Sundown Restaurant, Meat & Three, and the Meaning of Life
I go to McDonald’s and Burger King on occasion. What else are you going to do when you’re on the road and you have to dash in for some food? They are pretty good; they’re clean, and you know what you’re getting. I don’t know why anyone would think I always dine on hummingbird’s tongues or something. –Julia Child
I have a soft spot in my heart for McDonald's, my second job in
food service. In the fall of 1967, a hamburger was 18 cents and fries
were 15 cents. The most exotic menu item, the Guppy burger (fish
sandwich), was 35 cents. We still used the milkshake machines that Ray
Kroc sold before taking over McDonald's.[1]
In that remote, yet distant past, it was an all-boys
workforce. Women, then known as girls, were not hired at McDonald's until
the summer of 1968, when they were allowed to work the lunch shift, but not at
night, when nefarious things might happen. And, of course, management
decreed "No Dating," a rule that was as effective as a chocolate chip
cookie trying to stop a bullet. The young assistant
manager[2]
helped the employees hide boy/girl mingling from Irv, the manager.
Fast food was still exotic then. My McDonald’s was one of the original Golden
Arches design. I remember the first Taco
Bells, in faux adobe buildings which remain as recognizable as the
many also re-purposed original Pizza Huts.
There is still a McDonald’s at the location where I worked, but the
Golden Arches were replaced long ago by successive brown boxes and increasingly
uncomfortable seats. So you don’t linger.
Fast food is comfort food, too. Argue about nutrition all you will, but nothing
tastes better on a cool, fall Friday night than a McDonald’s hamburger. And, if you’re in a foreign country, eating weird
and expensive foreign food, your little heart goes pitty-pat when you see a
McDonald’s or KFC. Just remember that,
in addition to chicken, the local branch may also be frying protein items which
are not found on American KFC menus.
Fast food breakfasts have dramatically reduced the market for dine-in,
full-service breakfast meals. A pork
chop & gravy biscuit from Hardee’s will almost get you to lunch. After the pandemic, though, it’s hard to find
fast food restaurants with dine-in service, so the risk of gravy spillage is
greater when you’re driving. And, the amount
of time you wait in line at the drive-through seems much longer without the
dine-in option. Finally, there is little
difference between the cost of fast food breakfasts and breakfast at a restaurant
like Sundown.
At Sundown, breakfast is now served on the weekend, Saturday
and Sunday mornings. In addition to the many egg dishes named for the former owners’ grandchildren, we have corned
beef hash, waffles, chicken and waffles (“waffles for strength, chicken for
speed”), and blueberry pancakes. I freely
admit we haven’t quite perfected the gold standard—Maine blueberry pancakes--which
have just enough batter to keep the blueberries from rolling around on the plate,
but we’re getting close.
Come see us soon!
Thanks.
Richard
[1] Watch it
happen in "The Founder," a good Michael Keaton movie. And hear
it in Mark Knopfler's "Boom, Like That." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sYK2RwH5E8
[2] This was
the same Assistant Manager, a part-time college student, who paid me, a high
school senior, to write a term paper for him. When he complained that it
only earned a "C," I pointed out that he only paid me $20. I assume he stayed with McDonald’s, wound up
owning several locations, and is now a multi-millionaire, while I’m here with
you.
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