What Makes A Burger Place Fast Food?

[Fat Guy]

Whereas several of the better fast-food places are serving burgers cooked from raw and in some cases even ground on premises.

Really? Who is serving fast food burgers from meat that is ground fresh on premises?

The most prominent chain example is Fuddruckers, which makes a really big deal out of on-premises grinding. In a typical Fuddruckers there's a "butcher shop" behind a glass wall, where you can look in and see the grinding equipment. Beyond that, I've glimpsed grinders in the back in fast-food places in LA and Chicago, places of the ___-A-Burger genre. Those are either single establishments or small chains.

Another example on that point: PDT and Crif Dogs in New York City. Crif Dogs is a fast-food order-and-pay-at-the-counter place serving hot dogs and fast-food-style burgers. Next door is PDT, a high-end cocktail bar offering food from Crif Dogs. So if you get a Crif burger at Crif is it fast food but it becomes not fast food if you get it served to you at PDT by a server and pay the tab after?

Yes, exactly. Which is why it makes more sense to speak of a "fast food restaurant" rather than "fast food."

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I'm not sure it makes sense to speak of either, but at least a "fast food restaurant" is something that can be defined non-nonsensically, whereas the term "fast food" alone is so diffuse it doesn't really mean anything. People keep saying "to me it means X" but of course that's not the same as a definition, especially when each person is saying a different thing. I think when we speak of "fast food restaurants" at least the disagreement tends to be at the margins: I think White Manna is fast food, QSR magazine thinks Pizza Hut (where they have table service and it takes longer to get your food than at White Manna) is fast food, etc. But there is at least some major conceptual overlap when it comes to McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, KFC -- I think we all sort of agree that those are fast food restaurants.

Another thing to keep in mind, on a separate point, as Holly keeps reminding us, is that the big fast food chains have changed a lot. White Castle, for example, used to make its hamburgers almost exactly the way White Manna does today. Nobody thought it wasn't fast food back then. But now that White Castle and the other big chains have lowered the standard such that everything starts as frozen, people are saying, oh, White Manna, that's not fast food. To extend Holly's point, the response to that is, no, today's White Castle is not fast food. It's just crap. White Manna is real fast food. They're kickin' it old school. People barely recognize fast food anymore because the chains have ruined it.

[docsconz]

I don't understand the difficulty with defining fast food. It is entirely self-descriptive. It is food that is designed to be served and eaten quickly. That is why waiting 20 minutes for a burger at White manna disqualifies it as fast food. A fast food restaurant is one that serves food that is designed to be served and eaten quickly with minimum waiting and often though not necessarily with a minimum of frills, which is why Spanish style tapas qualify. Fast food has developed a negative reputation, often deserved, but not always. Spanish tapas are fast food that defy the negative reputation (generally).

Fuddrucker's may grind their meat on-premises, but never having eaten at one, I don't know if they are fast food or not based upon the various criteria proposed here. I also like Tino27's definition.

[genarog]

I think the reputation comes from the emphasis on fast.

Spanish tapas are a great example of emphasis on food. And while available in the US, you really have to do your home work to find it as it's not available on every corner.

[Fat Guy]

I don't understand the difficulty with defining fast food. It is entirely self-descriptive.

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Is a pizza at Pizza Hut fast food? It takes 20 minutes. It doesn't take 20 minutes to cook a White Manna burger. How many minutes does it take? Five or six? What is the number of minutes it needs to take before food crosses from fast to not fast? Does it count if some of those minutes are spent waiting on line, waiting behind other cars at the drive-thru, waiting because the griddle is too small so it takes 20 minutes before anyone can even start cooking your food? When Hardee's releases a new burger and there are hour-long lines to get one, is it no longer fast food? Is an omelet fast food? Are the thousand other things that cook in a minute fast food? Does the term "fast food" contain self-descriptive answers to these questions?

[docsconz]

I don't understand the difficulty with defining fast food. It is entirely self-descriptive.

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Is a pizza at Pizza Hut fast food? It takes 20 minutes. It doesn't take 20 minutes to cook a White Manna burger. How many minutes does it take? Five or six? What is the number of minutes it needs to take before food crosses from fast to not fast? Does it count if some of those minutes are spent waiting on line, waiting behind other cars at the drive-thru, waiting because the griddle is too small so it takes 20 minutes before anyone can even start cooking your food? When Hardee's releases a new burger and there are hour-long lines to get one, is it no longer fast food? Is an omelet fast food? Are the thousand other things that cook in a minute fast food? Does the term "fast food" contain self-descriptive answers to these questions?

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It is not just the speed of cooking or preparation, it is also how it is eaten. I wrote that ff is designed to be served and eaten quickly. If I am going to a fast food restaurant I don't expect to have to wait and get annoyed when I do, although there may be certain times that I might expect to wait. I also expect that when I get my food, that I won't linger over it and that I will eat it quickly because time is an important component. That doesn't necessarily mean that fast food is necessarily bad food, though much of it happens to be. If an omelet is made on an assembly line situation to be pumped out quickly and the person is there for a quick meal, then, yes, it is fast food. If it is made with care and eaten with just as much care then it is not fast food, even though it might still be a quick meal. In either case the omelet may be tasty and nutritious or not, however, I believe that it is more likely to be tasty and considered to be so in the latter situation.

[slkinsey]

Really?  Who is serving fast food burgers from meat that is ground fresh on premises?

I think Fuddrucker's qualifies as fast food, and they grind fresh on the premises.

Huh. Does it make a difference? Are their burgers any good?

[tino27]

I think we may be unnecessarily burying ourselves in semantics.

I think the clock starts at the moment you step up to the counter to order. If you order, pay for the food, and then receive the food, that is fast food. Regardless of how long it took you to get to the front of the line.

The amount of time you are willing to wait in line is dependent on other suitable substitutions, perceived value/taste, and time available to you and others with you.

I'm sure we've all been in a situation where we are traveling and pull off at the next exit only to discover that 3 buses are sitting in the McDonald's parking lot and the Burger King across the street is empty. Unless you have a real hankering for McDonalds, a real distaste for Burger King, or lots of time on your hands, most people I know would pick the restaurant where they will be able to get to the front of the line quicker. Both restaurants could clearly be labeled "fast food", even though the time from driving in to driving out would be different.

[Fat Guy]

If you order, pay for the food, and then receive the food, that is fast food.

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So what would you say about the pizza chains, where you're always going to wait a bit for your pizza? Or a place like Fuddruckers, where the burgers are made to order, you go away from the counter, they call your number (or flash your pager) and you come back up for the food?

I don't think these are just semantic (in the pejorative sense) issues. Rather, I think that when you look at the problems with every offered definition of "fast food" you wind up exposing the fundamental conceptual problems with the category. Even just in the burger realm, which is how this topic started, we can't get people to agree that the high-quality, single-establishment version of White Castle (White Manna) serves a fast-food burger, or is a fast-food restaurant, or whatever.

Again, when people say what fast food means to them, that's not the same as a definition. When somebody says we could define fast food a certain way, that doesn't make that the definition of fast food. And the definitions we find from authoritative sources, e.g., Websters "of, relating to, or specializing in food that can be prepared and served quickly" -- those definitions aren't all that helpful.

[Fat Guy]

Really?  Who is serving fast food burgers from meat that is ground fresh on premises?

I think Fuddrucker's qualifies as fast food, and they grind fresh on the premises.

Huh. Does it make a difference? Are their burgers any good?

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Fuddruckers does a better job than most of the chains but they still do a lot to ruin the burgers after a promising start to the process. The grind is, predictably, way too fine. They compress the patties too much. They overcook them, of course. But I'm sure they're better than they'd be if they started with frozen pucks. They also bake buns on premises at Fuddruckers, and they're not all that special either. The general idea behind Fuddruckers a good one but in practice it gets messed up in various small ways that add up.

[tino27]

If you order, pay for the food, and then receive the food, that is fast food.

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So what would you say about the pizza chains, where you're always going to wait a bit for your pizza? Or a place like Fuddruckers, where the burgers are made to order, you go away from the counter, they call your number (or flash your pager) and you come back up for the food?

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I guess my simplest response would be that I don't consider most pizza places (here in Ohio) to be fast food. I think they get lumped in because so often we call ahead to place the order and then when we get there, the transaction of paying for your order and receiving your food happens fairly quickly.

I think perhaps the thought that I was missing before in my earlier theory is the notion of assembling your order from mostly pre-cooked ingredients. In the '70s and '80s, if you ordered a burger from McDonalds, it came from a warming bin (as Holly said earlier in his post). While that doesn't happen today, the burger patties are cooked ahead and then the sandwich is assembled in real-time.

With this additional notion, Fuddruckers wouldn't be considered fast food, since the patties are cooked-to-order (it's been several years since I've eaten there, but that seems to be my recollection).

Pizza, on the other hand, is a little trickier. With the exception of Sbarro in the food courts of most malls here in Ohio, when people get pizza they are usually ordering a whole pie, which is cooked-to-order. Thus, not fast food. In the case of Sbarro (and I'm sure lots of joints in NYC), you can walk in and get a slice or two of a pre-cooked pie that is rewarmed in the oven. That to me is fast food. So, if a joint offers pre-cooked slices and cooked-to-order pizzas, they would live in a dual universe of being both a place that offers fast food and non-fast food.

I suppose that introduces the question of whether you can really label a restaurant "fast food" or just the items they serve as "fast food". Which, if my memory is serving me this morning, was something that was discussed several posts back.

[Fat Guy]

Now who's talking semantics? In any event, I think this all gets us back to the meta-questions about what a definition is. In a lot of instances what happens is you have a formal definition and a common-language definition and you have to argue about which to use. But I think in this case you have both QSR magazine representing the formal end and common-language which pretty clearly says Pizza Hut is one of the fast-food chains, and both are in agreement. So the fact that whole-pie pizza is not fast food according to one person's proposed taxonomy doesn't really change the reality that both the industry source and the common person driving along a highway strip looking for fast food consider Pizza Hut to be a fast-food restaurant.

I also think the whole "cooked to order" notion is problematic because it's another terrifically blurry line. What happens at Subway or any other sandwich chain? What about Taco Bell or Chipotle? Or what about a fancy restaurant? In all those cases there are some pre-cooked ingredients (at Subway the deli meats are already "cooked" and at a fancy restaurant the stocks and many other things are already cooked) and they're combined into a final product. Moreover at Subway these days you have all sorts of cooking (as in heating of food) going on beyond the standard cold-sandwich assembly.

[tino27]

"pizza is not fast food according to one person's proposed taxonomy"

That's me, just bucking the trends. Honestly, if QSR had been bothered to ask my opinion first, then we wouldn't be in this quandry, now would we?

I realize as much as the next eG'er that pinning down an exact definition to one succinct sentence is probably like trying to herd cats.

And before Fat Guy skewers me again with another example (just kidding, there, FG ), even though the original poster was concerned about what makes a burger "fast food" or not, since we've broadened the scope to consider non-burger items, what about buffets?

edited for spelling

Edited April 22, 2009 by tino27 (log)

[weinoo]

"pizza is not fast food according to one person's proposed taxonomy"

That's me, just bucking the trends. Honestly, if QSR had been bothered to ask my opinion first, then we wouldn't be in this quandry, now would we? 

I realize as much as the next eG'er that pinning down an exact definition to one succinct sentence is probably like trying to herd cats.

And before Fat Guy skewers me again with another example (just kidding, there, FG  ), even though the original poster was concerned about what makes a burger "fast food" or not, since we've broadened the scope to consider non-burger items, what about buffets?

edited for spelling

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Well, at most buffets, there is also waitperson service, bringing you drinks, clearing plates, etc. And you don't pay till the end of your meal.

[Florida]

I've been reading this thread for the past few days now and I think part of the issue is that everyone is looking for an all encompassing definition for a phrase that is more a concept than a firmly definable word.

The phrase "fast food" is going to mean different things to different people. While the general idea behind the phrase is agreed upon, the exact definition is going to be somewhat fluid.

Consider the difference between "enhanced interrogation techniques" and "torture." One person's concept of torture might be another's "enhance interrogation technique" and, clearly, people are going to have a very strong opinion about which is which. Please note, I am not trying to bring politics into this discussion, I am simply trying to point out there exist common phrases for which there are not simple black/white, yes/no, definitions.

Another example would be music, specifically Jimmy Buffett. I enjoy some of JB's music, but I detest country music. While some of JB's songs are clearly country songs and he does get some radio play on country music stations, I, personally, don't consider him to be a country musician. I don't think this is incorrect nor would I think someone claiming he is a country musician necessarily be incorrect either. Nor do I think JB becomes a country musician when he is playing one song, but then becomes a rock-n-roll musician when he plays another song. JB straddles a line (or, rather, falls into a gray area) between what a country musician is and isn't. I don't see how this would be any different from certain restaurants being considered as fast food when they operate in a manner that is not traditional thought of as being fast food (and vice versa).

edited for my atrociously poor spelling

Edited April 22, 2009 by Florida (log)

[Holly Moore]

I've been reading this thread for the past few days now and I think part of the issue is that everyone is looking for an all encompassing definition for a phrase that is more a concept than a firmly definable word.

The phrase "fast food" is going to mean different things to different people. While the general idea behind the phrase is agreed upon, the exact definition is going to be somewhat fluid.

Consider the difference between "enhanced interrogation techniques" and "torture." One person's concept of torture might be another's "enhance interrogation technique" and, clearly, people are going to have a very strong opinion about which is which. Please note, I am not trying to bring politics into this discussion, I am simply trying to point out there exist common phrases for which there are not simple black/white, yes/no, definitions.

As someone who has been involved both in the fast food industry (McD, BK, DDA) and the application of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (or at least the funding thereof through a business where I am a principal - Team Delta), I suggest that my heretofore stated opinions should be accepted without further discussion.

Edited April 22, 2009 by Holly Moore (log)

[tino27]

Well, at most buffets, there is also waitperson service, bringing you drinks, clearing plates, etc.  And you don't pay till the end of your meal.

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Two that pop into my head immediately where you pay first are Ponderosa and Old Country Buffet. However, I'll concede the point to people bringing/refilling drinks and clearing plates.

[Toliver]

Can it be agreed that pizza should be taken out of this discussion? I don't care that the industry itself has tried to pigeonhole it as fast food. It's not fast-made food and it's not fast-received food...unless you're eating at Shakey's Pizza Parlor's lunch buffet where the pre-made pizza sits under a heat lamp, well then you deserve what you get for eating there in the first place.

But pizza is not fast food.

Do you think pizza is being classified as fast food because it's hand-held when eaten? You don't really need eating utensils in order to eat it. It has that in common with burgers, tacos, burritos, etc, which are all typical fast food items.

Maybe fast food is prepared food that can be made quickly, purchased quickly and eaten while driving or walking.

[Fat Guy]

Can it be agreed that pizza should be taken out of this discussion?

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Not by me it can't. It's not just that the industry seems to agree. It's also that I think normal people see Pizza Hut, Domino's, Little Caesar's, Papa Johns, Papa Murphy's and CiCi's (all of which are in the QSR 50) as fast food options. And I, as an abnormal person, see them that way too.

[genarog]

There are many types of pizza. Pizza by the pie is just one of them.

Other types of pizza can be succesfully pre-cooked minutes or even a few hours before being served and then finished when serving. Of course cheese, if used at all, shoud be added at the end.

Not only can pizza be fast food, it can also be good. Not anywhere near me, though.

[Chris Amirault]

I also think the whole "cooked to order" notion is problematic because it's another terrifically blurry line. What happens at Subway or any other sandwich chain? What about Taco Bell or Chipotle? Or what about a fancy restaurant?

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Indeed, if "most food not cooked to order" is a significant criterion for a fast food joint, then Alinea, home of the five-hour meal, is fast food.

[Fat Guy]

Not sure if this matters but the Pizza Hut website says: "At Pizza Hut, we take great pride and care to provide you with the best food and dining experience in the quick-service restaurant business."

[Fat Guy]

Just some other examples of real-world usage:

"Fast-food chain Pizza Hut launches new brand"

"Fast Food News: Pizza Hut's 580-calorie slice"

"Pizza Hut case study: repositioning fast food as healthy"

[tino27]

Before the terms "pre-cooked" and "cooked-to-order" get too out of control, when I used it earlier, I meant it in a restrictive way in addition to my earlier definition of fast food.

Thus, fast food to me is food where once you place your order and pay for it, the staff quickly assembles the order using pre-cooked ingredients/components.

Maybe that statement only works well in the context of burger joints. That was why when Fat Guy mentioned Fuddruckers earlier, it failed the test for me since they cooked the burgers to order.

[Fat Guy]

Every time I've been to White Castle, which I think of as the quintessential fast-food chain, my burgers have been cooked pretty much to order. They don't seem to be organized enough to have lots of them ready, and they don't use the warming trays that McDonald's and most places now use. They cook the burgers on the griddle -- they cook quickly because they're so thin. If you order cheeseburgers they add the cheese at the end. They put the patties on the buns, they put the finished burgers in those paper half-boxes, they call your number and you get served about 5-10 minutes after you ordered restaurant.

[slkinsey]

Not sure if this matters but the Pizza Hut website says: "At Pizza Hut, we take great pride and care to provide you with the best food and dining experience in the quick-service restaurant business."

I think it depends quite a bit on the Pizza Hut.

The traditional "Red Roof Pizza Hut" is definitely not, in my opinion, a fast food restaurant. There is a large menu selection, food is prepared to order, you sit at a table and are waited on by a server, the meal can easily take 40 minutes, and you pay at the end of the meal with a tip for the server. Definitely not fast food.

The traditional "Red Roof Pizza Hut," however, is an increasinly small part of "Pizza Hut, Inc., a subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc." Pizza Hut, Inc. these days is mostly comprised of kiosks, co-locations with other Yum! Brands subsidiary chains (e.g., a Pizza Hut/KFC/Taco Bell), Pizza Hut Express, carry-out, carry-out/delivery and carry-out/delivery/minimal dine-in locations. These are all fast food restaurants, and carry a different menu from the "Red Roof" locations.

So... a "Red Roof Pizza Hut" is not a fast food restaurant, but Pizza Hut, Inc. is largely a fast food company.