#770 Optional Beef

When it comes to variety, the good lord of commerce givith and the good lord taketh away. There are forty seven jillion coffee stands. But fast food places are conglomerating more than the fat congealing on their questionable meats.
Lately, Arby’s has managed to overwhelm and take control of Wendy’s. Old Dave would be appalled. The plan is to merge the two into the nation’s third largest fast food chain.
Please don’t.
The only reason I go to Wendy’s is so I can have a relatively different fast food experience. Wendy’s is the quality alternative, at least in most of their franchises. Witness the big deal they are making right now in their advertising about how their hamburger is never frozen.
Contrast that to Arby’s, whose beef is the ultimate in processing. The first time I saw the roast beef in an Arby’s sandwich was the first time I ever failed to recognize the texture and point of origin of a beef product.
Not that it tastes bad. It just doesn’t taste like it came off a roast of beef. A roast loaf maybe. But roast prime rib piled high is fundamentally different than a high pile of roast loaf.
To merge “never frozen” with “never fresh” will be a huge corporate undertaking. And if they keep the distinct brands of each they’re really not the nation’s third largest food chain are they?
McDonalds is McDonalds, Burger King is Burger King, Taco Bell/Pizza Hut is Taco Bell and Pizza Hut in the same building.
Which always scares me. I keep remembering the day I got an apple turnover in one of those vending machines at high school and it was stuffed with burrito filling. One of these days, I’m concerned I may get a spaghetti burrito or a pizza chalupa.
I mean, I’m all for world peace and culinary fusion and stuff, but merging the ethnicities of my Americanized fast food reminds me too much of how similar they taste already.
And now, with every fast food chain under heaven offering some version of a snack wrap for a buck-fitty we may as well give up.
Fifty flavors of coffee and one snack wrap.
America, ya gotta love it.