The "whatever" of the fair-to-middlin' thread.

Noise Monkey · Post by **Noise Monkey** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 7:52 am

There's a benefit to that?

TheSuburbanLetdown · Post by **TheSuburbanLetdown** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 7:55 am

HA HA HA HA

A- HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

I need to go home and break something.

Noise Monkey · Post by **Noise Monkey** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 7:57 am

so....that's a...yes?

KWill · Post by **KWill** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 7:57 am

Noise Monkey wrote:It's that second pickle. You're just not going to a fancy enough joint.

Well, it is Burger King. Not meant to be fancy in the first place...

Garneta wrote:That's because they make burgers different in every single place. I always have to get mine special ordered...and what's with this two pickle nonsense anyway? McDonalds does that. TWO measly little pickles? Grr, Don't be so stingy with them!

They make them different at every Burger King?

I'd always thought the business model of fastfood stores was that everything looks, tastes, and is the same.

Also, on pickles: There must be exactly two slices. Not one, not three. Five is right out. I'll actually get agitated when there aren't exactly two, which is funny, because I don't like them and take them off so I don't have to eat them.

Yeahduff · Post by **Yeahduff** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 8:01 am

theSuburbanLetdown wrote:Portillo's makes my ass greasy. Let's go.

I typically reserve my lunch dates with the sane.

Rkolter · Post by **Rkolter** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 8:50 am

I'm pretty sure that Burger King and McDonalds and the rest have a set way of making Burgers, and that if you find differences it's because the worker doesn't care about the quality of their work.

I personally went through a phase where I liked pickles on my burgers, but I don't anymore. They're ok, if they're cool and fresh. But the pickles on McDonalds and Burger King burgers? Warm and floppy and translucent? Blah. No thanks. I pick 'em off.

Jim North · Post by **Jim North** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 9:03 am

KWill wrote:They make them different at every Burger King?
I'd always thought the business model of fastfood stores was that everything looks, tastes, and is the same.

Burger King is a franchise, and the way a franchise works is that pretty much anyone can buy and run one or more stores in that franchise. While there are some rules and regulations the franchisee must abide by, the store is still basically their store and they can choose to do some things differently if they want. They get to select which items of the overall list they're going to serve, which promotions they're going to run, and can even change exactly how particular menu items are made to some degree. It wasn't until about a year after I'd started working at Taco Bell that I learned that many other Taco Bells put black olives on their Nachos Bell Grande and taco salads. We didn't because our owners were cheap or something.

But the problem might also arise from how you're asking . . . do you say "I want a hamburger" or do you say "I want a simple hamburger"? If it's the latter, then it's not the franchise thing, it's a customer thing. "Simple" (or the more common "plain") can mean wildly different things to different customers. For some it might mean no mustard, ketchup, or mayo, but keep the lettuce and pickles. For others, it's a burger and a bun and nothing else at all. For some a simple burger has cheese (whether they specifically say "simple cheeseburger" or not) while for others it doesn't.

Yes, it may seem that fast food workers ask a lot of silly questions that they should already know the answer to, but that's only because you're only dealing with your own order . . . they have to deal with everyone's orders, and everyone that comes in has different expectations of what they're going to get even if they say the exact same things as everybody else. Because they're not mind-readers (if they were, they'd be at the race tracks instead of flipping burgers, natch), they have to determine just exactly what you are expecting because the next guy in line might also order the same thing but want something completely different.

Noise Monkey · Post by **Noise Monkey** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 9:10 am

What I want to see more of at MY McDonald's is the Double Cheeseburger with green chilies like I saw in New Mexico....mmmm......

KWill · Post by **KWill** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 9:23 am

Jim North wrote:Burger King is a franchise, and the way a franchise works is that pretty much anyone can buy and run one or more stores in that franchise. While there are some rules and regulations the franchisee must abide by, the store is still basically their store and they can choose to do some things differently if they want. They get to select which items of the overall list they're going to serve, which promotions they're going to run, and can even change exactly how particular menu items are made to some degree. It wasn't until about a year after I'd started working at Taco Bell that I learned that many other Taco Bells put black olives on their Nachos Bell Grande and taco salads. We didn't because our owners were cheap or something.

That's surprising. I was pretty sure one of the staple points of McDonalds was to ensure that buying a hamburger or chicken McNuggets in any restaurant would be the same experience. Not a great experience, mind you, but a reliable experience, so that customers would always come back because they knew what they were going to receive. Maybe Taco Bell does it differently or maybe McDonalds never did/no longer does things that way.

But the problem might also arise from how you're asking . . . do you say "I want a hamburger" or do you say "I want a simple hamburger"? If it's the latter, then it's not the franchise thing, it's a customer thing. "Simple" (or the more common "plain") can mean wildly different things to different customers. For some it might mean no mustard, ketchup, or mayo, but keep the lettuce and pickles. For others, it's a burger and a bun and nothing else at all. For some a simple burger has cheese (whether they specifically say "simple cheeseburger" or not) while for others it doesn't.

No, I get that. When I was little and the US Army still had an American Burger King on what used to be Truman Plaza (and now is a circus ground) in West Berlin, I got used to getting regular hamburgers (as I described them above) there. They still sell the exact same thing in German Burger Kings (which they call hamburger, though that's irrelevent considering different connotations in different languages). I was rather surprised to note that said product, which I was used to calling a regular hamburger, was nowhere to be found at another American Burger King on some base in Germany that I visited during a swim meet. Eventually I managed to get what I wanted by telling the guy "just give me a cheese burger without cheese." My only US non-hamburger experience was on my way back from a fencing tournament, where I decided to stay in the car on grounds of an ear-splitting headache, asking only for them to bring me a regular hamburger (and described it to them as I did above). When they came back, they gave me a whopper and told me they didn't have what I asked for =/

Yes, it may seem that fast food workers ask a lot of silly questions that they should already know the answer to, but that's only because you're only dealing with your own order . . . they have to deal with everyone's orders, and everyone that comes in has different expectations of what they're going to get even if they say the exact same things as everybody else. Because they're not mind-readers (if they were, they'd be at the race tracks instead of flipping burgers, natch), they have to determine just exactly what you are expecting because the next guy in line might also order the same thing but want something completely different.

Yeah, I understand what you mean, but I don't think this was the case. Perhaps things are more standardized across Germany than in the US.

Yeahduff · Post by **Yeahduff** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 10:13 am

KWill wrote:
Jim North wrote:Burger King is a franchise, and the way a franchise works is that pretty much anyone can buy and run one or more stores in that franchise. While there are some rules and regulations the franchisee must abide by, the store is still basically their store and they can choose to do some things differently if they want. They get to select which items of the overall list they're going to serve, which promotions they're going to run, and can even change exactly how particular menu items are made to some degree. It wasn't until about a year after I'd started working at Taco Bell that I learned that many other Taco Bells put black olives on their Nachos Bell Grande and taco salads. We didn't because our owners were cheap or something.
That's surprising. I was pretty sure one of the staple points of McDonalds was to ensure that buying a hamburger or chicken McNuggets in any restaurant would be the same experience. Not a great experience, mind you, but a reliable experience, so that customers would always come back because they knew what they were going to receive. Maybe Taco Bell does it differently or maybe McDonalds never did/no longer does things that way.

Well, each place within a chain gets food from the same place, and there are general templates. Most places do exactly the same as the template, but there are some that have little differences. I think Burger King has more franchises than McDonald's, but McD's definitely has them. In either case, the differences are minor, such as certain items not typically found on menus, different pricing, and special deals (thus the term "participating locations").

McDuffies · Post by **McDuffies** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 11:58 am

yeahduff wrote:I think Burger King has more franchises than McDonald's, but McD's definitely has them.

Me? Lies!

Garneta · Post by **Garneta** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 2:30 pm

KWill wrote: They make them different at every Burger King?

Huh? No! Different fast food places make burgers differently from each other! I thought that's what we were talking about; Miscellaneous chains, not just Burger Kings.

As for the franchise thing, the worst one I've ever seen is the Pizza Hut that used to be here in town. The owners of that hardly did any promotions that other pizza huts did, and they had different menu items, prices, no buffet...kinda sucked. It seemed that they were getting better recently...but then they just closed down about overnight with no warning.

IVstudios · Post by **IVstudios** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 3:02 pm

Jim North wrote: Because they're not mind-readers (if they were, they'd be at the race tracks instead of flipping burgers, natch)

How would being a mind reader help at a race track? The racer's don't know who's going to win any sooner than anyone else.

I FIND YOUR METAPHOR TO BE UNSATISFACTORY!!!

Jim North · Post by **Jim North** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 4:01 pm

ivstudios wrote:The racer's don't know who's going to win any sooner than anyone else.

The racers don't, but the people who drug the horses do.

Yeahduff · Post by **Yeahduff** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 7:54 am

mcDuffies wrote:
yeahduff wrote:I think Burger King has more franchises than McDonald's, but McD's definitely has them.
Me? Lies!

I went to a McDuffies in Farmer City and they didn't even know what a burger was. They only had haggis on the menu.

Killbert-Robby · Post by **Killbert-Robby** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 7:55 am

yeahduff wrote:
mcDuffies wrote:
yeahduff wrote:I think Burger King has more franchises than McDonald's, but McD's definitely has them.
Me? Lies!
I went to a McDuffies in Farmer City and they didn't even know what a burger was. They only had haggis on the menu.

Mmmmm, McHaggis.

McDuffies · Post by **McDuffies** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 8:13 am

What's haggis?

Yeahduff · Post by **Yeahduff** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 8:16 am

You'd better call your Farmer City location and find out.

Noise Monkey · Post by **Noise Monkey** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 9:58 am

Haggis.

TheSuburbanLetdown · Post by **TheSuburbanLetdown** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 12:03 pm

They had haggis in Farmer City?