The American populace has a multitude of choices daily thrust upon them. We are bombarded with eighteen different brands of toilet paper, thirty different brands of toothpaste, a million different brands of a million different products, each claiming superiority over the other. And not only dry goods; the venues within the marketplace are as varied as our shopping experience itself. Dozens of grocery chains, clothing store chains, bookstore chains, even coffee chains, each with an agenda of pursuing the consumer for their exclusive business. I regret that this has happened.
We have allowed the international conglomerates to control our buying decisions. We see choice and the “freedom” it imparts as a good thing, something that industry and big business want us to continue to accept as true. We think nothing of going to the big, national lumber store instead of Uncle Fred’s hardware that we patronized for years, all because the price is cheaper. And yet, is the quality of a proportionate level to cause us to disregard this factor in our buying? Would we rather deal with a minimum wage teenager, with no investment in their job, or would we rather deal with Uncle Fred, who owns his store and is dependent on our business for his livelihood, who can tell us where the locking washers are, what size threaded elbow we’d need, or that we shouldn’t spend our money on that particular saw blade since this one is cheaper but of equal quality for the job we’re doing? Is our demand for choice worth the lack of communication and service that tends to accompany it?
The evolution of the community watering hole and restaurant is an excellent example of this. Gone are the days when an eatery of local and historical value that serves good, homemade food can compete with the chain restaurants. I lament the day that the fast-food diners supplanted the local Mom and Pop café. It is more expensive, for sure, but Mom and Pop make each meal to order, make you want to return, give you a relaxed atmosphere, refill your tea, learn your name as you frequent their business, remember your likes and dislikes, wave to you on the street or at the store, ask about your family. Will the girl at the counter at Dairy Queen treat you in the same manner? More than likely, no.
Most repugnant to me are the so-called “fun-eateries”, the restaurants that seek to offer a lively, party-filled atmosphere, where sports are on televisions throughout, the piped-in music is the latest popular offerings, the food much the same from one to the other. Each tries to create a mood of relaxation, with pop icons, motorcycle memorabilia, football jerseys, license plates fixed to the walls, a very transparent attempt to tap into the American collective consciousness. Each offers a large draft beer in an interestingly shaped mug, each with a unique and masculine name, such as the “Brewtus”, or the “Bulldog”. Nacho appetizers abound. Food straight from the grill on small frying pans, the waitress always stating, “Be careful, honey. This plate is really hot!”, the sound of sizzling entrées melding with sports scores and hurrahs from the fans in the restaurant. Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
I used to live in a town where this trend was visibly apparent at a place called Applebee’s. Some friends and acquaintances frequented this establishment almost nightly, knowing each item on the menu as if it were scripture, thinking that watered down beer and cutesy drinks such as the ‘Red Headed Slut’ and the ‘Bahama Mama’ were the epitome of excitement. I will grant you, that at the time there was really no other place for a young man or woman to go on a Friday night in town; this, I suppose, I can now accept. However, I am saddened that the only spot in town was a restaurant chain, with the same layout as the Applebee’s in the next town, with no apparent individualistic essence, no uniqueness specific to where we lived.
This is the ‘Wal-Martization’ or the ‘McDonaldization’ of America; we have choices, and yet we are not allowed to choose the choices offered to us. How are local restaurants to compete, when they lack a corporate juggernaut behind them? Every Applebee’s, every Benigann’s, every Chili’s, every T.G.I. Friday’s, every freakin' ‘fun-eatery’ - what makes them any different from any other one of these establishments? All the food is the same, maybe not in taste, but in character, since each serving is precisely measured and accounted for. Each restaurant is laid out the same, with the bar in the middle, the focal point of the lively activity that is offered to the consumer. Regardless of the intricacies of the bartender’s skill or their engaging personality, each bar is limited to the libations that the corporate office allows, since market research is their primary tool for determining the most popular brands of drink and food. The uniforms of the wait staff are usually the same, with golf shirts and name tags and little aprons. Other than the accent of the majority of the people in the restaurant, what is there, in these places, to distinguish them from any other restaurant of the same chain in another part of the country? Or in the world, for that matter?
I must pause here, and explain my distress. I understand that each restaurant has its unique character, even within the tightly bound dictates of a large chain. The people that work there and the people that come to the restaurant both help to create this individuality. However, what I cannot abide is the fact that individualism is confined within strict guidelines, determined by careful market study and surveys. We are allowed to get crazy and mix it up, but only as long as our frivolity conforms to the corporate plan. I am not suggesting that another restaurant, unburdened by the company millstone, would necessarily present an atmosphere ripe for unhindered creativity and expression; hell, I’ve been to some local hash houses that made me long for a Shoney’s.
Why now, Mike? You don't go to these places and you don't have the money to go to them regularly even if you did want to go to them? Well, why not? When you are served hyper-sugarified iced tea on an empty stomach in the middle of the afternoon at a TGI Friday's in the middle of Pigeon Forge, you tend to think about these things. Long live neo-luddism and the revisionist critiques of gendered subaltern agency in historical tropes of post-modern discourse!
