Always In, Never Out

Behold, the legendary Double Double and Triple Triple

(Ed Note: Our part-time contributor and West-Coast-chain aficionado Ben Jammin checks in with his second installment.)

Just how good are In N’ Out cheeseburgers? I would wager that after your second visit to the quirky fast food chain, your taste buds and stomach will develop a craving that hits you suddenly and without warning, not unlike an abusive girlfriend. Unfortunately, as these little bastions of beef are located primarily on the West Cost of the United States, there likely isn’t one within 600 miles of you.

Why is that? Why after being open for more than 63 years are there only 258 locations? It seems counterintuitive, but the answer lies in In-N-Outs commitment to sustaining the quality and values on which it was founded. For example, they are virtually the only fast food chain restaurant to pay its employees significantly more than state and federal minimum wage (starting at $10 in California).

The book Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser is not kind at all to fast food restaurants – and why would it be, when Schlosser’s research uncovered such unsavory details of the industry such as that some ground beef destined for fast-food restaurants had been contaminated with bits of cattle spinal cord? Tasty!

Schlosser has this to say about In-N-Out: ''I think they're great. It isn't health food, but it's food with integrity. It's the real deal.' In his best-selling book, Schlosser commends the chain for using natural, fresh ingredients (no restaurant is more than a day’s drive from one of its regional supply facilities), cleanliness and great treatment of employees.

Gordon Ramsay, Thomas Keller, Julia Child, Mario Batali, Jason Giambi and Dude from the Big Lebowski have all gone on record as saying In-N-Out is their favorite restaurant, and THEY can’t be wrong. With no exaggeration whatsoever, I can tell you that whenever I drive past an In-N-Out, the drive-thru lane is at least 10 cars deep, and oftentimes many more. This is not surprising when you consider that when my local Scottsdale restaurant opened, people were waiting more than four hours for fast food hamburgers while being filmed by several news helicopters overhead.

But what about the FOOD, man? As you can see from the above image, In-N-Out burgers look nothing like any other fast food fare. The image above is 100% accurate – the patties are monstrous, the cheese is excessive and the lettuce, tomatoes, onions and Spread (a 1000 Island-based sauce) are all noticeably fresh. Upon ordering a burger at In-N-Out, you will always be asked if you’d like onions. Then, you’ll be asked if you’d like them grilled or fresh. It’s a small but surprisingly delightful touch.

The primary menu is very simple, consisting of a one-patty or two-patty burger, with cheese or without. French fries, fountain drinks and milkshakes are also available. But part of the reason In-N-Out is known for its cult following is due to its very popular not-so-secret menu, which can actually be found in its basic form through an Easter Egg on the restaurant’s website. While there are literally hundreds of variations available, the Animal Style (burger, lettuce, tomato, mustard-cooked patty, pickle, extra spread, grilled onions) and Protein Style (burger wrapped in lettuce, rather than two buns) are of particular note and absurdly popular. You wouldn’t think to ever try a burger wrap, but I did and I’m damn certain I will again.

So, how good are these cheeseburgers from this “fast food” restaurant? I stopped by an In-N-Out last night to grab my customary Double Double, reached home and promptly ate half of the sandwich, savoring the tangy sharp taste of the melted cheese I find nowhere else in Drive Thru land. Wanting to save the other half for lunch the next day I placed my leftover sandwich in the refrigerator. But, while trying to sleep, I couldn’t get the image of my lonely heifer sacrifice chilling all alone out of my head. Able to fight it no longer, I marched down stairs and devoured the rest of my cheeseburger, which had been in the fridge for more than an two hours. I ate it cold.

If you’re lucky enough to pass by an In-N-Out, see for yourself what all of the fuss is about. It took me two visits, and I was hooked on In.

Macaroni Grill - Bringing the Old Country to the Suburbs

After a night of heavy drinking, very few foods ease a hangover like pasta. Similarly, on a morning of looking and smelling like you were steamrolled by a pack of wild chimps, it is advised that one avoids a nicer dining establishment (and post-church crowds at all costs). It was with these truths in mind that my baby mama, our kid (who, no worries, did not participate in the previous night’s festivities) and I set out to eat lunch at a chain Italian restaurant.

We decided upon Macaroni Grill, because choosing Olive Garden just feels like you’ve thrown away your dignity. You may as well book your next meal at ‘Folks.’ Also, after years of seeing the overly-exuberant, cheezy, truly happy families in Olive Garden commercials, not to mention our mood and appearance that morning, we simply did not belong there. Also, Macaroni Grill had no wait…a must for dining at a chain restaurant in my eyes.

If you have a kid with you, the Macaroni Grill experience is a good distractor. Fresh fish displays, open kitchens, and most importantly, paper table cloths that the kids can draw all over. Our kid is not a big fan of going out to eat at non-McDonald’s or Chick-fil-A joints, so the fact she was able to sit through an entire meal at a sitdown restaurant without getting antsy is a testament to the handful of crayons, plethora of white table space , and her newfound interest in tic-tac-toe.

My first impression upon sitting down was the new menu. In the past (easily 3+ years since I had been to a Macaroni Grill), I recall a large, diverse, Olive Garden/Carrabbas style menu. Their new menu was a one-sheeter, with all food items on front, drinks on back. First thing I noticed was the “Italian Tapas” at the top of the menu.

Now, I love Italian food. I can even get over an Italian Restaurant capitalizing on the overpriced-small-portion craze that has overtaken many trendy neighborhood restaurants all over the country. But between ‘Italian Tapas’ and Olive Garden now offering Paninis on their everyday menu, the average Italian chain restaurant has as much old-country authenticity as a ‘Godfather’ remake filmed in Wyoming.

(Not that this is always a bad thing. I remember my first visit to a genuine Little Italy eatery in NYC involved me staring in horror at an appetizer consisting of cantaloupe wrapped in prosciutto. At that moment I wanted nothing more than mozzarella sticks, authenticity be damned.)

Back to Macaroni Grill- We of course fell for the tapas gimmick, going for the “baked prosciutto and mozzarella” (excellent) and the “shrimp, cannellini bean and avocado crostini” (terrible, even the female I was with – who of course ordered that non-italian item- concurred…seriously, avocado at an Italian restaurant?). Between these tapas and the bread, we were stuffed. So soon after our food came, we were going the doggy bag route and purposefully making cheezy jokes to the waiter about how “well now I know what I’m having for dinner!!”

2 more quick notes: the Bibb and Blue salad (bibb leaves, blue cheese, pancetta, walnuts, pickled red onions, buttermilk dressing, grilled chicken) was excellent…just make sure to get the dressing on the side. They poured enough on there to make me consider asking if I could buy more lettuce. Also, for the first time ever, my companion ordered spaghetti and meatballs…the least expensive entrée on the menu. Naturally, it was delicious, and even though the same dish could have been made at home for roughly $3, her not perusing the menu, pointing at the 2^nd most expensive thing on there and saying “ooooh…that looks good!” was a small victory for me. Unfortunately, I doubt she could say the same as I shoveled my salad into a to-go box.

Expensive Sandwiches

A couple weeks ago, my coworkers invited me out to lunch to a place I had never heard of - Sweet Peppers. Apparently, it's a chain (hence its inclusion in this blog) and there's even one in Athens. One of my coworkers was raving about their Cuban sandwich. I was hesitant. I consider myself to be somewhat on the frugal side and as such, I make an effort to bring my lunch to work most days. Now I love going out to eat. It's one of my favorite ways to spend money but we all know it's an expensive habit so I try to limit myself to one dining out lunch per week (unless of course, someone else is offering to pick up the tab). So on my one day a week of venturing out of the office, I like to go to a restaurant where someone will actually cook me something because I've been eating sandwiches, wraps and salads out of a brown paper bag all week. Hence, I was not thrilled at the idea of going somewhere and paying money for a sandwich, even if my coworkers were raving about how good they were. However, after a few weeks of politely declining, the desire to hang out with people and make new friends at my new job out weighed my restaurant snobbishness and I agreed to go, dragging my husband along for the ride, of course.

When we arrived the place was already looking up as I noted plenty of out door seating and it happened to be a beautiful day outside. We walk in and there's a counter to order from, just like at McDonald's. Also there's a large menu on the wall behind the cash registers, just like at McDonald's. I already knew what I wanted because I'm obsessed with food. So I enjoy looking at the menu online before coming to a restaurant, especially if I'm on my lunch break and pressed for time.  I wouldn't want to be forced to make a hasty decision and then regret it, consequently ruining the rest of my afternoon. However, I had to wait about ten minutes behind my coworker who was flirting with the cashier. He's one of those people who thinks he's really witty but most people just find it exhausting to keep up with. Normally it's amusing to me but not while I'm starving!


Finally, a manager opens up another line and I get to order lunch for me and my husband. After I order, the manager hands me two empty glasses for our drinks (just like at McDonald's) and our two cookies out of the display case. When he hands me my receipt, there's a place on there for a tip. I hesitate, but decide to leave $2 on our $18 lunch. Then he hands me the $2 in cash and instructs me to leave it on the table for our server. Server? Say what? Apparently, after we order at the cash register, pay at the cash register, get our own drinks and then sit down, a server brings us our food. Isn't that a charming touch?

At this point, I'm regretting mentioning earlier that I'm frugal. It's not that I have a problem tipping - I was in the restaurant business for years!  Actually, the years of working in the restaurant business is probably contributing to my stinginess in this situation. I worked the lunch shift at a very popular restaurant and I use to get killed by the lunch rush. Everyone comes in at the same time and I would bust my ass to greet people, get drinks, hand out menus, take orders, ring orders in, communicate special orders to the kitchen and then the worst part - splitting up the check and making change for each person paying with a twenty dollar bill on her eight to ten dollar lunch. So at the risk of sounding like a cheap bastard, I am simply not going to tip a waitress 20% for merely running the food out and busing the table. Hell, at the restaurant where I worked we had food runners who did that and they made an hourly wage plus a 1% sales tip out from each server.  That's right 1%, not 20. 

All that being said, the business plan of this restaurant has its advantages. For one, having people pay before they get their food eliminates the problem of people walking out on the bill and undoubtedly cuts down on a lot of human error and possibly theft. Also, it makes it so much easier to handle people coming in for lunch and paying separately. I also don't mind making my own drink because then I can put the right amount of ice in it. If I'm getting tea, I can mix the right concoction of sweet and unsweet. From a servers perspective it must be awesome as well. "Wait, I have six teas on my tray and I know some are unsweet, some are sweet, some are half and half and one is three quarters sweet and one quarter unsweet. Shit, which one is which?"

So we take our drinks and find a nice table outside. The server brings us our food and my sandwich is on the wrong kind of bread. There are two versions of the sandwich I ordered, a smaller, healthier one on wheat and a larger, less healthy one on ciabatta. I went with the less healthy version but it came out on a gross wheat bread anyway. I ordered a roast beef sandwich that was suppose to have horseradish on it. It had some white stuff on it, presumably mayonnaise, but the sandwich had no spice to it what so ever. There was no taste of horseradish at all and horseradish has a pretty strong flavor. I think the people of Sweet Peppers chose the non-horseradish horseradish to satisfy the bland palate of the average American diner. No chance of someone sending this sandwich back because it's too spicy!

So all and all I was not too impressed with the place. Today when my coworker asked me if I wanted to go because she was craving a Cuban, I just said "Awe chucks. I already brought my lunch."

They did have pretty good cookies, though.

Next day follow up:

 Today I had lunch with my husband at a restaurant with the same type design as Sweet Peppers - order and pay at the counter, get your own drink and someone brings you your food. The system is actually growing on me. Another advantage that I noticed is that people seat themselves. Trying to seat people in a restaurant is just about damn near impossible. People always want to sit at a different table and even though it's going to mess up your rotation, there's really nothing you can do about it. I appreciate that these restaurants have accepted the futility of trying to seat people and came up with a different system. One thing that Sweet Peppers is doing right is they give you really big glasses. The restaurant we ate at today did not and we had to get up during our meal to refill our drinks. This is arguably an advantage because at least you are not sitting there thirsty, waiting for the server to come over. However, it left me inclined to leave no money on the table for the person who dropped off my food. I did, however, leave a dollar in the tip jar by the cash register and they probably split tips there. In conclusion, this new hybrid of fast food/sit down restaurant was something new for me and hence it made me a little uncomfortable at first. Now that I've given it a chance, though, I think it works well for lunch. It's all the efficiency of fast food without falling into the typical fast food category. This allows the restaurant to charge more for their food and snobby White people like me to eat there and still maintain "I never eat fast food." The new system poses some questions about the role of the server and tipping etiquette. As someone who waited tables for five years and is now a restaurant critique, I would like to suggest 5 - 10% as a reasonable amount to tip at these restaurants. I would like to invite my readers to share their thoughts and opinions on this new restaurant business model.