Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlosser [146]
In the 1999 Colorado Springs mayoral race, Mary Lou Makepeace — a single mother with a fine surname for consensus-building — was elected to a second term, soundly defeating a right-wing candidate backed by Focus on the Family. Mayor Makepeace had helped persuade the voters of Colorado Springs, perhaps the nation’s most Republican city, to vote for a tax increase. The additional revenue was used to protect open land from development. She has also spearheaded new investment in public parks. And she has helped launch the redevelopment of fifty-eight acres of land near the downtown business district, an area that was once a thriving neighborhood but has been largely abandoned for years. The project embraces the goals of the “new urbanism,” a movement opposed to mindless sprawl, combining residential buildings with commercial and retail space in a way that encourages walking and discourages driving. The aim of the Lowell Neighborhood is not to get rid of cars, says architect Morey Bean, but to put them in their proper place: preferably out of sight in underground parking lots.
It may be tempting to dismiss Conway’s Red Top as a holdover from an earlier era, a business whose low-tech methods are quaint but obsolete. And yet one of America’s most profitable fast food chains operates much like Conway’s. In 1948, the year that the McDonald brothers introduced the Speedee Service System, Harry and Esther Snyder opened their first In-N-Out Burger restaurant on the road between Los Angeles and Palm Springs. It was the nation’s first drive-through hamburger stand. Today there are about 150 In-N-Outs in California and Nevada, generating more than $150 million in annual revenues. Harry Snyder died in 1976 — but at the age of eighty, Esther still serves as president of the family-owned company. The Snyders have declined countless offers to sell the chain, refuse to franchise it, and have succeeded by rejecting just about everything the rest of the fast food industry has done.
In-N-Out has followed its own path: there are verses from the Bible on the bottom of its soda cups. More importantly, the chain pays the highest wages in the fast food industry. The starting wage of a part-time worker at In-N-Out is $8 an hour. Full-time workers get a benefits package that includes medical, dental, vision, and life insurance. The typical salary of an In-N-Out restaurant manager is more than $80,000 a year. The managers have, on average, been with the chain for more than thirteen years. The high wages at In-N-Out have not led to higher prices or lower-quality food. The most expensive item on the menu costs $2.45. There are no microwaves, heat lamps, or freezers in the kitchens at In-N-Out restaurants. The ground beef is fresh, potatoes are peeled every day to make the fries, and the milk shakes are made from ice cream, not syrup.
In March of 2000, the annual Restaurants and Institutions Choice in Chains survey found that among the nation’s fast food hamburger chains, In-N-Out ranked first in food quality, value, service, atmosphere, and cleanliness. In-N-Out has ranked highest in food quality every year that the chain has been included in the survey. According to the consumers polled by Restaurants and Institutions in 2000, the lowest-quality food of any major hamburger chain was served at McDonald’s.
scientific socialists
THERE IS NOTHING INEVITABLE about the fast food nation that surrounds us — about its marketing strategies, labor policies, and agricultural techniques, about its relentless drive for conformity and cheapness. The triumph of McDonald’s and its imitators was by no means preordained. During the past two decades, rhetoric about the “free market” has cloaked changes in the nation’s economy that bear little relation to real competition or freedom of choice. From the airline industry to