I got the idea for this cartoon from a guy talking on tv. He was the CEO or some bigshot with a restaurant chain like Applebee’s or TGI Fridays, one of those type places. They were talking about the $5.00 burger and chicken meals that all of a sudden popped up all over the place at the fast food places. Where were they all this time? Out of the blue these businesses are able to manage a decent price for food.
Anyway, this guy said, “We’re a sit down restaurant, we’re not one of these burger in a bag places.” And that stuck in my head, it made me laugh. That might be a term used in the restaurant world, but I thought it would be funny to have a fast food place named, “Burger in a a Bag.”
Some years back, not too long ago, there was a place in Hell’s Kitchen in NYC called Burgers and Cupcakes. It’s closed now, but I stopped in once as I was walking by, just to see what it was all about. It was all about burgers and cupcakes. It sort sort of fits in with the Burger in a bag theme, don’t you think?
Receive an email each time I publish a blog post by clicking here
Yesterday I went to Wendy’s about 4 pm. I went to the drive thru and I got ready to place my order. The girl says her spiel through the speaker, which I never understand, and I say, “I just want a taco salad, please.” No reply.
I call out, “Hello?” No answer. The speaker went dead.
So I drive up to the second window, the first one was closed, and I wait a couple of minutes for the car in front of me to leave. I get to the window and I say to the lady, “I’m not sure if my order went through.” And she says, “Yes, sorry about that, we had a shift change.”
So in the middle of me placing my order, it just all stops and goes dead? Not even a, “One moment please.” Nothing. They just cut me off in mid-sentence for a shift change?
I was going to say something, but I want to go back, so I kept my mouth shut, because no matter what I said, even in a joking manner, I would look like a complaining Karen. And it would be them against me, and as my mother always told me, “You don’t argue with people who are handling your food.”
At this same Wendy’s a few years back, this lazy girl at the window hands me my change, but it blows away. I think it was $5.oo. I couldn’t open the car door because it was against the wall so I said to the girl, “My change blew away, it’s under the car, can you give me another $5.00 and then come out and get the one that was under the car?” She tells me no.
I guess I said, “Stupid bitch,” it was one of those things where I thought I was thinking it, but I said it out loud, or at least under my breath. So she heard it. When I got to the second window to pick up my food, there she was going crazy, literally trying to jump out of the window to grab me! She was halfway out of the window! A couple of her co-workers had to hold her back. They threw the bag of food at me so I could make a speedy getaway. I didn’t go back for a a long time after that, hoping that when I did finally return, she would be gone, which ended up being the case.
I like the taco salad, so I keep going back.
Receive an email each time I publish a blog post by clicking here
Did you see the news recently about Wendy’s adding “surge pricing” also called “dynamic pricing” to their menus? It’s an experiment they may start next year.
I can understand if prices go down at quiet times of the day, but will they go up, too? You know that once Wendy’s starts this and then the other food places will follow, and the what’s next – supermarkets? movie theaters? Mass transit?
I know Uber and other car services do this. I’ve actually seen people at the airport keep refreshing their phones in order to get better pricing, which seems to change minute by minute. I’ve never tried that, I just want to get in the car and get to my destination, but I guess if I remember, I may try it on my next Uber trip, but of course the price can go up, so it might be better to just leave well enough alone.
But I’m imagining the menus at Wendy’s changing every few minutes depending on the store traffic. And what about the drive thru – once you are at the window, that’s it, you can’t just sit there and hope for better pricing in the next minute or two. It might make lunch cheaper to eat after lunch time. It could change the whole concept of our day, instead of noon lunch, we might have lunch at 3 pm.
Anyway, it makes for a good cartoon.
Receive an email each time I publish a blog post by clicking here
This Our Boarding House cartoon is from July 10, 1929. Almost 100 years ago, and we are probably still drinking our coffee the same way in the U.S. – with cold milk, if we add milk.
I live in Miami, so when we order coffee at a restaurant, if you order coffee, you get Cuban Coffee, which is espresso with about eight, yes eight, teaspoons of sugar.
If you want a regular cup of coffee, you order “American Coffee” and then you’ll get it. But in many cases, they give you warm/hot milk on the side if you ask for milk or cream with it. You have to ask for cold milk, like The Major here in the cartoon.
I guess it makes no sense to have hot coffee and then put cold milk in it, but that’s how it goes in the rest of the U.S. if you’re not in Miami. For some reason I skeeve hot milk put in hot coffee. As for iced coffee, I like it ice and coffee. That’s it. No milk, no sugar. I’ve ordered it at a McDonald’s and I have to explain to them more than once that I don’t want anything else in it, just the ice and coffee. They could not wrap their minds around the fact that I didn’t want anything in it.
I live on Cold Brew Iced Coffee when I’m in New York in the summer, usually from Starbucks, I order it on the app and pick it up. These days, as you know, it’s sweltering in summer so I drink that a lot. They know me at a few of the Starbucks in NYC and they just hand me the coffee when they see me without calling my name – I’m there that often. But they get it – ice and coffee. Nothing else. Well, one thing – they used to have these little square bites – they were lemon coconut, something like that. They no longer have that as an item on the menu. So it’s just the iced coffee, nothing else, right now.
Receive an email each time I publish a blog post by clicking here
There’s this crazy phenomena happening in NYC these days – plastic flowers on buildings.
I think it started during the pandemic, I remember seeing these big plastic flower arrangements popping up, mostly to disguise or prettify, the outdoor wooden structures built for seating when people were unable to eat at indoor restaurants.
After a couple of years, they got nasty – faded and broken and falling apart. But these days, I don’t see any of the craggy ones, it’s all new ones – colorful, big colorful plastic flowers – everywhere!
I think they are ugly. Just my opinion.
Receive an email each time I publish a blog post by clicking here
The freak out is about the awkwardness of it all. At the airport recently I came upon this where when you pay with a credit card, you have to go through a process of tipping or not tipping before you scan your card.
This is now a thing everywhere – in person at the register and also on apps where you order food or drink.
I’ve seen this at ice cream stores, sub shops, fast take-away places and of course sit down restaurants. You order and then when it’s time to pay, the tip portion comes up. And you’re not even in the store when you order on apps and you are tipping before you even receive service, or even enter the store at most instances. Tip first, ask questions later.
And a new thing at many restaurants is where they use this new scanning device at the table; they don’t take the credit card away to process it anymore, which is a good thing, but the waitstaff now stands over you waiting for you to tip and pay for the order, You don’t really have time to think.
Last week I split a bill with a friend, we both gave a credit card and split it in half and we both tipped 20% and left. We didn’t get a receipt and we asked each other, “Do you even know how much the bill was?” Neither of us did.
In NYC recently I was at a diner with another friend, an expensive diner (diner, not dinner), and the waiter was quite pushy. He was an older guy and I guess worked as a waiter most of his life, so he knew the ins and outs.
He handed me the black box to pay and then said, “Put your card in this way,” and “Here is the tip section, I’ll push the 20% button for you here,” and he did. He pushed the tip button himself.
One thing about that tip thing – I think they are losing out because I usually give more than 20% tip and most times I’ll round up the tip to a higher figure. Like if the tip is $17 or $18, I make it $20. So if their 20% button gives them $17.25, if they left me to my own devices, I would have left them $20.00 and sometimes even more if I liked the waiter or waitress, or if I know them personally.
There is one Starbucks I frequent in NYC daily, it’s a convenient location for me. But they are terrible. They are slow, they ignore orders placed on the app, they once made me break a $20 bill for a 5 cent bag (they charge you for shopping bags in all NY stores now) and they are not tip-worthy. But if you don’t leave the tip ahead of time when placing the order, you worry about the treatment you will get. But now that I think about it, could it be any worse than the service you get now?
At the beginning of the pandemic, when everyone was staying home, I used Instacart and had things delivered from the supermarket. You would tip in advance there, too. I usually gave $5, but at that time, they were so overwhelmed, they literally would take up to four days to deliver the products. Now it’s two hours, but then it literally was days, they would tell you on the app, “We’ll be there next Thursday, between 2 and 4 pm.” It was a mess.
But I read that if you gave a big tip, you would get faster delivery times, so I started giving $20 and it worked; I was prioritized and received my delivery on the same day. So it seems as if on these apps and such we are now paying to get a fast and decent order before we even get the fast and decent orders and it’s almost a bribe to get the fast and decent order.
I heard that people don’t tip Uber drivers much. I always do. I used to give them a cash tip, but now I put it on the app. It’s easier. As I exit the car I tell them, “I’ll put the tip on the app.” I don’t know if they believe me, but I always do add it later.
Receive an email each time I publish a blog post by clicking here
