In fairness, I should state upfront that I don't eat fast food. I'm not opposed to eating crappy food per se, but my days of patronizing fast food palaces like Burger King, White Castle, McDonald's, Wendy's, Taco Bell, etc. are long over. My stomach is no longer up to the task, and I'm just not interested in what these places serve up tastewise. Which isn't to say that I'm some kind of a health conscious zealot. I'm perfectly willing to eat in a low-rent greasy spoon in Paterson or Newark. But the thought of chowing down in a McDonald's or a Five Guys depresses the hell out of me. Still...if someone I'm with has their heart set on eating this stuff, I'll partake. But the occasions when I'll do so are few and far between. Some time ago, someone told me, "Ed, Wendy's is the best fast food there is. A little more expensive, perhaps, but really good." I partook. It didn't taste any different to me than any other fast food. I was happy that Dave Thomas had publicized that he was an adopted person (a business entrepreneur is certainly a better image for adopted people than serial killers, or thrice-convicted felons, or wastrels snorting heroin in a car as it travels from NYC to Rt. 78 West in NJ...but I digress...). So what? Didn't make the food any more palatable.
Chick-fil-a, conversely, has a more negative public image, given the LGBT controversy they had going on a few years ago. Based on that alone, I'm disinclined to patronize them. I'm not gay, but bigotry or racism of any kind is anathema to me. If you're selling chicken sandwiches, and you feel it incumbent upon yourself to explain to me your feelings about what consenting adults do in the privacy of their bedrooms...I think the problem is with you, not them, and I'll take my business elsewhere. Thank you.
Even the well publicized religious affiliation of its owners is a little off-putting to me, speaking as an agnostic. You're Christian, you're Jewish, you're Muslim, you're a Buddhist, you don't believe in any God(s)...why in the f*ck should I care? You're selling chicken sandwiches...does it matter to me where you spend your Sunday mornings? Or don't?
I've been told, "Yeah, but they're the best chicken sandwiches." At one point, at work, someone picked up a bunch of them. I ate one. It was ok. Not especially memorable, as far as I was concerned. Maybe when compared to KFC it's memorable. But I don't patronize them either (and I have to say that the commercials where some fat white guy impersonates the long dead "Colonel Sanders" are more than just a little bit ghoulish).
All that being said, I was helping my birth mother out the other day, she offered to pick up the tab for lunch, and she mentioned Chick-fil-a. I didn't object. I wasn't filled with enthusiasm, but she's picking up the tab, and it seemed to be what she wanted, so who was I to dissent? We drove into one of the enormous malls on Rt. 17...I'm thinking it was the Garden State Mall, but I could be wrong. Around and around the near empty monolithic structure we drove. Finally, I saw a sign put up by the curb with an arrow pointing, indicating that "Chick-fil-a" was in this direction. I entered a cavernous parking lot with almost no cars in it. Creepy. At the end, a little table had been set up, and a young woman (or teenager) in her official Chick-fil-a costume stood waiting. We pulled up, asked if we could order. She said first we had to download the app.
A side note about downloading the app. I have an old fashioned flip phone (at work, I'm the "old man," the joke is that my first girlfriend was Betsy Ross), My birthmother has a "SmartPhone" (bought for her by one of my more financially well situated brothers). She knows how to make a call on the phone, and she knows how to answer a call on the phone, and that's about it. She asked the young woman, "We can't just order here?" The woman was staring at us agog, like we were Neanderthals who had somehow managed the basics of operating a car, if not a SmartPhone. "No," she finally replied. "You have to download the app before you can order."
We drove away. To an Italian restaurant in Rutherford, where we walked in, ordered take-out food, paid for it, and left. Said Italian food assuredly being more enjoyable than whatever chicken product Chick-fil-a was stuffing between a bun.
I'm happy they're out there servicing (some) people, although...let's face it...they're doing it to make money, not because "we're all in this together." Or, to be fair, "we're all in this together" as long as we can download the app. Because they are open and serving food to at least some people, I'm giving them one star higher than I'm realistically inclined to. The bottom line is that I tried to order food, and wasn't able to.
Which, in the end, wasn't such a bad thing. I was much happier with the chicken parmigiana sandwich that I ultimately was able to order at the Rutherford restaurant. read more