Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / Where Cars Meet Cuisine: A Delectable Drive Through American Food Culture

Transcript

Where Cars Meet Cuisine: A Delectable Drive Through American Food Culture · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

0:00
BreakFix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from
0:04
all over the autosphere, from wrench turners and racers to artists, authors,
0:09
designers, and everything in between.
0:11
Our goal is to inspire a new generation of petrolheads that wonder.
0:16
How did they get that job or become that person?
0:19
The road to success is paved by all of us because everyone has a story.
0:27
Have you ever thought about where cars and culinary delights might
0:31
collide or maybe how both the automotive and food industries have
0:35
had a direct effect on one another?
0:37
With the help of tonight's guest, we take a delectable journey through
0:41
time and taste while exploring how the American automobile industry and
0:46
the tantalizing world of food have intertwined and evolved over the decades.
0:51
Two time Emmy Award winner David Page.
0:54
Change the world of food television by creating, developing, and executive
0:58
producing the groundbreaking show Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives.
1:03
So get ready to indulge your appetite as we dish out stories behind the iconic
1:08
cars, the birth of fast food, drive thrus, and the fusion of culinary culture with
1:14
car culture, all while exploring how these two American passions have shaped each
1:19
other in surprising and delicious ways.
1:21
With that, let's welcome David to BreakFix.
1:24
Welcome, David.
1:25
Well, thanks for having me.
1:26
It's good to be here.
1:27
And joining me is one of our regular co hosts on BreakFix, Don
1:31
Wieberg from GarageDom Magazine.
1:33
Welcome back.
1:33
Thank you.
1:34
Thank you.
1:35
I know.
1:35
Thank you.
1:36
You're beautiful.
1:37
Normally on a BreakFix episode, we'd be investigating the hidden lives of
1:43
pro drivers or automotive designers asking them the who, what, when,
1:47
where of their automotive past.
1:49
But in this case, it's sort of like one of Don's jokes.
1:52
Two car guys in a restaurant tour walk into a dive bar.
1:55
Hey.
1:55
So why are we here?
1:57
Tell us how we got here.
1:58
Tell us about how you created Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives.
2:02
By accident, I'd had a long network news career, been all over the world,
2:06
show produced at both ABC and NBC, came back to the States, and then I left to
2:11
open my own production company, which for a while was a license to starve.
2:16
I couldn't sell a show to save my life.
2:19
There was a programming executive at the Food Network who was at
2:22
least willing to talk to me.
2:24
And I'd call her and pitch stuff and she'd politely say no.
2:27
One day I'm pitching and she's obviously feeling sorry for this pitiful guy.
2:32
And she says to me, don't you have anything about diners?
2:35
And I said, oh yeah, I'm developing a show called Diners, Drive ins and Dives.
2:39
And I told her all about it.
2:41
And she said, you know, that sounds pretty good.
2:43
This was like late on a Thursday or late on a Friday.
2:46
She said, we have a development meeting Tuesday.
2:48
So get me a write up for a one hour special on Monday.
2:52
Hung up the phone.
2:53
I was pleased that she was interested, but I had a problem
2:57
because I was not developing a show called diners, drive ins and dives.
3:01
I had just pulled the phrase out of thin air and then mumbled for a while
3:06
about what would be in the show.
3:08
Fake it till you make it.
3:09
I guess I spent the weekend calling around the country, talking to
3:14
restaurateurs, food writers, chefs.
3:18
Put together a writeup, sent it in, and pretty quickly they picked up a special.
3:22
Not that long after they picked it up as a series.
3:26
Now they weren't tremendously enthusiastic about it.
3:29
I mean, after the first few episodes scored well on the ratings, an executive
3:33
went out of his way to tell me that, look, this looks great and enjoy it,
3:37
but we don't figure this has more than a couple of seasons in it because
3:41
there just aren't enough restaurants.
3:44
Did you really think you would actually run out of restaurants?
3:46
No, I didn't.
3:47
They did.
3:48
Okay.
3:49
Understand one of the rules of television is that executives don't know shit.
3:54
So it's like getting notes from an executive.
3:58
They have to send you stuff telling you what's wrong with your piece.
4:02
Mel Brooks famously said all of the notes he got on blazing saddles.
4:06
He said, absolutely, absolutely.
4:08
Absolutely.
4:09
And then ignored the ball.
4:10
Because if he had done what they wanted, the movie would be eight minutes long.
4:13
I did the first 11 seasons, they're now in season 40 something, so I
4:18
guess there are enough restaurants.
4:20
That's how you invented the show.
4:21
How was your first meeting with Guy?
4:23
Tell me about how he came along.
4:25
First of all, I didn't meet him until we were shooting.
4:27
When they picked up the special, I said, well, should we talk about a host?
4:31
And they said, no, we got Guy Fieri.
4:33
I said, who the hell's that?
4:34
And they said he won the second Food Network Star Contest.
4:39
I said, what the hell is that?
4:40
Cause I didn't watch food TV.
4:42
So I Googled him.
4:43
My first thought was I'm screwed.
4:44
I mean, here's this cartoon in flip flops, shorts, and spiky hair.
4:49
Now our first phone conversation was useful because I was at our beach
4:53
house, which turned into our full time residence on the Jersey shore, and I
4:58
was cooking something that required.
5:02
Fennel.
5:03
I don't remember what it was.
5:04
It might've been, uh, trepino.
5:06
Anyway, I got him on the phone, or he called me back while I was out shopping,
5:10
and I said, I can't find any fennel.
5:11
And the first thing he said to me was, use sambuca.
5:14
Same flavor.
5:15
So we started off kind of in a foodie conversation.
5:19
When we first met, it was when we started shooting.
5:23
And we began at a small diner in Jersey, across from a refinery in Linden.
5:31
And the crowd there is, shall we say, homegrown.
5:35
First of all, I've worked with all of them.
5:37
Brokaw, Diane Sawyer.
5:39
I gotta tell you, Guy was green as grass, but had, and to this day probably
5:45
still has, more natural TV talent than anyone I've ever worked with.
5:49
There's just something there.
5:51
He didn't know Jack when we started, but he picks it up quickly.
5:54
For example, at the Bayway, he had jumped behind the counter to start
5:59
serving food and joking around with the customers, and he kept joking that if he
6:04
screwed up an order, the Mafia would get him and we'd find his body somewhere.
6:08
I finally pulled him outside and said, Dude, You're in a tough part of
6:11
Jersey, I wouldn't make those jokes.
6:14
And by the way, there's a guy at the counter who's packing.
6:17
So he gave up on those jokes.
6:21
And I say that as a proud resident of Jersey, those jokes
6:24
went away and off we went.
6:26
And it was a great experience.
6:27
I run Garage Style Magazine.
6:29
And here's an old, old cover.
6:32
A hundred years ago when this issue came out, we got an email from a man.
6:36
He was some sort of producer, handler, something of Guy Fieri,
6:39
saying he'd come across the magazine.
6:41
Guy is a good car guy.
6:43
Can we get his garage in the magazine?
6:44
It looks pretty good.
6:45
So they sent me some snapshots.
6:47
Really loved what I saw.
6:47
I said, yeah, let's put it together.
6:49
Now the B.
6:49
Perfectly frank, I'd only seen Guy Fieri on commercials, whatever.
6:55
I never really watched the show.
6:56
So my sister calls and she says, uh, what are you up to the next couple of weeks?
7:00
I said, well, I'm going up to Santa Rosa, Santa Rosa.
7:03
What's up in Santa Rosa?
7:04
And I say, well, you ever hear of Guy Fieri?
7:06
Oh yeah, yeah.
7:07
I know Guy Fieri.
7:08
We went to school together.
7:09
Wait, what?
7:10
Yeah, we went to school together.
7:11
You and I'll be no kidding.
7:13
So we get up there and yeah, we had a great photo shoot.
7:16
We put him in the magazine and I'll put it to you this way.
7:19
Very interestingly, he is one of the very, very, very few.
7:24
In fact, if we go through the issues, we might find he is the only.
7:28
Human being that I allowed to be in the garage while we shot it.
7:31
Cause he wanted that photograph of himself with that Camaro.
7:34
Who's Camaro is that?
7:35
The one that's on the TV show.
7:36
Is that his?
7:37
Well, the one that's on the TV show now is a 68 that right.
7:42
The production company that followed.
7:45
After I left the show, they bought that the one that we were using originally
7:52
I purchased for a stupidly large amount of money because I was in a
7:55
rush and it was available and it was a 67 although there wasn't a single.
8:01
Numbers match component anywhere on that car, David.
8:05
We didn't bring you here to recount all the trials and tribulations of triple D.
8:10
What we really want to get to crosses the line into your new book, Food
8:15
Americana and where the automotive industry and the food industry have
8:19
collided many times over the years.
8:21
So let's kind of switch into second gear now.
8:24
And talk about how the car industry has influenced food and vice versa.
8:29
In your book, you talk a lot about how much time we spend
8:32
eating in and around our vehicles.
8:35
I can't get a number for that.
8:37
You know, it's funny.
8:37
NHTSA has everything.
8:40
I did specifically because we were going to chat.
8:43
I chased down some stats and what I find fascinating is that my generation,
8:48
the boomers, Spend the most time eating in cars and quite counterintuitively,
8:55
Millennials and Gen Z spend less.
8:57
I would have assumed that especially coming out of the
9:00
pandemic, the number would be up.
9:03
There's a difference between getting food with a car and eating in a car
9:07
because an analyst was telling me just a couple of days ago that if you add
9:12
up quick service restaurants, Takeout, drive thru, all forms of obtaining food.
9:19
82 percent of restaurant meals are now takeout one way or another, which is a
9:24
stunning number when you think about it.
9:26
There's another statistic.
9:27
Half of the time that people leave their house or hotel or wherever
9:33
they're staying, 50 percent of the time, they anticipate that
9:37
food will be part of the journey.
9:39
So, the ability to drive to food has been with us for a long time.
9:45
I mean, look, when cars first came out, there was no thought of driving
9:50
and eating at the same time because These did not have Rolls Royce
9:55
like suspensions, but there was an assumption that the car and the
10:00
opportunity to eat would be intertwined.
10:03
Early cars came with picnic baskets or other similar extras, if you
10:08
will, that made it possible to pack your food and take it with you.
10:12
In maybe the forties or fifties, you started to see
10:17
rudimentary forms of cup holders.
10:20
I wouldn't go flying down the highway with them because they were mostly small
10:23
indentations in the glove box cover.
10:26
When it was open, it was in the eighties that.
10:30
We went bananas, the Chrysler Corporation brought out the first
10:34
minivan and it had cupholders.
10:37
And suddenly we were into this era of, I don't mean this to sound sexist, but it
10:43
was a term that was used, soccer moms.
10:45
And everybody's family having a van, and it became essential to have a cupholder.
10:52
At one point, there was a van that had 19 of them, and incredibly, there is a
10:58
Subaru out today that has 19 of them.
11:02
It's funny you bring that up because on the other side of the pond it took
11:05
the Germans forever to adopt cupholders in their vehicles because of the
11:09
restrictive rules of the Autobahn.
11:11
Those rules simply mirrored public taste.
11:15
I lived in Germany for several years.
11:17
While I was there, I owned a Maserati B Turbo, which is derided by many
11:23
these days as a crappy car, but God knows I loved it on the Autobahn.
11:27
And they just have a different view toward the civilian
11:31
professionalism required of driving.
11:33
First of all, it's much harder to get a license there.
11:36
Many American military parents actually send their kids home
11:40
to get a license in the U.
11:41
S.
11:41
that is then recognized in Germany.
11:43
But they're serious about, you don't mess around on the road.
11:46
That includes first aid, all sorts of stuff.
11:49
To get licensed.
11:50
I know when I was working for NBC and the Frankfurt Bureau, we had a couple
11:54
of regular drivers when we were doing stories in Germany, and these guys had
11:58
the biggest Mercedes possible and they drove it at 9, 000 miles an hour, but
12:03
it was with both hands on the wheel.
12:05
And this was taken seriously even today.
12:08
I mean, I have a Mercedes SUV and it has real cupholders, but the car
12:13
I had before this was a SLK 55 AMG.
12:18
And the cupholders in that kind of spit in your face and said, you
12:23
Americans want to drink in your cars, try using this, and you had to pull
12:28
this thing out in front of the central air conditioning vents, and then a.
12:33
Thing dropped down and you could put your cup in it, but it was like a reminder that
12:37
if you're gonna do this, you're a moron.
12:40
So no, I felt a very Germanic sense of disrespect when I was
12:46
driving that car, which was a great car, real fast, no brakes.
12:49
Now, let me back up one second to talk about why we ended up with cup holders in
12:55
cars or why we ended up eating in cars.
12:58
That was thanks to the changes in American society that followed World War II.
13:05
After World War II, for white Americans, this did not apply to minorities.
13:11
I mean, blacks were not included in the benefits of the GI Bill.
13:14
But for white Americans after World War II, this was Katy bar the door.
13:20
Everyone seemed to have a ton of money.
13:22
We had won.
13:23
We were great.
13:24
Everything was possible.
13:25
Science was the future.
13:27
Among other things, under Eisenhower, we started to build interstate
13:32
highways, and that facilitated something called a suburb.
13:37
People started leaving The urban areas because they could afford cars and
13:43
the American dream was now outside of the center city, which resulted
13:48
in people commuting to and from work, and that fostered a growing dependence
13:54
on the drive in or the drive through, and it all escalated from there.
13:59
But it was the move to suburbia.
14:02
That put us in our cars for all of those hours and while you're
14:06
in a car you might as well eat.
14:08
As the interstate highways increased and parking is also part of this equation
14:12
too, how that's changed and evolved.
14:14
Cities versus urban sprawl versus suburbia and things like that.
14:17
In the older days, the cities, people would walk to restaurants.
14:20
Like you can still see a lot of those old downtowns where you walk
14:23
up to a diner or dive or whatever.
14:25
My daughter lives in New York City.
14:27
We walk to restaurants.
14:28
Exactly.
14:29
Would you say the turning point was really the real estate game that
14:34
Ray Kroc was playing with McDonald's and how that introduced these larger
14:39
parking lots, people driving through, driving in, as you were describing?
14:43
To some extent, I mean, look, Ray Kroc didn't invent fast food.
14:46
That was done by the folks at White Castle back in the late mid twenties.
14:51
But yes, Ray Kroc figured out how to take the concept broad.
14:58
And what it took to get there, and you're right in referring to it as real
15:01
estate because McDonald's makes, as I understand it, most of their money
15:05
from renting the land they bought to the operator of the restaurant.
15:11
And yes, the ability to park, the ability to drive through, although
15:15
it's interesting because initially drive in was not a drive through.
15:20
It was a place you drove to and then sat in your car with a tray
15:24
on the window, eating and drinking, sort of like American graffiti.
15:29
The concept of driving through took a while to catch on, and
15:35
it continues to grow every year.
15:37
The pandemic had a lot to do with increasing the degree to which
15:42
we are comfortable doing that.
15:44
And broadening the restaurants from which we get our food that are
15:48
now willing to fulfill that need.
15:51
But yeah, I mean, it was Ray Kroc.
15:53
I'll give you that.
15:54
I live in Texas now.
15:56
I was born and raised in Los Angeles.
15:57
You talk about urban sprawl and the highway system.
16:01
That all started right there in California.
16:03
There's a town in New Mexico, and it still has its original McDonald's.
16:06
They were the first drive through in at least all of New Mexico.
16:10
I don't think the U.
16:11
S.
16:11
Relevant.
16:12
Yeah.
16:12
And the whole reason for it was they were losing sales.
16:15
And how were they losing sales?
16:17
Well, the town is supported by a military base.
16:19
And the rules of the military base are you can leave the base
16:23
in your car, but you can't get out of your car if you're in uniform.
16:26
So if you want to eat.
16:28
You can't go into McDonald's.
16:30
So McDonald's responded to that by building the drive thru.
16:33
That way the men and women in uniform, they could go through a drive thru, pick
16:36
up some food, and they're on their way.
16:39
You know, it's interesting.
16:40
Texas arguably had the first drive in.
16:43
Is that right?
16:44
Yeah, the pig stand barbecue and hamburger restaurant of
16:47
which I think maybe I'm wrong.
16:50
I don't know if there are any left.
16:52
It was generally credited as the first drive in, I believe.
16:56
We've talked already throwing out a lot more than just the triple D's.
17:00
There's other ones out there too, but for the audience, what's the difference
17:05
between a diner, a drive in and a dive?
17:08
Well, I kind of have to retroactively define it.
17:10
Cause as I said, I pulled the name out of my, you know, what being serious about
17:16
it, a diner historically is a privately owned restaurant with a massive menu
17:24
that does legit home cooking quickly.
17:28
and cheaply.
17:29
A drive in is McDonald's, the pig stand, any bunch of places that are in
17:36
anyone's town growing up where you drive the car there and you can eat sitting
17:40
in the car in front of the restaurant.
17:42
A dive is where you go when you're drunk and you need grease.
17:47
So that's the definitional difference.
17:50
Let's switch into another section I'm going to call delivery Or DiGiorno, so
17:55
as cars changed, got bigger, evolved, added things like cup holders, other
18:01
amenities, probably even changed the design of their door cards and
18:04
their door frames to accommodate for the drive ins and things like that.
18:07
They also gave rise, thanks to two big fast food chains, which were Pizza Hut
18:13
and Domino's to this concept of delivery.
18:16
Now we have things like DoorDash and whatever.
18:18
But we can also begin to talk about the evolution, as we like to call
18:22
this, the introduction of EV cars into this whole concept of delivery.
18:25
First of all, delivery was not invented by Pizza Hut and Domino's.
18:30
They're the ones who took it.
18:32
And I'm trying to remember who was first.
18:34
I think it was Domino's.
18:36
But.
18:36
There were independent pizzerias doing delivery.
18:39
It was whichever of these chains came up with it first and then
18:43
the other followed that turned it into a nationwide expectation.
18:47
From there it grew.
18:49
Chinese food being deliverable, although that actually started in urban
18:54
settings where a car wasn't involved.
18:57
It was more likely a bicycle.
18:59
But yeah, we came to expect delivery, although we associated it for the
19:03
longest time with second rate food.
19:06
With all due respect to people who'll tell you that Domino's or
19:09
Pizza Hut are food, they're not.
19:12
They're some sort of polymer from Mars.
19:15
Increasingly, as the need arose specifically around the pandemic,
19:22
the concept of good food being delivered kind of invented itself.
19:28
And nothing happens overnight.
19:30
There were delivery options throughout the years.
19:33
I guess DoorDash and Uber Eats and such may have existed before the pandemic.
19:39
Probably not Uber Eats, but probably DoorDash.
19:42
Anyway, it was the pandemic that basically...
19:45
took higher end food and made it deliverable.
19:50
Is that good?
19:51
I guess.
19:52
If you're going to eat good food and you don't want to
19:54
cook it, I guess that's fine.
19:55
I mean, you pay a price for delivery.
19:58
It doesn't appear to be going down, but we are as a society,
20:03
especially after the pandemic, into a sense of affordable luxury.
20:08
It's like, I can't redo the kitchen, so I'll get a granite
20:11
countertop on the island.
20:13
People want a sense of pampering themselves.
20:17
Uh, I'm preparing a speech to the.
20:20
Regional Convention of the International Council of Shopping Centers.
20:24
Hey, they booked me.
20:25
So I've been looking into some of the statistics around delivery and food.
20:32
And one thing I found in my research is analysts are now saying that when it
20:37
comes to retail, food is the new apparel.
20:40
Consumers are cutting back on things like clothing, but want to pamper
20:45
themselves with a feeling that they're enjoying elevated food.
20:49
There's a Richard Gere movie out there, and I'll be darned if I
20:52
can remember what the title is.
20:53
I'm sure the title was, I'm really good looking and women love me.
20:57
Don't forget, I've never met a mirror I didn't love.
21:00
Well, there's that too.
21:01
He's a better actor than you give him credit for, but anyway, you were
21:04
mentioning a Richard Gere movie.
21:05
The quote that he used in the movie, and it's always stuck with me, was,
21:09
food is the only art that nourishes.
21:12
And I've always loved that quote, food is the only art that nourishes.
21:16
And if you think about that, it's kind of true.
21:17
And it goes a little bit hand in hand with what you're saying that people want
21:20
to treat themselves these days to me.
21:23
And maybe I'm wrong.
21:24
I just kind of want to get your thoughts on this COVID really turbocharged.
21:29
Those food delivery services.
21:31
Yes.
21:31
And I think in a way because we couldn't go out We couldn't go to a restaurant.
21:36
We couldn't go wherever so we had to have it brought in It's become one of
21:39
those luxuries that is now Much more of a necessity it allows you to perceive it as
21:44
luxury and by the way The same is true of cars for people who like cars Sliding into
21:52
a Porsche, or when I had that much dried Maserati, given the change in exchange
21:58
rates I bought used and sold used for the same 12, 000 American, it felt good.
22:06
There was some real wood, there was some leather.
22:09
Unlike EVs, when I stepped on the gas, I heard a roar.
22:13
It made me feel good.
22:15
And again, I spent 12 grand on that car.
22:17
I didn't spend a hundred and whatever.
22:19
There are things that nurture the soul.
22:22
Now, not everybody gives a damn about cars.
22:25
There are people who just couldn't care less and that's okay.
22:28
But look, my first car was, no, my second, my first car was a 67 Comet convertible.
22:34
My second car was a Camaro.
22:37
And when I smashed it up, my third car was a Camaro.
22:40
I've always been a Camaro guy, not a Mustang guy, because Mustangs
22:45
were Comets, and Camaros at least had something going for them.
22:49
But they made me happy.
22:50
It's what do you want to be surrounded by?
22:53
What can you add to your life at a reasonable price that makes it...
22:58
In your view, better food does a lot of that cars do it.
23:03
For some people, it's interior design.
23:05
For some people, it's a hike in the woods.
23:08
It's whatever generates some dopamine.
23:12
We sometimes make light of the progress that's being made on this new technology
23:17
of cars and how it's going to become like Johnny cab, and they're going to be
23:20
faceless, nameless personless vehicles.
23:24
Companies like Amazon and others have already experimented with
23:27
drone delivery and things like that.
23:28
And now you're seeing that Domino's, they're publicly commercializing the
23:32
fact that they have EVs in their fleet.
23:34
They've got their own cars.
23:35
It's no longer, you know, a high school kid with his mom's Honda
23:38
Civic delivering your pizza.
23:39
They're in a Chevy Bolt.
23:40
How is that going to change the restaurant business as they get deeper
23:44
into EVs, self driving cars, maybe even potentially autonomous vehicles?
23:49
Do you see that having an impact on the restaurant business?
23:53
I don't believe many restaurant owners operating on a 5 percent
23:57
margin are going to risk the insurance payments for autonomous delivery.
24:02
It's going to be 20 years at least before America trusts autonomous cars.
24:07
As for EVs, it's just the next step.
24:10
The thing that's holding that back from broad acceptance nationally
24:16
is lack of charging stations.
24:18
I guess if I'm a restaurant, I can afford my own charging station for my own fleet.
24:26
That'll continue to grow, especially given the fact that delivery is, you
24:29
know, you're not going 400 miles, but I assume you could charge an EV,
24:33
give your delivery driver the keys.
24:36
He's out for the entire evening.
24:37
He comes back, puts it back on charge, and it's ready to go tomorrow morning.
24:41
That seems to me, one of the most reasonable applications
24:46
for electric vehicles.
24:47
It's going to be harder that on the way from here to visit some friends in
24:52
Michigan, until I'm comfortable that I can really recharge the battery and that
24:56
I don't lose an hour of travel time.
24:58
When I do, I'd love to have an electric car, but I'm not ready yet.
25:02
It's not consumer friendly enough in my view.
25:05
Well, we're going to put a pin in that thought and unpack
25:07
it as we move along here.
25:08
I don't remember which restaurant chain it is, but they're also positioning, you
25:12
know, be a superhero, come and do takeout again, come pick up your own foods.
25:16
We'll pay you to not have to deliver it.
25:18
Right.
25:19
But we're still putting cars on the road one way or the other.
25:21
Oh yeah.
25:22
No, that's not going to change.
25:23
Look.
25:24
The carbon footprint of pickup and delivery, I haven't seen a number
25:28
for it, but I'm sure it's pretty big.
25:29
Then again, just to be contrarian, nobody has told me what the carbon
25:33
footprint of making batteries for electric cars is or generating the
25:38
electricity that those batteries hold.
25:41
So I'm not convinced that the savings are as great as anyone claims them to be.
25:48
Theoretically, I guess electric cars are better.
25:50
And since that's where we're going, that's where we're going.
25:52
And I'm glad you brought that up because it's been something that was
25:55
top of mind even after reading your book, which was the environmental
25:59
impact of takeout and delivery.
26:02
And it's part of the equation that we really haven't looked at.
26:05
And we talk about the environmental impact of a lot of other things and how
26:08
we should be doing more mass transit, but when it comes to food, there just
26:12
seems to be this exception to the rule.
26:14
Well, yeah, but there's also an exception to the rule going to work.
26:17
I mean, there are certain parts of life where.
26:21
In the public mind, the downsides are put in the closet because
26:27
that's just how we do things.
26:29
With all due respect to the governments of Southern California,
26:33
you're not going to get in the short term a whole lot of Angelitos.
26:38
To try taking the bus.
26:40
It's just not in their DNA and the city isn't set up for it.
26:45
There are similar problems in the New York area.
26:47
Robert Moses, who was in charge of building virtually everything for a
26:52
very long time, was a noted racist.
26:55
And built the center medians on the suburban New York parkways to be too
27:02
narrow to fit mass transit because he didn't want minority populations finding
27:08
an easy way to commute from the suburbs.
27:11
It's always something.
27:12
So you touched on this before how the interstate highway system post
27:16
World War II, the Eisenhower network of roads changed food, right?
27:20
It opened us up.
27:21
We could go to other cities and other towns and other places to experience
27:25
the culinary diversity that's out there.
27:27
You could take barbecue as you talk about a lot in the book, and it's just
27:32
geographically different depending on where you are, what the taste is
27:35
going to be like, things like that.
27:36
So the interstate highway system opened that up.
27:39
If you're going to take a road trip, what are the top five places to drive
27:43
through and have a fantastic meal?
27:45
Those are not necessarily the same thing.
27:49
I'm going to tell you places you want to go.
27:52
You got to go to Maine for lobster as it should be consumed.
27:56
On the way back down the coast, you have to go to Massachusetts
28:00
to Ipswich for whole bellied fried clams, which are not clam strips.
28:05
When you continue south, you need to go to the Carolinas for whole hog barbecue.
28:11
You then need to go to New Orleans for every single damn thing that they sell.
28:16
Then you've gotta head way north to Chicago for Italian beef.
28:23
And Polish sausages served at a place called Mr.
28:27
Beef, which was the restaurant that they ripped off for the show, the bear.
28:32
And which used to be just down the street from the merchandise Mart.
28:36
It's still there.
28:37
NBC left the Mart, but when I was at the NBC bureau there, the bureau
28:42
lunch every now and then it'd be to walk down the street to Mr.
28:45
Beef, sit on the pigeon shit covered tables outside and chow down.
28:51
Let's see.
28:51
How far have I gotten?
28:52
I've gotten to Chicago.
28:55
I would zigzag back down to New Mexico for anything involving green chilies, probably
29:04
a green chili cheeseburger, into Texas for Central Texas brisket barbecue, over to L.
29:12
A.
29:13
for Mexican American street food, And then up to Seattle for anything
29:19
involving salmon, and then I'd rest.
29:22
That's David's one lap of America right there, you like that?
29:25
What the hell, why not?
29:26
And I've missed, you know, 90 percent of all the good places, but...
29:29
True, and there's a lot of them, and there's plenty of awesome
29:33
drives and foods to experience out there, and it's kind of funny...
29:36
Don and I were recently out in Monterey for car week and talk about an area
29:41
of the world where food is everywhere.
29:43
And the drives are amazing.
29:44
The same can be said up in the canyons of LA and Malibu and Santa Monica.
29:49
If you're going to drive a Pacific coast highway, then get yourself up to Santa
29:53
Barbara for some tri tip barbecuing.
29:55
The only other place that I know of that uses that particular
29:59
cut of meat is Argentina.
30:01
Of course, in Santa Barbara, they put it on this.
30:03
Wood fired barbecue where they literally they have a wheel and they control the
30:08
temperature by moving the food up and down in terms of its proximity to the fire.
30:14
It's not barbecue.
30:16
Barbecue is not grilling.
30:17
They call it barbecue.
30:19
It's grilling.
30:20
Barbecue is really low and slow over indirect heat.
30:24
Except when it's not like at the rendezvous in Memphis, where they cook
30:28
their celebrated ribs directly over the heat in a converted coal chute.
30:33
Every rule is meant to be broken, but there you go.
30:37
And I'm glad you brought up tri tip because that was one of the things we were
30:39
talking about while we were out there.
30:40
And I was telling Don, I'm so excited to go to the track
30:43
for the Monterey Historics.
30:44
And he's like, oh yeah, you just want to see old race cars.
30:46
It's like, no, you don't understand.
30:48
I can get one of the best tri tip sandwiches at the racetrack.
30:51
And I'm looking forward to that probably more than anything.
30:54
And he was just kind of put his head in his hands in disbelief.
30:57
Yeah, no, it's a cut that doesn't exist in the rest of the country.
31:01
Getting back to our discussion about cars and food and how cars
31:04
have changed in this and that.
31:06
And, you know, we were talking about drive thrus earlier, and I've noticed
31:09
as the drive thrus have been remodeled.
31:12
Dimensionally, they have changed to accommodate the fact that the best
31:15
selling vehicle in North America is the Ford F 150 and me and my
31:19
lowly Volkswagen have to reach up through the window to get my takeout.
31:23
Yeah.
31:23
You'll also notice that the newer architectural models of
31:27
quick service restaurants include many more drive thru lanes.
31:31
And many of these companies have now come out with models that only have
31:35
drive thrus and convenience stores.
31:37
Which are making a big play to beat the QSRs at their own game
31:42
are now starting drive thrus.
31:43
Wawa, the famous chain here in, in Jersey, apparently is planning to open
31:49
a place in Florida, not that far from Tampa, that is drive thru only for food.
31:55
May not be only, but it's intended to sell food and they will have a drive thru.
32:00
What they will not have.
32:03
There was something very entertaining in the book.
32:06
Well, thank you.
32:06
Well, there were many things entertaining in the book.
32:08
At least one.
32:09
That one part.
32:10
There was something I picked up in the book, and it's on page 111
32:14
for anybody that's reading it.
32:15
And you talk about...
32:16
Hold on.
32:18
Page 111, you said?
32:20
You referenced foods that are ideal for eating in the car, and you made
32:24
reference to the bagel being one of the best grab and go foods for
32:31
a car because it has no crumble.
32:33
So is that the only food that really doesn't make a mess while you're
32:36
eating, or are there other things that you would consider eating in your car?
32:40
There's extremes.
32:41
The food that is ostensibly eaten in the car...
32:46
That, in my view, is impossible to eat in the car, is In N Out
32:51
burger, double double animal style.
32:54
It's a double cheeseburger, two patties, two slices of cheese, covered with
32:59
basically chopped lettuce and some version of Russian dressing, in an insane amount.
33:06
And there is no way to bite into that without wearing it.
33:10
On the other hand, it may be on a given day, the greatest
33:14
single food item on earth.
33:15
When I was last out in California shooting, we went to In N Out
33:20
Burger four nights in a row and ate sitting on the hood of the car.
33:25
And we didn't mind sitting on the hood cause it was a rental car.
33:27
And if we dented it, you know, the hardest one to eat is in terms
33:31
of quick services, Taco Bell.
33:33
Cause that garbage just falls all over the place.
33:37
The bagels good, a donut's good.
33:40
Anything substantial is fine.
33:43
The bacon, egg, and cheese that is a staple here in Jersey.
33:48
I mean, in New York, it's a staple, but you eat it walking down the street.
33:51
The bacon, egg, and cheese is perfect for a car.
33:55
If you get up with a good, strong Kaiser roll, you need something to
33:58
hold onto that won't fall apart.
34:00
And you have to be careful with how much ketchup you put on a
34:02
bacon, egg, and cheese, because that's where you nail yourself.
34:06
You can't eat something like a scone.
34:09
Cause it's just all over the place.
34:10
You can't eat something that involves chili cause it's all over the place.
34:14
Now you can do what I do, which is to drive with my wife and the other seat.
34:20
And she's in charge of like taking the bacon, egg and cheese out and taking
34:26
a half of it and putting the wax paper around it and giving it to me.
34:29
At which point.
34:30
I immediately discard the wax paper and the ketchup falls on my
34:33
shirt, but an attempt was made.
34:36
So she's the pro when it comes to eating in the car, sounds like.
34:39
My wife is the pro in terms of everything.
34:41
Ah, just ask her.
34:42
I've been married for 30 years and she's in the kitchen listening to this, so.
34:47
Oh, she just said it, I am not.
34:49
Okay.
34:50
Well, the inverse of that question.
34:52
Let's look at the best car to eat food in.
34:55
It probably isn't the Maserati B Turbo.
34:57
It's probably not a 911, but it also can't be a van or a limousine.
35:02
So in your opinion, are there cars you're like, man, this is
35:04
a great place to eat a sandwich.
35:06
The great car for eating in is we have a Mercedes GLE 350.
35:11
It's the larger two seat, two bench SUV.
35:14
It's a perfect road trip car.
35:16
It's fast, it's comfortable, it's got good cup holders and the console in the
35:22
middle is big enough that if you're on your own, you know, it's got the two
35:26
doors that open on top of the console.
35:27
You can actually put like fries in there and the burger next to
35:31
the gear shift on the console.
35:34
And you got a pretty self sufficient eating environment.
35:38
Is there a favorite road trip car that isn't the Mercedes?
35:40
Something you really like.
35:42
I hate to say this, but I'm in love with that Mercedes.
35:44
I mean, we bought it off lease.
35:45
It was the first year that they came out with the supposed one
35:50
piece big infotainment screen.
35:52
It's a great car.
35:53
When I had the AMG.
35:56
That was a great car for making time and it was comfortable, but now for
36:00
me, a road trip, if it involves other people, you need room, you need to
36:04
be able to keep supplies in the back, you know, extra water and stuff.
36:09
And napkins.
36:10
No napkins go in the console and in the, uh, well actually in the,
36:15
to the left in the door pocket, you can keep napkins and hand sanitizer
36:19
for when it's all a little too much.
36:21
The best car for a road trip is anything you rented, because every
36:27
wrapper goes in the back seat.
36:29
If you really want to do an Animal House style road trip, you go to Wawa, you buy
36:34
all this garbage, and then, you know, you just unload it behind you as you go.
36:40
In fact, for the next book, I spoke to the guy who owns a company
36:45
that manufactures packaging.
36:48
For products sold at convenience stores, the package is a plastic cup shaped
36:54
item that fits in the cup holder.
36:56
And you can fill it with nuts or M& Ms, different companies do different things.
37:00
But he makes packaging specifically for non liquids to go in the cup holder.
37:05
See, Don, David hit on it.
37:06
I've been saying forever, no one aspires to own a rental car.
37:10
Oh, God, no.
37:11
I've always wondered who buys a car from Hertz.
37:14
Well, David, you mentioned something earlier that I wanted to expand upon, and
37:18
I said we were going to put a pin in it.
37:20
Now it's time to pull that pin out of the corkboard and talk about places
37:24
like Wawa, Royal Farms, and Sheetz.
37:28
You made mention about these convenience stores kind of becoming restaurants,
37:31
destinations to be, and this actually ties back into the conversation of EVs as
37:36
well, because to your overarching point, if I got to sit around for an hour, I need
37:40
to find something to do for that hour.
37:42
So why not go to what used to be a service station, hang out there, get a meal.
37:47
Let's talk about how those locations, which weren't originally associated
37:52
with Hey, let's go to Sheetz for dinner.
37:54
Now are these sort of meccas, these places you do want to spend
37:58
more time and how they've changed the quality of their foods.
38:00
I think you mentioned in an email that Sheetz has seating.
38:03
Most of the convenience stores still do not.
38:07
I don't know about Casey's, which is famous for their pizza.
38:11
In the Midwest, they may have seating, but that is the next step that is
38:17
still not really being discussed by most of the convenience stores.
38:22
They're busy right now trying to convince you that their food is
38:26
as good or better than McDonald's.
38:29
And they're doing a pretty good job of it.
38:31
I mean, while you get mashed potatoes, if you want mashed potatoes, they
38:36
just announced a big pizza program.
38:38
They're retrofitting 900 locations to start with pizza ovens.
38:42
So yeah, they are vastly expanding their place.
38:47
In the food convenience universe, and they are taking potential sales from grocery
38:54
stores who are also at this point becoming more and more what's called a gross salon,
38:59
where they're selling prepared food.
39:01
And in some cases you can eat it there.
39:04
I can't predict.
39:05
I've read nothing about competitors to sheets adding seating,
39:09
but it would not surprise me.
39:11
I mean, it's obviously the next place to go.
39:13
And I pick on them only because where I live, I'm very fortunate
39:16
that I have all three within close proximity of one another.
39:19
So it's very easy to do a case study and compare.
39:21
Well, all three, you have sheets and who else?
39:23
ROFO and Wawa within a couple of miles of each other.
39:26
Okay.
39:27
And who's got better food?
39:28
There's the dilemma.
39:29
You go to ROFO because you want the chicken.
39:33
And you go to Wawa because you want that breakfast sandwich or that sub or whatever
39:37
you're looking for because Wawa's got that delicatessen almost style to it sometimes.
39:41
Or you want that, you know, turkey dinner wrapped in bread they serve.
39:45
But Sheetz is sort of like, to your point, it's like a grocery.
39:49
I go in there.
39:49
It's got the cold case.
39:51
It's got shelf stable stuff.
39:52
It's got non perishables.
39:54
It's got a little like mini ice cream parlor.
39:56
It's got almost like a mini Starbucks in it.
39:58
It's got all these options.
40:00
And as my kids like to joke, it's the place I can fill up my car
40:04
and fill up my belly on a whim.
40:06
And I'm not locked into, well, I only serve chicken.
40:10
I got all these options.
40:11
If I want a chicken sandwich or I want sliders or I want a salad, I just go to
40:15
the touch screen and it's MTO, right?
40:17
Made to order.
40:18
Yeah, it's made to order to the extent that a bunch of pre prepared
40:22
ingredients are put together.
40:24
I mean, there's a lot of microwave usage at all these places.
40:27
Oh yeah.
40:28
Oh yeah.
40:28
But you know, it's like Casey's famous for their pizza.
40:31
It's not like they're making the dough on side.
40:34
No, but David, they warmed it up just for you.
40:36
Well, let's say, hey, listen, the big thing in the bagel world is
40:40
something called par baked bagels.
40:43
Go into your local bagel shop and you smell the wonderful smell of fresh
40:47
baked bagels coming out of the oven.
40:49
Well, they were 90 percent baked.
40:51
At a manufacturer and then they were frozen and sent to Bob's store
40:58
and Bob put him in his normal oven.
41:01
You know, he didn't have to boil the bagels.
41:02
He just heats them up and you have them.
41:05
They're not bad.
41:06
They're better than lenders, which owns much of the retail bagel market.
41:11
Although the number one seller of bagels in America is still Dunkin Donuts.
41:14
Surprisingly enough.
41:15
Well, hey.
41:16
But where I'm going with all this is.
41:19
I feel that sheets is taking a step in a direction that maybe others will follow.
41:24
And you're to your point, it's not McDonald's or Wendy's chick fil a or
41:28
whatever, it's somewhere in the middle between your fast casuals, your Panera's
41:32
and your blaze pizzas and stuff like that.
41:34
And I'm not sure there's a category for what they are yet, but I
41:37
do like the grosser on kind of idea you've got going on there.
41:40
However, understand something from a financial standpoint, the ability
41:45
to sell food attracts customers.
41:48
And increases sales per square foot.
41:51
When you start dealing with additional real estate costs for what is in essence,
41:57
dead space for people to sit there and eat when let's face it, you're not offering
42:02
them the most conducive environment.
42:05
I'm not smart enough to know where the graph lines cross there.
42:09
Having visited European countries and you spent some time over there yourself.
42:13
They have these concepts of these rest stops.
42:17
Like we do on the New Jersey turnpike is famous for all the rest.
42:19
No, you're the, the auto strata restaurants in Italy are the best.
42:23
Exactly.
42:23
The outdoor grills on the auto strata are fantastic.
42:26
Go in there and chefs.
42:27
And it's like a restaurant and you sit down, you bring up your tray.
42:30
I'm not worried that my Tesla is outside charging for the next hour
42:33
because I'm having a home cooked meal while I'm at the gas station, right?
42:37
So I'm wondering if we're going to eventually catch up, somebody
42:40
will step out from a Sheetz or a Rofo or a Wawa and say, we're going
42:44
to do what the Autogrill does.
42:46
And I saw those even this year, when I went over for Le Mans, a lot more of
42:50
those types of things were popping up in France and in Denmark and other places
42:54
in Europe, modeling that Italian style of that roadside turnpike side restaurant.
43:01
And I guess you're predicating this on having to recharge your EV.
43:05
So, this isn't going to matter until there are enough EVs that you're going to
43:11
get enough of a customer base from those recharging them to justify the expense.
43:18
Secondarily, unlike Europeans, we constantly want to get where we're going.
43:25
I don't know how many people on a road trip, if you're me, you're calculating
43:31
how many of the 12 hours you can do in 10.
43:34
How many of those people are going to say, well, I got good momentum here.
43:37
Let's just sit down and have a leisurely meal when you can
43:41
drive through and then throw the wrappers at your kid in the back.
43:45
And again, so much of this is predicated on guessing human behavior.
43:50
I don't know again, at what point those two lines cross,
43:54
if I have to recharge my Tesla.
43:56
We could maybe agree that it's going to change.
43:59
The way we think about food because our travel is going to change.
44:03
If the market saturation of EVs continues to climb the way it's been doing.
44:07
Call me when that happens.
44:08
No, I, you know, I don't want to be negative, but I don't know as
44:13
someone who's been immersed in the food world for quite a while.
44:16
How important that quality of food is going to be to folks on
44:20
a road trip, for the most part, throughout the American population?
44:23
Well, I guess we'll have to find out.
44:25
Nobody knows the answer.
44:25
I guess we will.
44:27
I would personally like to see it elevate itself, because if I am going to sit
44:32
there for an hour, I want more than just a burger, maybe, to choose from, right?
44:35
Yeah, but I don't want to sit there for an hour, so by the time I get an EV, it's
44:39
going to have the kind of range I need.
44:42
That's true.
44:43
And I can get where I'm going.
44:45
Without having to sit for an hour, because until I don't have to sit for an hour,
44:49
the EV is not for the average American.
44:51
They're forcing us there in terms of legislation.
44:54
And I do see more and more charging stations popping up.
44:58
What I would not be comfortable on a long road trip having to worry about
45:03
where the next charging station is.
45:06
Now, interestingly, you guys are both talking about how great Europe is.
45:10
Because they've got all these wonderful restaurants on the side of the road.
45:13
They have Chef Pierre over there going to create you a croissant.
45:17
He's going to do something wonderful.
45:18
And yet, flip side of the coin, both of you are lamenting on, I don't think I
45:24
want to spend an hour waiting for this.
45:26
So are the European places quicker?
45:29
Are they more efficient than we are here in America?
45:32
I've only been to restaurants on the auto strata for some reason.
45:35
I don't recall restaurants on the autobahn.
45:38
They were like cafeterias in that they were still quick serve restaurants.
45:43
You could get in and out in 20 minutes if you wanted to scarf it down, but it was
45:48
a higher quality of food unquestionably.
45:50
What you're kind of describing is interesting to me because living in LA.
45:55
Family in Las Vegas.
45:56
We were hitting that 15, four to five times a year.
45:59
At one point, one day we're driving along up there and we
46:02
noticed a new place being built.
46:04
No wonder what that is.
46:05
Two months later, we're driving back to Vegas and there it is.
46:07
It's built.
46:08
So we got to stop.
46:09
We got to see what this is all about.
46:11
Giant, huge ice cream is standing off the side of the road.
46:16
And it says.
46:17
Eddie world.
46:18
Have you heard of this place?
46:19
No, Eddie world within what is this?
46:21
We got to go see this place.
46:22
So we pull off the road and there they are bank upon bank upon bank of car
46:27
chargers right to the side of them.
46:29
Of course is fuel fill up stations.
46:31
Not only do they have that, but they have the spray bottles so you
46:34
can clean your windows properly.
46:35
They have the lavender scent.
46:37
They have the orange scent.
46:38
You can spray those in your car to get rid of the scent
46:40
of road trip that we all love.
46:42
You go inside.
46:43
There are seven or eight different eateries in there, and each
46:47
one of them is independent.
46:48
It's not like they're all owned by Eddie World, they are independently operated.
46:52
And what's interesting is what you guys are saying about the Europeans.
46:54
I'm sitting here thinking that's what Eddie World is doing.
46:57
They have these different little eateries where you can go.
47:00
The food is not bad.
47:01
Granted, it's not the best, but it's not bad.
47:03
Where their hook is.
47:05
And I think anybody listening will appreciate this.
47:08
Cleanest bathrooms on Highway 15.
47:10
Cleaner than Bucky's?
47:11
Ah, let me get to that.
47:12
Okay, so Eddie World literally has a staff.
47:16
And this staff, the whole job is bathroom attendant.
47:20
They literally switch from side to side.
47:22
You have two men's room, two women's room.
47:24
They're cleaning one, then they're cleaning the other,
47:25
cleaning one, cleaning the other.
47:26
And they go back and forth.
47:28
It's like painting the Golden Gate Bridge.
47:30
You go down one side, You flip over, you go down the other, you
47:33
come back, you go, you just keep doing it and you keep it clean.
47:37
It works really, really well.
47:38
Now, Eric brought up Bucky's.
47:40
So we have that here in Texas.
47:41
It was the first time I'd ever seen it was when we moved here.
47:44
It was a really, really similar concept, except.
47:47
I don't think they have the dedicated bathroom staff and that just turns me off.
47:52
But what you have is a huge shopping section there for
47:55
all kinds of touristy stuff.
47:57
A big selection of barbecue or what you were referring to earlier as kind
48:01
of frozen foods that become edible later on, thanks to a microwave.
48:05
And it's really, really interesting to me to watch this.
48:08
All of it's revolving around, boy, my Tesla.
48:11
My maki, it's out of juice.
48:13
I got to plug it in.
48:14
That's going to take a little while.
48:16
So it goes to your point of, I see a clash coming up.
48:19
Americans have always prided themselves as being efficient.
48:22
No, we like to say we're efficient, but it takes us 40 hours a week
48:27
plus bring and work home to do what the French do in 36 hours.
48:32
This is true, but in serving the world, we're also serving the
48:36
motorists of the world, aren't we?
48:37
So it's interesting to me to listen to you guys, talk about the European way of doing
48:41
it and thinking to myself, isn't that wawa isn't that what they're kind of doing,
48:45
it's just, I guess it's a quality of food.
48:47
That's a little, it's a quality of food issue.
48:49
The place on the auto Strada is closer to an American diner in that
48:53
the food is actually cooked there.
48:55
That's all now you can pull off an American highway and go to a diner.
48:59
And enjoy the same thing.
49:01
And you can also be out in 20 minutes.
49:02
So those places exist and they're great.
49:05
Or if you're going to Vegas, you can pull off 15 at, uh, I think it's
49:10
Death Valley and go to the Mad Greek.
49:12
Oh yeah.
49:13
That's an extraordinary restaurant.
49:15
They make their gyros from scratch.
49:19
Yes.
49:20
It's not that stupid cone of junk.
49:22
It's actual food.
49:25
We did a piece on them on diners.
49:26
Now, does the Mad Greek have EV charging stations?
49:30
I would hope so, because in its day, it was the only tourist
49:33
attraction on that stretch of desert.
49:36
Yeah, that town is called Baker.
49:38
That's right.
49:39
Yeah.
49:39
And then they have that big thermometer, right?
49:42
Yeah, that's their big draw.
49:43
In fact, I don't know if it's still for sale or not, but just a few years ago,
49:47
you could have bought the Baker prison.
49:49
Damn.
49:50
I know.
49:50
You missed your chance, man.
49:52
You know, time is everything.
49:55
It is.
49:55
It is David.
49:56
You hit on something really important there.
49:58
You could go to that Greek restaurant and kind of go off the beaten path.
50:03
It's right at an exit, but you said, well, maybe they have a charger for me there.
50:07
And if they don't, then there's the dilemma.
50:09
I want the really good Euro, but I still got to charge my Tesla.
50:12
No, they're going to, they're going to need a charger.
50:14
Where I'm going with this is.
50:15
We are now creating a new type of competition between the restaurant
50:20
tours and let's say a sheets or a rofo or a Bucky's or whatever, where it
50:25
didn't really exist before everybody knew their place in the pecking order.
50:29
You went to the gas station to get gas and you went to the restaurant to go eat,
50:33
but now when the gas station becomes the restaurant, how much business in turn
50:37
are these restaurants going to lose?
50:39
And when do they start becoming filling stations?
50:41
It's a massive battle and it's underway at a very high level right now.
50:45
I mean, the pressure that convenience stores are putting on traditional
50:49
quick service restaurants is immense and the restaurants are pushing
50:53
back saying they have dishes you can't get elsewhere, but no, it's
50:57
the pressure on QSRs is substantial.
51:00
And there's also another battle in there, which always goes back to something
51:03
we talked about earlier, parking.
51:05
Yes.
51:06
Because the service stations are designed to handle more people at a
51:10
quicker rate of time, all those kinds of things, versus the restaurant that
51:13
parking is designed by occupancy, right?
51:15
The number of people they can seat and feed and all that kind of stuff.
51:17
So now you've got a Buc ee's that they look like a Home Depot.
51:20
I mean, they're just huge.
51:21
They can replace and accommodate a lot of the truck stops.
51:24
They can replace and accommodate a lot of other locations you go to.
51:27
It's sort of one stop shopping, the Home Depot of service and food in that respect.
51:32
So how does the restaurant compete?
51:34
How do they adapt?
51:35
How do they adjust to this, as you said, forcible change
51:38
in the automotive industry?
51:39
There's only two ways to compete.
51:41
One, unique offerings and two, price.
51:44
It's a tight vice to be squeezed in the good news is the degree to
51:49
which we like to drive through stuff.
51:52
That's not going to go away where they're really hurting.
51:55
These days is the number of people working from home because that's killing
52:00
their breakfast business, which is one analyst pointed out to me whenever
52:05
a quick service restaurant chain.
52:07
Is in trouble, they improve breakfast and they make a big deal
52:11
about breakfast because that was pretty easy to pick folks off.
52:15
You know, you're going to travel in the morning.
52:16
Anyway, you're going to want a cup of coffee.
52:18
Now we're giving you this breakfast sandwich filled with gold.
52:22
Come get that.
52:23
They've lost that.
52:24
Frankly, it's tough.
52:26
In some respects, the future belongs to the convenience stores.
52:30
They've got the opportunity because they're kind of bare bones
52:34
versions of what they can be.
52:36
And they have just started to be that.
52:39
But again, it comes down to something I'm not qualified to assess, which is the cost
52:44
of real estate versus the income you're going to get from your food selections.
52:49
Well, either way, this is actually a great segue into talking about your
52:53
book, Food Americana, where you don't, you don't talk about gas stations and
52:57
this type of stuff that we're expanding upon here, but let's tell the listeners
53:01
what Food Americana is about, why you wrote it and where they can get it.
53:06
It's my attempt to answer the question, is there an American cuisine?
53:11
I spent a long time living in Europe, working in Europe,
53:15
Africa, and the Middle East.
53:16
The perception of American cuisine is to a great extent what we've
53:20
exported, which is fast food.
53:22
In fact, we have created a cuisine of our own, much as many of us like to think
53:28
of the country as an ethnic melting pot.
53:30
We have taken from various immigrant groups who came to the
53:35
country, we have absorbed some of their cuisine and modified it.
53:41
A, because ingredients are not available or, or technology is
53:45
different, pizza ovens here were different than pizza ovens in Naples.
53:49
And also because of our own tastes, Mexican American food was
53:54
downspiced from its original so that more Americans would eat it.
54:00
We've gotten to the point now where certain Cuisines are as American
54:07
as could be, despite their origin.
54:09
For example, I posit that sushi is now an American food.
54:13
Is it the same sushi as is served for the most part in Japan?
54:17
Of course not.
54:18
It's our version of it.
54:20
And, you know, people want to say, well, I ate at that Chinese
54:23
restaurant, it's not authentic.
54:24
Well, it may not be what they're serving in China today, which, by the way, one
54:29
of the most popular dishes in China today is scrambled eggs and tomatoes.
54:32
But even if it's not authentic to what's served in China today, it is authentic
54:38
Chinese American food that evolved from the dishes first brought here by Chinese
54:45
men in Canton who came here to pan for gold during the California gold rush.
54:52
And we're accompanied by restaurateurs who pretty quickly figured out that
54:56
Americans were not fond of entrails.
54:59
So chop suey ended up being made, not with awful, but with pork, chicken,
55:04
or beef, to that extent, I don't think Thai food is part of American cuisine.
55:09
Cause it's not something available everywhere that on a given day, it's
55:13
absolutely one of the things you consider having when you go to lunch.
55:17
I don't think Vietnamese food is, despite great attempts to make
55:21
Americans fall in love with it.
55:23
Peruvian food is not.
55:24
Chinese is.
55:25
Mexican is.
55:27
Pizza certainly is.
55:29
And of course, hamburgers, which were German when they first came over here.
55:33
It's what we take and then what we do with it.
55:35
And by the way, when I say Absorbing the cuisines of other countries and
55:39
cultures, that includes Native Americans, who taught the settlers, among other
55:44
things, what to do with shellfish.
55:46
No Brit who had just arrived here by boat wanted to eat a lobster.
55:51
But when there's nothing else available, you eat a lobster.
55:54
Once the Native Americans taught you to dig a hole, start a fire, when
55:59
you've got embers, throw the lobster in, cover it up, and then come back,
56:03
which is the same technique used in a New England clam bake to this day.
56:08
I read the book.
56:08
I thoroughly enjoyed it.
56:10
Well, thank you.
56:11
It's full of fascinating facts, details, anecdotes, and it's a good one lap
56:16
of America, especially when it comes to just like you described earlier.
56:19
So I can't recommend it enough to people to pick up a copy of Food
56:23
Americana and read it for themselves.
56:24
And you hinted there's a second, I have another book in the works that is
56:28
tentatively titled Eating While Standing.
56:31
It's all the ways we eat.
56:33
Including convenience stores, and food trucks, and hot dog carts, and the
56:38
state fair, and the amusement park.
56:40
I've been working on that for a while, and, uh, that's next in the shoot.
56:44
Well, I am looking forward to reading that when it comes out.
56:47
Let me get a plug in for Food Americana.
56:49
The best place to get it is Amazon.
56:51
I mean, you can get it pretty 12 or 15 copies, since I'm still
56:58
paying for my daughter's MFA.
56:59
Um...
56:59
Ha, ha, ha.
57:03
Well, David, we have reached that part of the episode where I get to ask you our
57:06
final question, which is any shout outs, promotions, or anything else you'd like
57:11
to share that we haven't covered thus far.
57:13
Yeah.
57:14
You got to check your local radio stations, but I do a syndicated radio
57:17
show called martini music, which is all about the music of the thirties,
57:22
forties, and into the fifties.
57:24
You got to see if it's carried in your market, but I'm very proud of that.
57:28
And number two, did I mention, I just.
57:31
Paid for seven years of my daughter to get an MFA that I mentioned, it
57:35
was at Columbia University cause I didn't want to die with any money.
57:41
So go to Amazon and buy 30 or 40 copies of Food Americana.
57:46
So about that Maserati, huh?
57:51
David Page had pursued his passion both personally and professionally, creating
57:56
diners, drive ins, and dives, and hands on producing, its first 11 seasons took
58:02
him deep into the world of American food.
58:04
Its vast variations, its history, its evolution, and especially the dedicated
58:10
cooks and chefs It's those experiences, that education and the discovery of little
58:15
known stories and facts that led David to dig even deeper and tie the strands
58:21
together in his new book, Food Americana.
58:24
To learn more about David Page, you can follow him on Facebook at David.
58:29
Page.
58:29
1840.
58:33
On Twitter, At page prod on Instagram at Food Americana.
58:40
And don't forget to pick up a copy of Food Americana at your local
58:44
bookstore or on Amazon today.
58:46
Well, David, I can't thank you enough for coming on break fix.
58:49
I love how your book reflects your speaking and for the listeners that
58:55
have been through this ride with us, just like this episode, the book is
58:58
knowledgeable, it's humorous, and often with this touch of sarcasm.
59:02
This has really been an entertaining and delightful and enlightening episode.
59:06
So thank you for spending your evening with us and discussing food and cars.
59:09
Well, you guys are great.
59:10
It was a pleasure to be here.
59:12
You actually know what questions to ask and you actually read the book.
59:15
So there you go.
59:21
If you like what you've heard and want to learn more about GTM,
59:24
be sure to check us out on www.
59:26
gtmotorsports.
59:28
org.
59:28
You can also find us on Instagram Also, if you want to get involved or have
59:34
suggestions for future shows, you can call or text us at 202 630 1770 or send
59:41
us an email at crewchief at gtmotorsports.
59:44
org.
59:44
We'd love to hear from you.
59:46
Hey everybody, Crew Chief Eric here.
59:48
We really hope you enjoyed this episode of BreakFix, and we wanted
59:52
to remind you that GTM remains a no annual fees organization, and our goal
59:57
is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge.
1:00:02
As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for
1:00:06
bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies, and GTM swag.
1:00:11
For as little as 2 and 50 cents a month, you can keep our developers,
1:00:14
writers, editors, casters, and other volunteers fed on their strict diet of
1:00:19
fig Newtons, gummy bears, and monster.
1:00:22
Consider signing up for Patreon today at www.
1:00:25
patreon.
1:00:26
com forward slash GT motorsports, and remember without fans,
1:00:31
supporters, and members like you.
1:00:34
None of this would be possible.