm getting a treat

00:48:53.460 I'm getting Andy's frozen custard yeah yeah yeah yeah exactly it's just like it's going back to

00:48:59.860 pride like that one owner has been like played a long-term game and you know what I mean they

00:49:04.580 took pride in their ownership and like i just remember i met a private equity young man who

00:49:11.640 came from a rich family went to rich colleges and was managing as a private equity employee

00:49:16.540 managing a famous new england chain and that bothered me so much because it's like he's never

00:49:22.260 flipped a frozen hamburger in his life right right right and i just remember on the flip side my mom

00:49:26.520 after she sold her baker my mom went to work at starbucks and a target and she hated she got in

00:49:33.120 the biggest fights with corporate because they told her that something's called planogram so

00:49:35.980 they told her we put every single thing on the shelf and they didn't trust her to merchandise

00:49:40.020 her own store yeah and like it's just like like i just think of that frustration and anger and

00:49:44.500 that disrespect and that lack of agency yep given to my mother a woman who's been on her feet in

00:49:49.820 customer service roles her whole life being dictated by a 20 year old boy yeah no well and 0.82

00:49:54.280 like thinking more expansively like these are the lack of agency and control is also like a leading

00:49:59.700 cause of burnout within the workplace, right? And so when you also take that away, you're also

00:50:05.620 making people less engaged workers, like not have no like desire to be there or because they have

00:50:11.260 no agency over it, right? Yeah. Today's episode is brought to you by Fast Growing Trees. Did you

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00:52:02.400 yes but i would just the fact that they didn't die over the winter is huge that's huge also give

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00:52:44.780 Today's episode is brought to you by Blueland.

00:52:47.260 So, Melody, in the spring, do you notice, like, a lot more dirt in your house?

00:52:51.680 Oh, yeah.

00:52:52.600 Dirt, dust, cobwebs, everything.

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00:52:58.580 Yeah.

00:52:58.920 And so the light's, like, slanting in and you're like, bleh.

00:53:01.460 And then just, I mean, the dogs are shedding.

00:53:04.540 people are outside more and like the the outside is not covered in snow so there's just more like

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00:54:54.920 Okay, next question. It's super interesting and I think it's something that people have observed

00:55:02.920 but don't really have an explanation for. This is from Aubrey and Melody's going to read it.

00:55:09.260 Just this week, I drove by both a shuttered, abandoned macaroni grill and an Olive Garden

00:55:15.200 with a full parking lot at lunchtime on a weekday. What is it about Olive Garden that's keeping it

00:55:20.620 afloat even when we vacationed out of state over the summer the olive gardens there were packed

00:55:25.420 this can't all be just because taylor swift mentioned it in a song like five years ago

00:55:29.940 no no okay what is what is the olive garden secret i love that question because um reminded me

00:55:38.960 there's this great quote that i never like it makes sense once you hear it where the company

00:55:43.100 that owns olive garden is called darden and he said in an interview most people only have three

00:55:48.660 or four restaurants they rotate between huh and i just they're anecdotally thinking like my mom's

00:55:53.600 one of 12 you know stereotypical irish catholic and like she has a sister for 20 years that's

00:55:58.820 where they eat on a friday night yeah it's all garden and then i just think it's consistency

00:56:03.300 you know what you're gonna get the big city i get all of gardens the same big city i got 20 years

00:56:08.560 ago yeah on top of it i think an underappreciated thing and i think this is part of the success of

00:56:13.800 applebee's and i assume it's olive garden is the wait staff yeah like people the applebee's where

00:56:21.020 i grew up it's the same waiters they've been there forever and they're good yeah people know

00:56:24.760 when they go there because it's a relationship you have with that waiter you know them you know

00:56:28.700 it's a good thing and a lot of these other chains that kind of flame out fly out have awful service

00:56:33.000 you know i mean like that's usually how you break out of that rotation is like a really bad service

00:56:37.280 experience right does olive garden how do they have that high retention when it comes to service

00:56:41.600 stuff i don't know that's a really good question i mean that is i know what makes texas roadhouse

00:56:46.340 unique because you know they're part of that group too is um their servers only have three tops which

00:56:51.740 is very yeah anyone that's worked in the restaurant industry is like wow only three tables but they

00:56:56.160 move you so fast i mean anyone's ever been to a texas roadhouse you are in and out in under an

00:57:00.400 hour and to have a steak dinner that fast is incredible yeah but they are pushing you fast

00:57:04.640 that's i actually hate that but i understand why it has to happen um i do appreciate like when i'm

00:57:11.400 if you go to like europe oftentimes if you get a reservation they'll have like an actual time at

00:57:18.140 the end of the reservation it's like you can only have the table till this but this is also because

00:57:22.460 in europe they serve dinner until like 11 p.m and so like they have several like you get the table

00:57:28.700 for three hours and it's saying like you can only have it for three hours where as if you did this

00:57:33.800 in like a if at an olive garden it'd be like you have the table for an hour and then get out here

00:57:38.620 which would feel more rude. Okay, last question. I want to end on another philosophical one here.

00:57:45.380 And I love this because I feel it. So I think you understand it too. The feeling of the,

00:57:51.680 the like mid-level chain restaurant as being an event and what has happened to that. And if it's

00:57:57.920 going to, you know, sustain into the future. This question comes from Andrea. I was born in 1982.

00:58:04.420 so I lived through what was, up to now, arguably the pinnacle of chain restaurant dominance.

00:58:10.680 Everyone was celebrating at Red Lobster or the Cheesecake Factory,

00:58:14.300 and going out to dinner often meant a trip to Chili's or Applebee's for a lot of people.

00:58:19.620 Then this sort of thing fell out of fashion for many as the Soren's eye of culture

00:58:23.480 turned toward the food supply chain and issues of quality.

00:58:27.560 The dishes at chain restaurants were cheap because the food came from factory farms

00:58:31.380 and underpaid workers were reheating pre-prepared meal elements in the microwave.

00:58:36.640 We wanted ethically sourced, high-quality food that was handmade by actual chefs,

00:58:41.900 and we were willing to pay for it.

00:58:44.060 Then the economy tanked, and now a lot of people can't afford the higher price point

00:58:48.360 of that kind of restaurant experience.

00:58:51.180 My question is, are we romanticizing the memories of chain restaurants

00:58:55.260 to shield ourselves from the financial reality

00:58:58.240 that this type of eating out is what we can afford now what a beautiful question i know i love i love

00:59:04.700 our listeners your listeners like first of all the zoran phrase like i mean that um i have zoran

00:59:09.380 like yeah and then that question i like i've been the tooth i mean this is like yes to that question

00:59:16.580 and i yeah here's where i come down is i don't think we realize as a country i sorry i don't

00:59:22.220 keep saying this but like that 2000 to 2010 i don't think we appreciate americans how big that

00:59:27.660 was for china that's when they industrialized and part of that was was they just flooded our 0.75

00:59:31.840 country with cheap stuff like you had cheap capital all this i just remember growing up you 0.97

00:59:36.000 see comforters on south the discount at the apartment store for 20 bucks and everyone's

00:59:39.600 home became filled with cheap crap and part of it what happened is in the restaurant space is you

00:59:44.760 saw a lot of standalone restaurant buildings if you notice today you don't see a lot of like 0.76

00:59:49.580 new construction of standalone units yeah what you tend to see now is like they're going into

00:59:54.380 the strip mall so like perkins is dying but a lot of breakfast new breakfast chains they're not

00:59:58.360 building alone they're putting into a strip mall yeah yeah yeah yeah and so like it i personally

01:00:03.520 think it's kind of like a lot of things in america right now things got out of whack um we shouldn't

01:00:08.240 be now almost once a day that's my personal opinion we know from studies it's on it's more

01:00:13.100 unhealthy all this kind of stuff but also let's be very fair people are working a lot more doing a

01:00:18.120 lot so like i understand it um i think so i think that's why is we had that moment where these

01:00:23.600 chains were coming online there's a lot of cheap wall street capital going into them you were

01:00:27.060 getting a good bargain and now the economics the realities have changed economic realities and so

01:00:31.800 we're having that kind of moment that readjustment well okay so going back to this idea too like i

01:00:37.820 think there's some the fetishization of the middle class restaurant as a chain restaurant

01:00:44.480 is kind of messed up right and it's also like an understanding of like i think

01:00:49.580 90s economics as like an economics to be fetishized in some ways right like and the spread

01:00:57.440 of cisco the ongoing spread of cisco instead of like i think maybe one thing that we could

01:01:03.280 like a more proper fetishization or nostalgia target would be like when we could save up and

01:01:12.080 at the end of the month go to like the fancy restaurant in our town that was run by people

01:01:16.940 that we knew and all of our money was going to them right instead of like to this larger chain

01:01:22.360 but we get this like there's just such slippage in the way that we think of like oh wasn't it so

01:01:28.860 great when on friday night i could go to red lobster and get a steak and a giant pile of

01:01:36.020 shrimp for 15 and like that's not how much things cost right so in some ways i think like this is

01:01:43.200 what andrea is pointing to is like we're trying to love this moment when all these things were

01:01:51.600 cheaper than they should have cost and we actually like exacerbated the income divide so it's

01:01:56.460 actually not a middle class moment i'm smiling because i'm gonna take a i'm making an edgy

01:02:01.640 argument yeah yeah it reminds me of like why heated rivalry is like hitting like hitting right

01:02:06.760 now right i've been talking like my husband like why is this show so popular like i mean

01:02:11.640 i understand why for certain scenes but like i think it's part of when the world's so dark right

01:02:16.880 now people are clinging to things that remind them of calm in the past like yeah yeah this show to me

01:02:21.440 is giving like second term obama and i get why people want that and like change like most of

01:02:26.460 it's set second term obama yes and like that's why it's just like you get why people want to be

01:02:30.840 in the headspace like especially right now yeah and with the 90s chain romanticism you're like oh

01:02:37.080 like it was the you know i mean it was that awful book uh the end of empires or whatever you know

01:02:41.360 I mean, in the end of time or people, the world wasn't as dark and scary then in people's

01:02:47.740 recollection in their mind.

01:02:48.940 And so that's why I think people, we're romanticizing what we shouldn't romanticize.

01:02:52.660 Like something I always have to remind myself in the food system is a mentor of mine told

01:02:56.960 me this in the first draft of my book was stop saying things broke because you're implying

01:03:01.440 they once worked.

01:03:02.680 Right.

01:03:03.180 And what he meant by that is like, especially in the food system, it's rooted in slavery

01:03:05.820 and genocide.

01:03:06.620 There's really cool things we can learn from the past, but be very, very careful about

01:03:10.200 romanticizing the past.

01:03:11.360 right like i think right now time is better spent articulating what is a positive balanced

01:03:17.600 multicultural fit system what does that look like

01:03:21.640 indulge me for a second is like so that's my i'm working on my next book and it's going to be on

01:03:29.800 that because the beauty of like going to places like great falls montana all these other speaking

01:03:34.120 gigs is you're seeing americans doing cool things yeah and like um like in the north in the

01:03:40.200 midwest right now there's a lot of cool indigenous food stuff going on that really hasn't been

01:03:44.420 appreciated and like a lot of it i honestly i thought the ford foundation was behind it or

01:03:48.960 something but it's really the tribes themselves a lot of them are taking their casino profits and

01:03:52.860 putting it into food yeah so you're seeing this you're like in minnesota minneapolis this year

01:03:58.700 um a famous chef is going to open a fast casual that's going to be a native barbecue so it'll be

01:04:03.980 like bison you know i mean like that sounds fun and cool and like okay like how do we take that

01:04:09.280 like the other chapter i'm writing right now is like carry gold like this butter people love

01:04:14.480 second best-selling branded butter in america looking at the regulatory structure like what

01:04:19.200 makes ireland butter so good and like oh that's the way butter used to be in america how do we

01:04:23.160 go back to the regulatory system so it's like a lot of this is it's just we know what to do here

01:04:28.440 it's a combination of political courage but also like looking what someone else has done or taking

01:04:32.060 concepts at work and scaling them yeah and putting on those guardrails as we've talked about this

01:04:38.180 entire episode that allow business to flourish but also allow quality to stay high and sometimes

01:04:47.040 you have to pay like this is the other like all of this is interlocking right so when we talk

01:04:51.060 about like sometimes things have to cost more then sometimes companies have to pay their workers more

01:04:55.980 so that they can afford to go to the restaurants and like but maybe too we're gonna go to a time

01:05:01.100 where we're eating out less like maybe that's also part of like this shifting this us traveling

01:05:06.220 through time is like nothing's fixed about how much we eat out right now and like that this is

01:05:12.060 all it's ever evolving and like that's the beauty of this is um even like a lot of this starts local

01:05:18.620 like you could even work locally at your state and try to try a franchise cap like can you copy

01:05:23.800 the idea from broadcast television and apply it here hey you can only own so many franchises in

01:05:27.940 the state one good example kind of on a different note is in north dakota north dakota prevents

01:05:32.780 corporate ownership of pharmacies. Love it. Love it. Like how brilliant is that? And you're like,

01:05:37.500 oh, like copy that or like incubate these ideas now and then brag about them. And like the other

01:05:42.420 thing that always, what I've really learned from the meat industry is like, hey, Roosevelt didn't

01:05:46.840 just break up the meat industry. It was actually just an agreement that a bunch of rules and it

01:05:52.180 was these constellation of things that changed a bigger thing. Like there's never a one size,

01:05:56.720 like, you know, there's never one thing that fixes everything. It's all these little things.

01:06:00.100 like that is something i just love that fdr like you just got to try stuff yeah yeah well can we

01:06:07.680 just what's number one on your favorite chain restaurant as a place for us to stop oh my god

01:06:12.320 that's a great question i'm gonna get out my list on my phone to um number one so can i like answer

01:06:22.200 like i'm gonna yeah you can have you nuanced with it okay yeah because i never get asked this

01:06:26.240 question um my i think the chain to keep an eye on my number one chain to watch is k-pot

01:06:32.400 okay yeah and we talked briefly about that yeah we talked about that it is millennial fondue

01:06:37.840 um they do the same thing too as ramen where it's like you don't get as much meat as you think you

01:06:43.420 are yeah yeah um there is a puerto rican chain called el nison i really like really good

01:06:50.300 sandwiches um did you go to five on black when you're in montana no what's that it's a um

01:06:57.600 brazilian like iteration on sort of the the chipotle model but it is so good and it is

01:07:05.800 local to montana i love it so that is next time you're there go i will add it to my list on my

01:07:11.740 big old list um yeah those are like the two i mean my favorite chain will always be probably

01:07:16.940 texas roadhouse that just honestly it's weird but that's it's weird it's such a weird thing

01:07:23.480 my husband pointed this out to me is when i first met him i was homesick in dc and i used to get

01:07:28.860 like crabby and to comfort me he took me out to texas roadhouse and um buoy i believe and i was

01:07:36.120 like why is this chain making me feel so at home yeah you know it's such a weird you know what i

01:07:41.480 mean like all these chains like athletes are like when you hear your family or like all these like

01:07:44.920 these slogans it's a weird but it's something i've had the same i get something called road

01:07:49.520 kale i get the same dish since i was 15 years old okay my favorite defunct chain is tcby the

01:07:58.320 country's best yogurt loved it oh my gosh uh and my favorite current chain i've already mentioned

01:08:04.480 is taco time northwest what's your favorite one that's gone downhill the one you used to love

01:08:08.420 that's like really disappointed you i think wendy's because i when i was in high school

01:08:13.660 this is so classic Idaho uh our high school was so incredibly small for our population that they

01:08:20.660 had to open up campus and we had 25 minutes for lunch and everyone piled into their cars which

01:08:25.940 we all could drive because we got our licenses when we were 15 uh and went to fast food row and

01:08:32.540 every single place had a couple of things that you could get for two dollars right so whether

01:08:39.440 it was subway or wendy's or mcdonald's or arby's like there were two things that you could get that

01:08:45.120 would total like 201 and so i would often get the chicken nuggets and fries or in one person

01:08:53.240 would get a frosty that you would like share amongst the car right so good and so different

01:08:57.940 tasting right like it just it had a different taste and now it tastes like cisco so melody

01:09:04.440 uh well andy's is just like in a class of its own um so that's like s tier for me i think

01:09:12.240 actual food wise probably taco bell and the chain that has gone downhill so much that i really miss

01:09:19.780 is chipotle oh yeah and like the other day i was talking to my sister and i was like chipotle sounds

01:09:25.960 so good but i know it won't be and she's like no you're craving 2009 chipotle yeah exactly yeah

01:09:31.780 you got to put a date on it and I like you know the person who asked about sweet green like I

01:09:36.240 crave uh 2016 sweet green sitting in my like office at BuzzFeed in New York right like I do

01:09:45.780 not crave I was a I was a chopped girly in DC and then the last time I went to DC I got chopped and

01:09:53.240 I was so excited and it was absolutely disgusting but they've revitalized they've revitalized I think

01:09:59.380 this was the revitalized version now just add on my favorite chain that went down or like

01:10:04.580 went bankrupt is remember in dc a chain called chopped house no chipotle opened their version

01:10:10.480 of like southeast asian food it was like they only had like it was i think it was ahead of

01:10:15.280 its time it was too spicy for like most of americans it was so good it was like 10 years

01:10:19.640 ago and then they pulled where was it because i lived there 10 years ago um they were in chinatown

01:10:24.300 um DuPont oh that's so interesting like trying to do like a Chipotle like that style in Chinatown

01:10:31.360 well here's the thing I mean like Chipotle does they're investing in new startups they just

01:10:36.080 they that's what a lot of these companies do now is when they see a concept taken over I mean

01:10:40.300 Chipotle has investments it just announced that it bought into like a company doing a new startup

01:10:45.980 in um Columbus Ohio but then like you know Olive Garden is owned by used to own Red Lobster they

01:10:51.680 on all these they basically sold red lobster to buy ruth chris's like these things are all kind

01:10:56.620 of owned oh my gosh i'm looking at five on black and they had one in great falls oh if we would

01:11:02.440 have talked before you went um but that's the sort of thing that i could see like a company

01:11:07.600 looking at their model being like this is beloved and then buying it and most people won't know

01:11:14.880 right most people don't notice right away until like they suddenly are like oh it's becoming

01:11:20.160 should have fried and part of it is because it's but like i also i can't say this enough i don't

01:11:25.280 want to blame the restaurants when their supply chains are awful like yeah yeah yeah our produce

01:11:29.160 system moved offshore because these awful trade agreements like a lot of our produce is coming

01:11:32.560 picked by children bad labor environments all this kind of stuff it's really hard to get good

01:11:37.080 arugula or cabbage or carrots or like private equity owns carrots yeah yeah yeah yeah i like

01:11:43.140 i want to like at some point that's the role we live in right now yeah yeah that's it doesn't

01:11:48.000 have to be that way okay that last part it doesn't have to be that way that is what we're gonna leave

01:11:53.260 on this has been fantastic i everything i dreamed of and more i hope we can have you back on the

01:11:59.880 show sometime because i could talk about this stuff forever if people want to find more of

01:12:03.860 you on the internet where can they find you yeah um my soul on all the socials i'm austin ferrick

01:12:08.780 f-r-e-r-i-c-k and that's my website too and check out my book barrens i will i love to hear what

01:12:14.200 people think is most interesting, Baron. And also let me know the chain, like, let me know your

01:12:17.820 chains, your favorite chains that went disconnected. I love this. I just think it's such a fun

01:12:22.340 conversation. It really is. Thanks again for joining me. Thanks again for having me.

01:12:32.400 Thanks for listening to the Culture Study Podcast. Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your

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01:13:13.680 Anne Helen Peterson, and Melody Rowell. Our music is by Poddington Bear. You can find me

01:13:18.500 on Instagram at Anne Helen Peterson, Melody at Melodias47, and the show at Culture Study Pod.

01:13:24.300 okay my verdict on the sandwich it's so salty i feel like i'm gonna die oh no yeah

01:13:40.420 not enjoyable oh my god i'm sad for you 0.98

01:13:44.560 no it was the buffalo sauce sauce was like incredibly salty oh damn 0.95

01:13:53.120 Um, these chicken crispers are fire. 0.97

01:13:59.280 I don't know what else to say.

01:14:01.840 This is like a perfect quesadilla.

01:14:05.180 I'm having a great time.

01:14:07.600 My soup is pretty good and my fries are normal and good.

01:14:11.020 My fries are good.

01:14:12.640 I'm glad I had the egg roll.

01:14:14.400 I'll probably dip back into the dipper.

01:14:15.840 I enjoyed having lots of dipper left.

01:14:18.840 yeah this is just very

01:14:22.920 basic honestly now i'm thinking about it i don't think there's chicken or bacon on this

01:14:27.960 wait what chicken bacon ranch yeah yeah i didn't get the right thing

01:14:35.880 that's just terrible that it's perfect because if i was seven this would be exactly what i'd want to

01:14:43.000 speed.

Culture Study Podcast - April 01, 2026

The Fascinating Future of the Chain Restaurant

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