Fast Food

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FAST FOOD

Fast food is an umbrella term, encompassing a broad category of foods, a type of restaurant delivery, and a style of eating. Fast food includes many different types of relatively inexpensive foods, ranging from pizza to hamburgers to ethnic specialties, which are sold and packaged in similar manners. Usually served freshly prepared and hot, fast foods are commonly packaged for off-site, or "to-go," consumption, either in aluminum foil, waxed paper, or a cardboard box. Customers usually purchase fast food across a counter, or through a drive-up window, though table service is occasionally available when seating space is provided for customers. Popularly called "fast food," these foods and delivery formats are known in the restaurant industry as quick-service foods. Hamburgers remain the dominant food product in this quick-service market, but a plethora of other offerings, such as chicken, fish, hot dogs, pasta, burritos, and roast beef, now compete for consumer dollars. The aggregate sales of the fast-food industry in the United States consistently represent an increasingly larger percentage of overall consumer dollars spent on food, reflecting fast food's growing role in American society.

History does not document the precise origins of modern fast food. In ancient cities, food vendors sold prepared wares on the streets to both urban residents and travelers. Though the precise food offerings varied depending on area and time period, such street foods were usually inexpensive and simple, designed for easy and immediate consumption. Immigrants arriving from Europe, Africa, and Asia carried a multitude of different foods to America, including many of these simple street foods. Reserving elaborate and labor-intensive cooking for holidays and celebrations, most of these immigrants groups favored a few simple food items for their daily fare, usually being the common "peasant" or street foods of their homelands. Mexicans still ate beans and tortillas, Italians ate pasta and flat breads, Asians ate rice-based dishes, and Germans ate dark breads and fatty sausages. Daily fare for virtually all immigrant groups was simple, inexpensive, and familiar.

Many of these immigrant favorites became the "fast foods" of the early twentieth century. Pushcart vendors sold ethnic fare such as meatballs, sausage, or stew at factory gates, catering to the needs and tastes of hungry workers. These pushcart food items proved to be popular among the male immigrant factory workers, but they never gained a popular mainstream following.

Appearing at the beginning of the twentieth century, urban diners were a transitional link between pushcart food vendors and our modern era of fast food. Diners were small neighborhood restaurants, usually offering very limited seating, and an equally limited menu, featuring items cooked and served on a "short-order" basis. Catering to primarily working-class customers, urban diners became popular by offering hearty fried meals for an inexpensive price. In addition to being known for their good food, diners were also distinctive in that they were often fabricated from old rail- or streetcars. In addition to diners, hot-dog stands became popular in New York in the 1890s, beginning in resort areas and later spreading throughout the city and beyond. Though the hot dog would consistently remain behind the hamburger in fast-food popularity, it became a mainstay of baseball parks, street cart vendors, and outdoor picnics throughout the twentieth century.

Modern Fast Food

Modern fast food began in the early 1900s with the introduction and effective marketing of the recognizable hamburger sandwich. Prior to the twentieth century, ground meat was not mainstream fare in America, usually served only in the form of meatballs wrapped in bread by food vendors at county fairs and other summer festivals. Conflicting regional stories exist as to who exactly invented the hamburger sandwich, but its most verifiable originator was Wichita fry cook Walt Anderson, who began selling a flattened ground-beef patty on a bun in 1916. His hamburger sandwiches proved popular among hungry customers, quickly allowing Anderson to open additional hamburger stands. Partnering with Edgar "Billy" Ingram in 1921, he formed the White Castle System of Eating Houses, a restaurant chain that became the prototype for modern fast-food companies. Over the next decade, Anderson and Ingram's White Castle System spread from Wichita to most of the major cities in the midwest and on the east coast. Different from earlier short-order restaurants, White Castle offered a very streamlined menu, with only hamburgers, Coca-Cola, coffee, and pie. Throughout the company there was a standardized architecture for all its buildings, uniform food-quality rules and preparation methods, and strict guidelines for employee performance and hygiene. White Castle stressed high-quality ingredients, permanence, and meticulous cleanliness, deliberately attempting to overcome commonly held negative views about ground meat and transient, unsanitary food vendors. Anderson and Ingram encouraged customers to buy their burgers in large quantities, "by the sack," on a carry-out "to-go" basis. They were successful wherever they opened new restaurants, frequently with customers lined up for blocks waiting to buy their burgers. Other entrepreneurs observed this overnight success and rapid growth across the northeast and immediately opened their own hamburger restaurants, often closely copying White Castle's architecture, name, products, and marketing campaigns. Cities throughout the United States quickly became saturated with new hamburger chains, soon making the hamburger sandwich America's single most-consumed food. In fact, by 1930, the president of the American Restaurant Association proudly proclaimed that apple pie and the hamburger were the two truly "American foods."

Continued popularity for the hamburger during the 1930s guaranteed that it was not just a passing fad. Despite the economic hardships of the Great Depression, and the closings of countless businesses, the fast-food hamburger industry continued to grow. Most chains sold their burgers for five cents, making them still affordable for all but the most destitute. The 1930s was also an era of innovations in the fast-food industry, introducing new products and delivery strategies. On the West Coast, Bob Wian's Big Boy Restaurants featured a multilayered, two-patty hamburger sandwich, while the midwest Kewpee Hamburger chain constructed special windows in the sides of their restaurants, designed to serve food to motorists driving by in their cars. Men remained the mainstay of fast-food restaurant labor, but some companies began hiring young women as "car-hop" waitresses. Customers seemed to appreciate these innovations, buying an ever-increasing number of hamburgers each year throughout the decade.

This growth in the fast-food industry abruptly halted with the beginning of World War II. Extreme labor shortages and food rationing devastated all types of restaurants, and hamburger chains were especially hard hit by worker and meat scarcity. Major chains, with hundreds of outlets, either shrank to a fraction of their former size or closed down entirely. The federal government diverted large amounts of needed sugar, beef, pork, and coffee to the U.S. troops overseas, leaving consumers limited, and often only rationed access to these items. With millions of men off serving in the military, hamburger companies reluctantly hired women in their remaining restaurants, but after doing so, they quickly realized that these female replacements proved to be far superior workers. By 1945, company closures caused by supply and labor problems had temporarily crippled the restaurant industry, but also created a void to be filled by new chains in the postwar years.

The American economy regained a more normal peacetime footing within a few years after the war. Sporadic food shortages remained common, largely due to the United States needing to supply starving, war-torn nations around the world. Several of the surviving, but cash-strapped leading prewar fast-food chains remained in their original urban neighborhoods, either failing to see the profit potential in the growing suburban market, or simply lacking the necessary capital to expand their operations. In fact, all types of restaurateurs were slow to enter the suburban marketplace, possibly wary about consumer buying patterns in these new and untested communities

Fast Food in the Suburbs

By the mid-1950s, new restaurants chains began directing their marketing efforts at the burgeoning suburban areas. The McDonald's hamburger chain led the expansion into these new bedroom communities, opening hundreds of restaurants across the United States. Offering a streamlined menu of hamburgers, French fries, soda, and milk shakes, this California-based chain became an overnight success and soon was the benchmark for fast-food chains everywhere. All McDonald's restaurants served their burgers in an unerringly identical fashion; a 1.6-ounce meat patty between a soft bun, topped with catsup, mustard, onions, and a pickle. Suburban customers seemed especially attracted to this safe level of predictability: their meals were the same each time, and the same as everyone else's. Avoiding urban areas, McDonald's exclusively targeted suburbia, building their walkup stands near busy intersections and shopping areas. Though convenient for motorists, these locations were often inaccessible to pedestrians.

Brothers Maurice and Richard McDonald founded the company in 1939, in San Bernardino, California, but salesman Ray Kroc directed its rapid growth in the 1950s. Kroc devised a plan to aggressively expand with very little capital investment. Rather than building company-owned stands, Kroc sold strictly controlled franchises to local investors. By purchasing a franchise, franchisees bought use of the trademarked McDonald's company name, license for its distinctive sloped-roofed architecture and "golden arches," food item preparation methods, and national advertising support. Kroc's successful sale of franchises enabled his chain to grow to over 1,000 units by the end of the decade, making it the largest restaurant company in the country. Suburbanites fueled this successful growth by responding to McDonald's with enthusiasm, turning virtually every new franchise into an overnight financial success.

Closely following McDonald's into the suburban marketplace was Miami-based Insta-Burger King. Founded in 1954 by Jim McLamore and David Edgerton, Insta-Burger King spread throughout Florida, then to larger southeastern cities. Shortening his company name to Burger King, McLamore sought to have a restaurant in every town in the United States by the close of the 1950s. Falling short of that goal, he succeeded in franchising over 700 units, building a chain second only to Kroc's. Direct competition between McDonald's and Burger King became fierce in many areas, with each company often building restaurants either next door or across the street from the other. Both stressed low-priced hamburgers and efficient customer service in their advertisements. McLamore made his Burger King products distinctive by "flame broiling" hamburgers to customer order, instead of McDonald's more usual method of frying. Despite McLamore's claim of better quality, suburban consumers seemed to prefer McDonald's simple and standardized fare.

The fast growth and financial success of both Burger King and McDonald's encouraged even more national competition in the fast-food hamburger market. Soon a multitude of other fast-food restaurants appeared in suburban shopping areas, vying for consumer dollars. Most new chains were regional in scope, but some became national contenders. The Burger Chef chain appeared in the late 1950s and quickly saturated the eastern half of the country with franchises by the early 1960s. Burger Chef never achieved the level of national following enjoyed by McDonald's and Burger King, even though it did license over 1,000 active franchises by 1968. Even Wendy's, a popular Columbus, Ohio–based chain begun in 1969 by entrepreneur Dave Thomas, never ventured past a third-place standing. New fast-food chains featuring other food items, such as chicken, tacos, and pizza, however, posed the greatest threat to the two fast-food giants in the late 1960s.

By the end of that decade, McDonald's and Burger King competed for customers with newcomers Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut, and Arby's. Many fast-food consumers preferred these alternative meals, and the market continued to diversify, welcoming other new chains, such as Taco Bell, Long John Silver's, and Roy Rogers. In addition to this increased variety of food offerings, a plethora of regional hamburger chains expanded quickly in the late-1960s, further saturating the fast-food industry. By the early 1970s, however, the bubble of franchise chain expansion finally burst, resulting in the demise of the smaller fast-food chains, and a further consolidation of market share by McDonald's, Burger King, and, soon after, Wendy's. This power distribution in the fast-food industry remained constant for the remainder of the twentieth century. Several new chains appeared in the 1980s and 1990s, and several others closed down, but the industry leaders remained firmly entrenched.

The growth of the fast-food industry, especially since World War II, reflects many drastic changes in American society. As mentioned earlier, the modern fast-food industry grew up in the midst of new suburban communities. Many of these new suburbanites had grown up in urban ethnic enclaves, maintaining strong ties to their countries of origin. Once in the suburbs, a prevailing norm of conformity encouraged many to shed or downplay their ethnic identities. Portraying themselves as purely American and demonstrating economic prosperity through purchasing consumer goods became a strong focus in their lives. Fast food became these new suburbanites' culinary "common ground," allowing everyone to dine together on what they perceived to be a genuinely American food. In a sense, eating fast-food hamburgers at these new franchised chain restaurants became a rite of acceptance into nonethnic suburbia.

The success of fast food also reflects a change in American lifestyles. Though originally marketed to a walking-city customer base, fast food became inexorably linked to the automobile soon after World War II. As cars proliferated to the point of several per family, American society became increasingly automobile dependent. This enhanced transportation resulted in greater time expectations, with people cramming increasingly more activities into each day. By the 1960s, many women had entered the full-time workforce, reducing the amount of time that traditional homemakers spent preparing daily meals. Rather than cooking meals and consuming them together, many families on increasingly tight schedules opted to purchase quickly available prepared fast foods. As leisure time became scarce, fast food became more convenient to the eating habits of the average American. In fact, fast food restaurants even became the central focus of leisure time, often the congregating spots for senior citizens in the morning and groups of teenagers later in the day.

Criticism of Fast Food

While fast food, and especially the fast-food hamburger, has become a staple of the modern American diet, may critics charge that it causes a variety of public health problems, different environmental concerns, and an excessive homogenization of both American culture and other societies throughout the world. Many medical researchers contend that fast food typically gives consumers excessive fat and little nutritional value, leading to numerous obesity-related health problems. Recent national outbreaks of E. coli contamination and other serious pathogens have led to public scrutiny of meat purity. Still other research questions issues such as steroid and antibiotic use in cattle production, and its potentially deleterious effects on human health. Though fast food is part of the mainstream, eaten by millions of Americans each day, health-care professionals almost uniformly condemn its regular consumption as an unsafe dietary practice.

Second to the health-related criticisms have been the environment concerns, especially about harmful packaging and the destruction of rain forests to produce lower-cost beef. A controversy ensued in the 1980s, when environmental groups condemned the fast-food industry for its use of excessive and nonbiodegradable packaging. Chains found the petroleum-based plastic and Styrofoam packaging to be advantageous because they better retained heat and cold and were significantly more moisture resistant. Environmentalists contended that the same qualities that made these substances moisture resistance also made them virtually impossible to decay in garbage landfills. Under growing public pressure, several of the leading chains attempted to appease critics by recycling used packaging into other plastic products, but eventually they returned to using primarily paper and cardboard containers.

Perhaps the most abstract criticism of fast food is a testament to its rampant popularity. Social critics condemn the saturation of fast food in American society and its spread throughout the world as a breakdown in cultural and culinary diversity, and to a greater extent the imposition of generic American consumer culture on developing nations. "McDonaldization" has become a common term for an overwhelming homogenizing force that destroys the unique and wonderful aspects of diverse cultures. Although fast food in itself is not the sole "McDonaldizing" phenomena, nor does it seem to be an orchestrated conspiracy, it is often the most obvious symptom of a spreading American consumer culture. Golden arches appearing on a busy city intersection in the developing world often becomes the scapegoat for a much larger onslaught.