Welcome to McDonald’s, may I take your order? How many McNuggets can I order without you feeling sad for me? Sir, I can’t feel sad for anybody, I feel nothing. Okay, give me a 50 piece with honey mussy. This is a Hot Dog is a Sandwich. Ketchup is a smoothie. Yeah, I put ice in my cereal, so what? That makes no sense. A hot dog is a sandwich. A hot dog is a sandwich. What? Welcome to our podcast, A Hot Dog is a Sandwich, the show we break down the world’s best sandwiches. Biggest food debates. I’m your host, Josh Sharer. And I’m your host, Nicole Linaiti. And I really could kill a 50 piece McNugget by myself right now, parked in my car, dipping it into not their new Honey Musty, but their old spicy brown Honey Musty, which I think might be the best nugget dipping sauce to ever hit fast food doors. Me and you ate some chicken nuggets in your car one time, remember? We did before we did our fancy fast food chicken nugget episode, which is one of the worst fancy fast foods we’ve done. It was a great episode. Like bad performing? No, we just like didn’t make good food. We tried to use black silky chicken to make fancy McNuggets. Okay, but were the numbers good? Yeah, the numbers, yeah, I mean like 1. 3 million. We kind of smoked that episode. Uh, but today we’re talking all about eating in our cars because we are talking about the problem with drive thrus. This is the episode where Nicole and I are now deep into our 30s. I’m 31. There ain’t nothing deep about that. I’m a young spring chicken. Deep in our 30s. We are now old people merely shaking our fists at the sky. I’m not old! I am old and I am sick and tired of all these kids going through the newfangled drive thru. Go sit down in the restaurant like Grampappy did. Really? And pay respect. Well, no, I have You’re anti drive thru? I’ve always been, I’ve always been anti drive thru. That’s so crazy to me. I prefer drive thrus. Why, can you give me a five point PowerPoint presentation on why you prefer drive thrus? Because No, but I can talk about it on the pod! Well, you are in the majority, like roughly 60 70 percent of all fast food, uh, orders go through the drive thru. That makes sense, uh huh. And that number has only risen from 2019 to 2030, it has risen about 3 times. 30%, uh, 43 percent fewer people are now dining inside fast food restaurants, which is like deeply upsetting to me in a weird way. Well, tell me why you like drive thrus first. Okay, well, I’ll say this. Number one, convenience. I don’t want to get out of my car if I’m getting a hamburger. How inconvenient is that? Is it actually? So for instance, I hate getting out of my car. What if you could get your food three minutes faster inside than outside? Would you not want to save that three minutes? Like, is getting out of your car harder than three minutes of extra waiting? No, but it’s also my second point, the shame of eating inside of a fast food restaurant. There is shame attached to it. I don’t know where it comes from. I’m not the only one that thinks that way. Are you serious? You’re dead serious? I don’t like sitting inside of a fast food restaurant. And that might be a point of privilege for me, but that’s okay. It’s just not for me. I don’t like sitting inside of a KFC or a McDonald’s or whatever. Only in and out. What I’m ultimately worried about here is having the best fast food experience. I love fast food. Like, I think it tastes very, very good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? It is, uh, it is surgically precise in the way that science, it’s made in a lab, right? Arby’s, for instance, right? Their beef and cheddar beef tastes not like a cow. It tastes like sheets of paper that have been soaked in a saltwater brine with meat extract. delicious. It’s so, so, so good. Yeah. Right. And not to be like anti science. It’s just, it’s brined really well. It’s emulsified with yada yada. Uh, but the point is I want that beef and cheddar as hot and fresh as I can possibly get it. Okay. So much fast food gets worse as it sits. Yeah. But are you, listen, I guess I’m one of those people, like I don’t have this like anxiety or this like craving to eat. Enjoy my fast food super duper hot like that doesn’t interest me at all What items of from fast food restaurants are like better or even you think I can but see this is your problem Like you think that I’m eating fast food because I care about the temperature that which is going into my mouth I don’t care if I’m getting fast food. The temperature doesn’t really matter. It’s mostly for satiating Okay, like The Crunchwrap Supreme. I guess this is where we differ, though. I was gonna say, the Crunchwrap Supreme, once it sits for 90 seconds, it sucks. Because the crunch Does it? I think it’s okay. It just becomes a Wrap Supreme. The crunch is absorbed. There’s a tostada layer. It’s a tostada with the Giada De Laurentiis accent. Tostada. The tostada layer in the middle of the Crunchwrap Supreme. Supreme. But like, it just sogs into the lettuce, into the sour cream. But are you so, like, Anal about this texture. Don’t say anal and Taco Bell in the same sentence. Are you so serious? Are you such a such a savant of fast food that you having it hot and and properly crunchy and crispy matters that much to you? Yes. When it’s a fast food item? Specifically because it’s a fast food item. That’s so interesting to me. I’ve never really cared. I don’t care if I get it like 20 minutes later or like if I eat it like five minutes. I don’t care at all. Well, you said something interesting when you said you’re eating fast food for sustenance. Yeah, that’s why I’m getting it. Well, do you not have nutrient dense slop at your house? I mean, sometimes I do, but sometimes I just really wanted an upper, you know what I mean? I almost never eat fast food for sustenance. For me, fast food is exclusively like, I’m here to party, baby. I’m here to have a good time. Okay, what’s your favorite, what’s your favorite fast food place, actually? I mean, In N Out has such a special place in my heart because I grew up on it. That’s my fast food burger place. But Taco Bell, for me, has always been my number one. I just, there’s something about the unique taste of their, like, Tex Mex ragu. Yeah. That they schlop into various forms of, Fried tortillas stuffed with cheese. I love I think their fire sauce is like tremendously balanced and I love their innovation they always come out with a new item and Recently I sat my behind down inside a Taco Bell at 9 at night. What how many other people were there? Okay, so they’re So it was me and a friend who’s also a Taco Bell fan. We want to get the cheesy Street Chalupas Okay, and they were Delightful nice Really good. Cilantro, onion, jalapeno, ranch, seasoned steak, new fried cheese stuffed shells, a little small, and it was so hot and piping fresh. So we’re there. Um, there’s kind of just like a single 45 year old dude looked a little down on his luck. He was sitting next to us. There were two teen girls and then there was a creepy 40 year old guy who asked the teen girls where the party’s at tonight. And it was strange. And then the creepy guy left and the other dude, uh, asked the girls if we always like showed support, like, Hey, you guys cool. Um, and that was the last time I ate inside a fast food restaurant. Yeah. I feel like I’ve had a lot of those experiences inside fast. It’s kind of weird, man. Whenever you step foot in certain fast food restaurants, I had sunglasses on nine at night. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like asking two teen girls where the party’s at, the vibe inside of a fast food restaurant can sometimes be a little bit uncomfortable. And I am just not built for that anymore. Maybe when I was younger I was okay with it, but now 31, I need to do all that stuff. , what’s your like seventh favorite fast food place? Like, think about it like. Let’s go Jack in the box. Jack in the box. Okay, so you’re at your 7th favorite fast food place. You’re getting a, I don’t know, what’s a jumbo jack? Yeah. And a curly fry? Ultimate bacon cheeseburger is a pretty good item. Okay, so you’re getting an ultimate bacon cheeseburger. Yeah. And you’re, you get it. And you’re, do you like, okay, so you’re going through the drive thru. I’m pinning a picture for you. There’s no parking inside of the Jack in the box. For some reason so you got to go like maybe like a quarter mile and park like at a residential area There’s always parking in the jack Imagine there is it for today You’re getting the item through the drive thru and then parking in the parking lot and just housing That makes more sense to me than eating it. But you’re not like driving home. And eating? No, no, no, you can’t do that. You’re exclusively eating alone in your car. Not alone, not by myself. I would like to be with another person. I’m, this is you, this isn’t about me, this is you. No, sorry, ask your question, ask your question. So you’re, you go to Jack in the Box, you get whatever. F ing burger you just said. Ultimate bacon cheeseburger? And you don’t I wish they still had No, that’s Wendy’s. The ciabatta bacon cheeseburger. Oh, the ciabatta was good. But you can’t But you can’t You’re not eating in the restaurant. You’re not eating in the In the parking lot. You gotta go a quarter mile that way. Whatever. It’s been about like five and a half minutes. Yeah. That you got your food. Do you think your eating experience is marred Because you ate it a quarter mile away in your car versus you were eating alone at a table. Uh, it is not only marred, it’s ruined. Shut the French fries, Nicole, because if I’m going to Jack in the Box, I’m getting curly fries. Yeah, I said curly fries! Oh, maybe I did. Maggie, did I say curly fries? I said curly fries. I’m putting taco sauce on the curly fries. I like it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course. It’s basically a spicy ketchup. There’s so much sugar in it. Yeah, I get it. But, but you mean to tell me it’s completely ruined? The fries have steamed. The fries have steamed. But it’s ruined? Yes. I am not having a good time. My day is ruined. You care that much? Yes, because I could be eating nutrient dense slop at home that is going to fuel my When I say nutrient dense slop, I mean like, it’s not weird. It’s like a porridge or a gruel. It’s super normal. Did you say porridge? Like a porridge. Mary and Mary got married. Yeah, can we address the channel? Can we address Channelgate real quick? No, no, I don’t know. I’ll address Channelgate at the end. Okay, thank you. Um, when’s the last time you ate inside a fast food restaurant? Can you remember? Um What about in the In N Out, or it’s clean, the staff is friendly, you still In N Out’s different. In N Out’s different, I feel like. Yeah. In N Out’s different, yeah. But like a mass market, like a Popeyes. No, I’ve never eaten inside of a Popeye’s. The last time I remember eating at a Taco Bell inside of a Taco Bell was four years ago on Halloween with like me and my friends. We just went to the parade. We walked over to the Taco Bell. This one did not have a drive thru and we just hung out there at like maybe like One a. m. and just ate in there and it was nice. I liked it, but it was Halloween and people were being crazy and people were being fun because it was Halloween. So you liked that sort of communal aspect of it? Yeah, that’s, but like on like a random Thursday at like 4. 35, like I’m not gonna go eat on inside of a Taco Bell. Do you remember a time when you were a kid? Yes. Like eating inside fast food restaurants? I do. Cause the numbers, the numbers are actually, Really shocking, right? Just a little bit of fast food drive thru history, right? First, uh, drive thru ever was opened in 1946. It was Red’s Hamburg. Um, but it was, it was in Springfield, Missouri on Route 66. I have something else on my research doc. What? The first drive Oh, I’m sorry. Drive in, not drive through. Continue. Yeah. So drive in, drive ins are a thing, right? Where you would park your car and people run out and serve you. But this idea of like your car stays moving was technically 1946 in Red Strand, Hamburg. Um, but it wasn’t like a. Two way call box situation you drive your car up. You’d like yell at someone you’d go park. They’d run it out to you But this idea of like a free flowing like the way that um temple grandin Invented the slaughterhouse maze. That’s like what uh, it was it was pretty much harry snyder in and out Right? Invented this two way call box. I can’t believe there’s a Temple Grandin message. I can’t believe you just talked about Temple Grandin. I love her. Yeah, I love them, you know? Oh my gosh, she’s awesome! She’s kind of the angel of death for cows, but like actually did a lot of really good stuff. Good woman, good woman. Yeah, yeah. But anyways, like, Harry Snyder invents the two way call box, uh, in 1948. What I didn’t know is that McDonald’s held off, uh, on drive thrus until the 1970s, which is crazy. And like a lot of fast food restaurants are kind of like gathering places, but it did end up the reason that Pizza Hut lost out to Domino’s in the Great Pizza Wars. Officially in 2018, I believe is the first year Domino’s outsold Pizza Hut, but it’s because Domino’s was always about delivery, right? Pizza Hut still believed in what ended up being the false prophecy of Domino’s. of people sitting down and eating in fast food restaurants. Something that I like dearly, dearly miss. I can’t believe you miss it that much. Because now, like you said, you go in and you sit down and eat. I swear to God, I went to my local Taco Bell, and it said, uh, it went there at like 9pm, perfectly reasonable time for a Friday night dinner to sit down inside. And I was like, oh no, the inside is closed because it said open from noon till 7, and then in parentheses, or later. So they don’t even the it is such a non factor eating inside a fast food restaurant that they don’t even have real operating hours Wait, wait, was that like a handwritten sign or was that like a no official like Taco Bell or later open 12 to 7 or later? But was the only or later like a cheeky like or later like like fourth meal? No, I got the sense that like hey, we may just close at 7 on some slow days so we can not staff Right? Yeah. Because fast food restaurants, despite the fact that they’re like making more money than ever, they also apparently are having trouble getting people to work there, you know? Right. Insert whatever political message you want in there. Um, but it seems like they, they aren’t even relying on that for a part of their business anymore. It’s all delivery. It’s all app based. Yeah, they should just operate as ghost kitchens if they can’t afford Oh, no! What? No, not the G word! Why not? I hate it, I hate it. I don’t It’s a natural What do you mean? It’s the natural regression of the where they’re going. What do you mean? I reject modernity. Embrace tradition. Embrace tradition. Go bring back the salad bars at the Wendy’s. Bring back the Red Cups from Pizza Hut! Yes! This is what I want. Stop living in nostalgia. Keep up with the times grandpa. I swear you are wearing a grandpa shirt today, too I think it’s a kind of like sexy grandpa shirt. Yeah, you look like you like have a summer house in Boca Oh god, take me back to Boca. Um, I’m such a drive thru curmudgeon. Oh, really? How drive thru curmudgeonly are you? I actually wrote an article for Los Angeles magazine several years ago about in and out drive thrus So I know we talk about In N Out too much. We’re both Cali kids. I don’t care. Yeah. We are who we are. It’s a big part of our childhood. Deal with it. But also, In N Out is one of the most influential fast food restaurants in the world. Right? Yeah. Right? Because of their very specific model of never franchising, of only expanding within their means. And when they do pop ups in places, they did an Australian pop up. They make money. They make buckets. Oh my God. It’s like a 12 hour long line. It’s humans, not cars of humans, not cars. Thank you. Um, but in and out drive throughs in Los Angeles, but even in LA in Orange County, where I grew up everywhere, everywhere, a freaking plague. Yeah. They are hundreds of cars long. The congestion is insanity. Not only the like congestion in terms of getting your food. So where I used to live in Westwood, when I went to UCLA, you’re on a street called Galey Avenue. This is my favorite. This is my favorite In N Out. I’ve had so many memories there. It’s such a good In N Out. I’m like, God, I have been drunk at that In N Out. Do you think we ever met there? I, yeah, I would have been. I wouldn’t be surprised if I mean, like, between the years 2008 and, like, 1000%. 2015, I would have been there. 1000 percent we were in that In N Out at the same time together. I bet you money. 100%. Um, but, there’s this, like, curve in the road, and then all the cars just spill out into the road. So, there’s literally a blind turn on a, like, 35 mile per hour speed limit street. That is just going to rear end. I’ve seen so many rear end accidents. Me too, me too, me too. I, I called the LA, I am a narc. I called the LA Department of Transportation. You called the po po? I straight up did. I called them. You called the po po? No, I called the LA DOT, LA Department of Transportation. They’re not the police. That’s pretty much the police. No, it’s just got like a guy named Kevin. And I was like, it was for a story, so I wasn’t just complaining. But I was like, hey, has anybody done anything to rectify this? Because it, it seems like it’s an actual danger. And the guy goes, Oh yeah, people sure seem to love In N Out. And I was like, yeah, I know they love it so much that they’re literally causing accidents in the street. He goes, Oh yeah, no, I’ve heard this before. What are you going to do about it? And then they were like, yeah, when a, when a Chick fil A opened in Hollywood, what we did is, you know, that, that Chick fil A, uh, they were like, we actually made them build a separate lane. We made them pay for it. Similar thing with raising canes in Burbank. Like when. A fast food restaurant that is so popular and Raising Cane’s and Chick fil A are both in that. Oh my god, the Raising Cane’s and Burbank. They had a cop station there for like, all because the drive thru is in such a disadvantageous position on a major thoroughfare. And people were like flipping U turns. Illegally, yeah, yeah, yeah. We had to, they had to put up a sign. No U turns here. Yeah, but like, this is actually. Such an old man ranting about nothing. It’s okay. It’s okay, grandpa. Let’s get you to bed. They should just have big parking lots, you know? Like, build walkable cities where I can walk to Raising Cane’s. What do you mean build parking lots? There’s no space in Los Angeles. They can’t even buy a house anymore. Parking structure, two stories. Some places are actually doing that. But anyway, so the point is, if a new place opens up in Los Angeles, they literally make corporate pay for any Department of Transportation needs to make it safe. They can afford it. Problem is, In N Out has been there for so long, they’re just grandfathered in. Oh, that’s crazy. And so they just don’t do anything about it. And so to me, like, drive throughs are a genuine weird blight, and You grew up in a town, just a small town that nobody’s heard of. Yeah. Beverly Hills, Small. They banned. What’s the, what’s the zip code there? Um, the famous one? Yeah. Yeah. 9 0 2 1 Oh, okay. Yeah, I’ve heard of it. 9 0 2 1 2 is also there. Is that where you lived? No. You were 9 0 2 1. Oh, no. What were you? I don’t want to tell people my former zip code. What do you mean? What are they going to do with your zip code? You don’t know! Fair enough. Um, they banned fast food, right? They banned fast food. Yeah, they did. They sure did. They also banned it in other places in California too. I’m guessing it’s because either people are, you know, health nuts in Beverly Hills or they just didn’t want the traffic congestion. Uh, it’s simply a thing that rich areas do. Okay, makes sense. Like it’s a simply a thing that like well to do Makes a lot of sense. Uh, Great Neck, New York also has a lot of fast food bands. Really? Mmm. Yep. Um, and so you have to like drive into Queens to get to the nearest McDonald’s. Like fast food in general, like you can’t have like a, any fast food there. Correct. Yeah. Oh wow. Yeah. Like no fast food whatsoever. And a lot of it is to stimulate mom and pop shops, but then a lot of it is just like it, according to them, like sort of de beautifies the town, right? Okay. the vibe. Okay. They opened a Buffalo Wild Wings, um, there, it was pretty good. In Beverly? Yeah. No, it’s a Buffalo’s, isn’t it? What’s the difference between a Buffalo’s and a Buffalo’s Burger? It’s not a Buffalo Wild Wings, it’s a Buffalo’s. What’s the difference between a Buffalo’s? It’s the one that’s attached to Fatburger, right? Yes. Yeah, it’s called Buffalo’s, it’s not Buffalo Wild Wings. Really? Do you know how I know, uh, all this stuff about how they ban fast food and what fast food is there? Because you were a food writer and a journalist. No, that’s not it. I don’t know why, tell me. It’s First job after college when I was 50k in debt and making 30 grand a year, I worked in Beverly Hills. Ah! Uh, next to the Playboy building. I didn’t work at Playboy. I worked at Yeah, yeah, I know exactly. In the, in the street. Yeah. In the street. Yeah, yeah. There’s a street within a street. I’m curving my hand. On Santa Monica, there’s a street. It’s next to the police station and the um Correct. The library. I would have to drive by the police station all the time and I don’t think my car was registered and I would always get scared. Clench your booty hole every time you would drive by. There was nowhere where I could get a Freakin lunch. Nowhere. For under 15. Nowhere. Still, it’s still the case. I went to, I know, and so I would walk into like Buffalo’s and get a six piece wing and then I’d eat a bowl of cereal from the office pantry. You would walk there? Yeah. Was it walkable? Yeah. Okay. Uh, and then I would also walk to a place called Clementine. You know Clementine? I love that Clementine! Get a 13 egg salad sandwich, unseasoned, had eggshells in it. It’s so damn expensive. The point is fast food is like, it’s a thing that a lot of people actually kind of need, right? It’s a really cheap option. Yes, yes, yes. Uh, it’s getting a lot more expensive. Um, and a lot of places are banning it. San Luis Obispo is another spot that has banned drive thrus, which I think, I don’t know. I, uh, I recently was at Starbucks the other day, and I saw that they had two lanes. They had a drive thru that was, um, just for regular orders, and they had a phone pick up drive thru as well, which I thought was really crazy. First time I’ve ever seen that. That’s all I wanted to say. Even if I’m eating inside, the drive thru people still ruin my life. Oh, because it’s all back ordered? Yes. Yeah, sorry. Because this happens at Starbucks a lot. Anybody that’ll walk into a Starbucks and I, similar thing, I don’t go through the drive thru in Starbucks. I walk in and I talk to a human being. When did I become this old? I don’t know, but it’s nice. So you can definitely see our age as like you’ve, we’ve done this podcast for about four years. Yeah, we’ve, I bet you like our first three episodes were like la la la la la la, we love food, la la la la la la la. And now it’s just like, I’m complaining about this. I’m calling the city. What the hell does a venti mean? Your kids and your whipped cream pink drinks. Coffee used to just be called coffee, dang it. I’m sitting there just reading the paper harassing anyone that walks in. No, but I don’t go through the Starbucks drive thru, so I’ll go and I’ll order, and then nobody addresses you for like five minutes because they are just violently hustling to fill the racks of drinks. So many drinks just don’t get picked up. I will just watch the ice melt into some like matcha, pistachio, oleato, cold foam latte. And you just see the ice melt and it’s half water and it’s floating on top. And you’re like, who is this? We live in a society that is now nameless. and faceless and things are so easy and convenient you just tap buttons on your phone and inflation so high but you’re hiring a private taxi to drive your Starbucks to you. What is happening? Just go somewhere, spend an extra five minutes, talk to a person. I don’t need to. Drink the thing at the temperature it’s meant to be drinking. I talk to people all the time. I do. I do. Temperature shmemperture. What are you talking about? You’re so dramatic. I swear, it’s not that big of a deal if your coffee is a little bit colder than usual. If your crunch wrap’s a little bit, I don’t know, softer than you usually like it. Being so hung up on these things also, Josh, I think is bad for your blood pressure. I’m not kidding. I mean, it’s probably high already because you do go through the drive thru. But I don’t, I don’t know what it is. I mean, I don’t hate drive thrus. I think they’re a necessity in this modern time. I think, you know, It makes life a little bit easier, makes life a little bit more digestible. I used to be pre hypertensive when I was a kid, but now I’ve gotten my blood pressure to a really nice range due to cardio and changes in diet. So take that! Anyways, uh, workers at fast food restaurants are taught to prioritize drive thru patrons because I think this is hilarious, uh, drive thru, uh, people in their cars are simply less patient than people inside the store. Which I hate because I’ve seen so many videos of Road Rage in the drive thru line. Oh my god. So many. Um, but I am, uh, one of the schmucks who just stands there and just will occasionally Oh really? Hey, hey. Oh really? I just wanted to check. Okay. Yeah, can I at least get the drink? No, okay, that’s fine. I’ll just I can reach the cup if I I’m okay. That’s you? Yeah. I’m not surprised at all. Raw chicken eater man. I don’t know, I mean I think we need to maybe, hear me out, just split, kind of how Chipotle has like a phone order section, like an online order section, and a uh, a main section, maybe you just gotta split it up. Maybe you just gotta, you know, have like the drive thru people have their own like little um, section where they can do what they gotta do, and then the people that come in, there’s like a little section for them. Separate. Chipotle doesn’t have any drive thrus, right? Not a drive thru, but like, online orders. Yeah. Phone orders. So, Chipotle actually was making a big push. This is everyone kind of following this Domino’s model. Yeah. I believe McDonald’s is opening their first store with no seating inside whatsoever. Yeah, I’m into it. Yeah, I suppose that’s the future, but we talked about this a while ago of like, It really changes the definition of what a restaurant is. We talked about it with the ghost kitchen thing, right? I’m not mad at it. When a restaurant, but isn’t there something, I know you don’t like view fast food as sort of like special, which I I don’t. I think a lot of people don’t. It is just a convenience thing. But to me, there like is something about the early days of Chipotle, right? Mm hmm. I don’t know if it’s cultural appropriation or whatever, but you walk in and they had like, there was the kind of wood designs Kind of looks like this. With the exposed metal array. It literally looks like it. Kind of like faux Aztec stuff. I liked it. The music, there was a special music guy. There was a special music guy, but that was so important to building the brand of Chipotle, right? It really was. You know, and I think without that, like you really lose a lot of identity. You lose a lot of like specialness in what it means to eat food. I think we’re getting more and more disconnected from our food, even if it’s fast food, I understand that. But you’re getting like more and more disconnected as this weird technocratic future hurdles on. And it bums me out, man. The Play Place! Smin McDonald’s! I have so many good memories there! I got tetanus once! Well, of course we’re far moved from our food. We don’t kill our own livestock. stock anymore. It’s already we go and we get ground beef. So I think you’re just, you’re kind of, is this getting up on your soapbox almost a little bit? 100%. But like, what’s the next natural evolution? Like, are we literally going to see a world in which fast food restaurants? So take for instance, um, the KFC Taco Bell hybrids, right? KFC Pizza Hut, Taco Bell Pizza Hut, all that stuff. Cause they’re all owned by Yum Brands, which is a subsidiary of like Frito Lay PepsiCo. Is there going to be a world in which there’s just simply no physical space whatsoever and Yum! Brands can save money by just having a commissary kitchen placed out like Amazon warehouses where you’re ordering stuff on an app? Yeah, I think that’s the natural progression of where fast food is going, yes. What about like, Other restaurants because we’re seeing like no, I don’t think other restaurants. No, I don’t think about like like a sweet green which is if sweet green had a kiosk. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten inside of sweet green. I’ve eaten inside of a great hair. What’s it in? What’s it like inside of sweet green? It’s nice. They have plants like an apple store. Pretty much more plants though. It’s really nice. I like eating inside of a sweet green. It’s quite curious. I’ll say the brand identity of sweet green is obvious whenever you walk through the door. And I think there might be a period of time where we’re gonna see that brand identity go away because they’ve already established it. People are like, I already know what sweet green is. I don’t need to look at the pretty plants anymore. I don’t need to look at the spoons and forks that have the SG label on it anymore. I think they’re slowly gonna chip away at that because, You know, profit is the most important thing, and they’re just gonna have a little kiosk, and they’re just gonna pump out salads. And I think that’s fine. I’m not that precious about it. I’m sorry. Maybe it’s just who, maybe it’s just where I come from and like, what I think is important to me. I think fast food doesn’t need to be a third place, baby. I think maybe the McDonald’s doesn’t need to be the third place for people. Yeah. There’s other places that can be third places, like the library. Or a bar. Libraries. Famously booming businesses. No, I’m just saying, you know what I mean? Like, maybe there’s a world in which the McDonald’s of the world can just become these pseudo ghost kitchens and the space is utilized for something else. I don’t know exactly what that is. And yeah, I just, I just think fast food places don’t need to be the third place anymore. Yeah. There’s more options. The community can be, you can find your community elsewhere. Sure. But they actually have been like really important, Starbucks specifically, for like low income people, unhoused people, to have access to like, things like Wi Fi, and internet, that’s very true. See, this is like, this is where it comes from, like, where I grew up, and like my background from my privilege. I’ve never had to consider those things. Yeah. Well, and it’s, it’s really, you know, it’s, I don’t want to be the person who’s just like, The future is bad! And that tends to be where I naturally go. And I know this is such a dumb topic, Like, waiting in the drive thru for a hamburger. No, it’s so important. Um, but that’s where my mind sort of goes. I’m really curious to see How this all shakes out in the future talking about how these physical spaces were important to the branding these restaurants like the generation after us Are they gonna care about McDonald’s anymore? Are they gonna care about? You know all these brands that we grew up with brains that we like throw on a YouTube page and people know so they click On them. Yeah, are they even gonna think of them other than just like a sticker on an app that they don’t care about don’t Have any connection to I think I think that’s what it is And like that’ll give rise to new things what those new things are. I agree You The Mythical Ghost Kitchen 2025. Let’s do it, man. Let’s make nutrient dense slop. I’m not high fiving you. Nicole, nutrient dense slop. The kids love it. I’m not high fiving you. It’ll be like the gruel from The Matrix. I’m not high fiving you. VoteLikeABeast. com is back and better than ever. We’ve created a one stop shop of non partisan resources to help you participate in this year’s election. Register to vote, register to vote by mail, and research your candidates and ballot measures at the local, state, and national levels. Inform your vote today so you can cast a vote that aligns with the issues that matter to you at votelikeabeast. com Nicole, what’s up, buddy? I got a trip coming up. Where are you going? Five days across the island of Sardinia Stop and here’s no way. I know nothing about Sardinia. I’ve never been to Italy at all I took one semester of Italian in college and had roommates that were from Italy for a couple months But I’ve completely lost any language, but I really want to at least be able to do the basics I want to be able to ask for a check, ask for directions, order the food, and also learning a new language It’s just great for personal development Well, that’s where Rosetta Stone comes in! Rosetta Stone is the most trusted language learning program, it’s available on desktop or as an app, and it truly immerses you in the language you want to learn. 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I’ve also become a bi weekly therapy guy and honestly, better help was a huge part of me. Starting therapy because I’m someone who really struggles to like book appointments But the fact that there was an app that I could literally just click with my thumbs until I was finally connected to a therapist I’ve been waiting like years to start therapy, but I kept putting it off until better help Therapy isn’t just for those who’ve experienced major trauma. It empowers you to be the best version of yourself. No matter your background If you’re thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It’s entirely online, it’s designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist, and switch therapists any time for no additional charge. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp. com slash hotdog today to get 10 percent off your first month. That’s betterhelp, H E L P dot com slash hotdog. All right, Nicole. I’ve heard what you and I have to say. We’ve heard a lot of it. Now it’s time to find out what other wacky ideas are rattling out there in the universe. Time for a little segment we call Opinions Are Like Casserole. Okay, so we were talking about buffalo, we were talking about buffaloes versus buffalo wild wings. So it is technically called Buffalo’s Cafe for some reason. Cafe is just European for coffee. They have no coffee. They have a lot of buffalo wings. There are only 19 Of them and they’re all across California. There’s 13 locations in Canada, two in the Philippines, and one in Dubai and Malaysia. Nice. . I like it. That is a hell of a spread. I like it. Um, but they’re attached to Fat Burger, which was a, uh, contemporary of In-N-Out that started in LA and Magic Johnson owns like a lot of them. Mm-Hmm. to try and enrich the community in South Los Angeles. True. And a lot of people like. Gabriel Iglesias, it’s his favorite burger. A lot of people, especially LA OGs, love Fat Burger. Yeah, yeah, they really do. I think it’s really good. And they also have a banana shake that’s really great. I’ve only had it once. I’ve only had Fat Burger once. I, I really love Fat Burger. I still would choose In N Out over it. But that’s what the hell Buffalo’s Cafe is. It was them trying to get into the chicken wing game. And like, they’re perfectly fine. I, almost all boneless wings taste the same to me. Um. It’s it’s like okay. Okay, that’s what that is. Nice. Thanks for enriching me with an education I want to go to Dubai just to go to the fat burger Buffalo’s cafe I was saying I want to go to Dubai really badly. I want to go for the Buffalo’s cafe No I want to go lay in the sand and make sand angels actually like you have you ever seen those videos of people that go Like sand surfing no. Oh, I wanna go they have a bunch of weird bodybuilding gyms there. I want to go there like how weird I don’t know, it’s just like all the biggest influencers from all around the world just go like train together there. You should try to go to the Allo Gym later. What’s the Allo Gym? Oh, Allo! Allo Gym. Who works out there? Influencers. What? Fitfluencers. Hahaha, has anybody coined that yet? That’s mine, baby! That’s a very commonly used term, fitfluencer. Why are you so sassy today? That shirt’s made you That shirt’s made you sassy, Grandpa. Let’s get into our first scenario. Hey guys, love the show so much. Uh, just wanted to give you a call. And let you know that the entire world is sleeping on cheesy oats. It’s made oatmeal, but instead of putting sugar in it, you put cheese in it. It’s so good. It’s so much better than regular oatmeal. It should be the regular oatmeal. Okay, thank you very much. Once again, love the show. Have a great day. Welcome to movie phone, . I like the gut of this guy’s. Gib, I’ll tell you that much. , what do you think about Cheesy Oats? They’re all right. Have you had cheesy oats? I, I’ve put cheese. I, I put crazy things in my oatmeal. You don’t even wanna know what I put it against. Wild and wacky at Nicole’s. I don’t want, I don’t wanna know. Yeah. Crazy. Um, it sounds fun. I like it. Um, I haven’t had oatmeal in a really long time. I gotta have, I’m gonna have it tomorrow. This reminds me of the like sugar and grits debate, right? Very, very, very heated debate. Very heated debate. Uh, and I understand I’m not, I’m not southern. I have no license to grits. I like love sweet grits because I love corn porridges, right? You, you love slop. I love slop. So like, you know, uh, rice. Is just a grain that’s turned into porridge all around the world, right? You have arroz con leche, you know, you have congee, you have juke, you have all that. Uh, corn is just a grain that’s turned into porridge. Um, oats are just a grain that are turned into porridge, right? They should be able to lean sweet or savory either way. But I never put cheese in my oats. I’ve made savory oats before. You never made savory? I’ve had, you never had savory oats? No, I’ve like made savory made cheesy oats? No, I’ve like done oat zoto for dinner when I’m really hard up. It’s pretty good. But I’ve never, they may have been some parmesan, but I’ve never like just thought to do a cheesy oatmeal with like eggs and bacon in the morning. That sounds really great. And you should have the license to do that. Like you said, it should be more popular. Yeah. I’m gonna do that this weekend. This is a pledge to make cheesy oats this weekend. I got some, uh, some good little cheese scraps in my fridge. And what better way to use up scraps than oatmeal? Julia is going to be disappointed. That’s all right. That’s okay. Disappointed before. I’m sure. Hello, mythical. Are you in a liminal space? You need rugs in wait, pause it, pause it! Hold on, you need rugs in wherever you are, you need to put some rugs in your house, and you need to get a bigger couch because it sounds like you’re in an open house right now. Yeah, yeah. I love watching everything from Mythical Kitchen. Thank you for all the wonderful mood lifting content. Um, my hot take is that Persian food is the most flavorful food, um, and that it is really the best because it can delight you without assaulting your taste buds with spice. So that’s my hot pick. Yes. Absolutely. 100 percent agree. It’s not just because I’m Persian. It’s true. It’s the best food ever. It’s so funny when, right when she said it’s the most flavorful food, I immediately was going to go, Eh, not spicy. I was going to say, uh, Indian food is the most flavorful food of all time. Yeah. But, well, I would reject the use of a salting your, uh, your palate with spice, because I would say gently massaging your palate with spice, baby. No, sometimes some food can be a salt. It’s true. Persian food does not have anything assertive. Yes, it does. Black lime is not assertive. Are you biting a black lime? No, sometimes it’s in the stew. No, wait a second. No, stop it. It’s because you grew up on it. If you eat Gourma Sabzi for the first time, it’s an arresting, I wouldn’t say assaulting, I’d say an arresting flavor. I disagree with you. In the same way that if you eat, uh, various forms like Indian curries with, with, Black mustard or like asafoetida or something you’re not used to. It’s something that is unfamiliar and you try it. And like, you know, I happen to love it. But Gourmet Sabzi is like a wild, wild, Fesenjun is utterly insane. Dude, pomegranate molasses is like arresting. Well, that’s the thing. You know, yeah, you’re talking about eating these things on their own. The thing about Persian food is it’s all about balance. It’s all about balancing all of that. Every single frickin taste that you have. I think every cuisine is about balancing. What cuisine isn’t about balance? What’s the least balanced cuisine out there? Oh my gosh, that’s a I don’t know. Right? Cause even But think about it. It’s the one cuisine that has every single flavor, regardless of what it is. The majority of the foods. Think about the stews. It’s a stew based culture. Every single stew has sweet, salty, bitter, Umami, whatever, like, whatever, whatever else, I don’t know, so. We literally did a podcast today. I forgot already! I wore my bitter sweatpants to the gym today. Yeah, nice. But like, you know, it has everything. Bitterness, sourness, sweetness, saltiness, savory. It has all of those things. The majority of the foods have all of those things. 100%. And I think it’s one of the few that does it really well, specifically sour. I specifically sour. That’s one of the reasons I love to be clear. Persian food is like one of my, I’d probably like Mexican food is just so special to me, love Mexican food, love Indian food, love Indian food, Vietnamese food. And I think all of them was Thai food, Korean food, but like Persian food to me is very, very special. I just, I really love capsaicin. I love heat. It’s not big on spice. I’ll say that. It’s not big on being spicy. What about even like dried spices? Because I feel like you cook a lot of Indian dishes, like the panoply of masalas that you use. I mean, there’s like this, there’s like a Mount Olympus of just so many different masalas, so many different spices that are used. Is there that in Persian food? You mean like a panoply of spices? Well, yeah, like do you use a ton of dried spices? Not a ton of dry, not a ton. It’s about using the right ones I’d say. There’s a lot of turmeric. There’s a lot of, um, soma. There’s dried fenugreek. There’s black lime, like you said. There’s advieh, which is almost like a masala, like a mix of a bunch of spices. There’s cardamom. There’s a lot. Persian food is wildly sour, which is very arresting for a lot of people. It’s interesting. I was just thinking about it. I love how sour it is. I think you need it. Same. I love sour foods. Yeah. But I’m thinking, even if you, uh, try, like, um, Mastou Moussier or something, right? That yogurt is like Sour. It’s a very sour yogurt. Um, albaloo. Albaloo, sour cherries. Sour cherries are like wildly sour. Barberries. Barberries. And that’s one of the reasons I love Persian food. But I think it is quite assertive on the palate unless you’ve like really grown up with it and you’re trained for that. Interesting. Well, since I was raised on it, then I’m not the right person to say this. But yeah, I agree with you. Persian food’s the best. Hey, y’all. My name is Christina and Hi, Babby. Um, a weird food combination I have. It used to be a meme. A couple years ago, it was called the Snickle. No, you’re not. Where you put together a pickle inside of a Snickers bar. Opposite. Snickers inside a pickle. And it sounds gross, but when you start eating it, it kind of grows on you a little. So, give it a try. Not only have we tried it, we’ve cooked with it. Yeah. I don’t like it. I shoved a whole pickle inside a pork loin, and in one of the most visually arresting images of all of Mythical Kitchen. Pretty sick. It’s a huge pickle. I love this person’s accent because it sounds like this, Excuse me, you look like you love me. And I love your accent. I don’t know the song. I don’t think Snickles are very good. I think it’s a really, I, my main problem with it, I like pickles and sweet things. What about a Twixel? I get down with the Twixel, but no, it’s what it, what it really is, is the juiciness of the pickle with the hardness of the caramel and nougat, right? Because you, by the time you’re, you’re squeezing all the juice out of the pickle, I don’t think they’re two textures that go together. It’s pretty gross. It’s pretty, it’s pretty gnarly. I love that you found something for yourself that you like. I’m happy for you. I would not be happy eating a snickle. No, no, nor would I, but that’s great. Thicker than a snickle. I just want a banana mayonnaise and crunchy peanut butter sandwich right now. Ew! All right, one more. One more. Are you pregnant? Me? Yeah. Hi, I’m Nat and I’m a little bit neurotic. This is my fourth take on this opinion because I keep making little inaccuracies and I am also a huge food nerd. I love that. I love your podcast. We love you. My opinion is that amazake is amazing. What’s amazake? If you don’t know what amazake is, Tell us! It is a creamy, delicious, sweet, little bit grainy rice beverage. I’m gonna look it up. Uh, and it is the pre ferment in making sake. Amazake is super cool, super delicious. I want everyone to know about it so that I can find it. It’s really hard to find. I learned about it at the first job I ever had, which was a health food macrobiotic store in Philadelphia. And they had Amazake there. I can’t find it anymore. It’s amazing. And amazake is really cool because it’s a pre fermented sake and that means it’s made out of koji mold. I’m also a big mushroom nerd and koji is also used to make soy sauce. So here, I am kind of tying together all the little things I’ve said in all these takes because I’m a little neurotic, but thank you for listening. I’m sorry. K, bye. This was awesome. I love that her brain works like ours where it just sort of Bloop bloop bloop bloop bloop bloop. It’s like you have this, uh, vert this horizontal through line, but then your actual brain is just doing weird helix laps around it. But you ultimately arrive at the same place. Right. I have never heard of Amazaki before. Okay. Um, so it’s, it’s mostly non alcoholic, um, it sounds like they make some that are lightly alcoholic because of the ferment, which is similar to like kombucha, like a kombucha or something. Um, I, I thought it was similar to makgeolli at first. I mean, we both have this similar fermentation process, but this is very cool and I want more silly functional beverages. We’ve talked about the functional beverage movement. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, this is an OG functional beverage, OG functional beverage. Yeah. I think we should be doing more of it. Uh, furthermore. Humans ability to take a single grain and spin off a million different products from it is absolutely mind blowing to me, right? It is incredible. Uh, and I really love that. I mean, to corn, you know, to have like, from whiskey to Doritos, like pretty wild that we figured out how to do that over time. The spirit of human ingenuity is eternal and that flame burns bright. Well, Zaki sounds amazing to me. I wanna try it. I just want some, I wanna try it. I don’t wanna make it, but I wanna try it. Throw it on Amazon, man. Let’s see if we can get some mail. We can probably f They think everyone got it. I mean, they probably have it as like they don’t have iceberg lettuce, but they might have zaki. They have it like named as something cool like probiotic rice, Koji mo drink. Oh, gosh. Well, Nat, that was a rad call. Thank you for that. Yes. Um, and thank you so much for watching the hot bag is a sandwich or listening to it as they say, I don’t know, man. I’m tired. I gotta go take a nap. Uh, we got new episodes out every Wednesday, wherever you listen to podcasts. Assuming that wherever you watch them is YouTube. I bought it! It’s coming tomorrow! Yeah? Huge! Yeah, actually, oh, it’s coming Friday. Boo! Week’s ruined. Um, yeah, and if you want to leave, um, an opinion to our Casseroles message, leave it at this number. 8 8 3 3 2, sorry, what, what was it? 1 8, I got it. 1 8 100 8 3 3 dogpod1. The number again is 8 3 3 1 8 7 7 cards for kids! 8 7 7 7 cards for kids! Oh my god, it’s 8 3 3 dog pod 1. The number again is 8 3 3 dog pod 1. Cards for kids! Donate your card today! And if you like watching Nicole and I on video for a while, we got plenty more where that came from. Check out our YouTube channel called Mythical Kitchen. Statistically speaking, a majority of you, yes majority, are on Mythical Kitchen right now on YouTube. But continue to check it out. Bye!