I will never understand the American obsession with mediocre fast food. I watched this happen with literally every new fast food place that opened in a small city off an interstate in Alabama. I can at least understand why small towns get excited for something new, but it’s always just shitty food or in this case just some fucking chicken tenders?
My experience in the US is that as soon as you leave a densely populated area, the good, interesting food options drop off a cliff. In car dependent suburbia, these are often the best they have
Sometimes, yeah.
But I’ve been to plenty of rural areas that have great Mexican restaurants and Hmong restaurants but most of the white people there preferred to eat at an Arby’s. Some of those white people were friends and they simultaneously acted like they didn’t even know those restaurants existed and as if it were somehow risky to go there.
For those instances, I’d suggest that it has to do with a few factors:
more rural areas tend to be more right leaning,
right leaning people are more likely to be more racist,
and right leaning people tend to be more uncomfortable with things they are unfamiliar with
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S019188699900135X
I have had good chicken tenders from restaurants, but never chains. Chains I don’t understand why people get them. For the same price and better taste you can just go to the store, get some frozen ones and pick them in the air fryer. Heck season them a bit and I’d argue they’re the same as any fast food ones
This was the case in my town when In-n’-Out burger opened up. The line there is still huge years later now after it opened. We tried it to see what the big deal was and it was…slightly better than Burger King? Yet it costs the same as a local burger joint who have way better food. I do not understand American taste buds.
Americans are overworked and underpaid with limited access to childcare and healthcare. Most have little free time or energy to cook. They rely on prepackaged foods and fast food.
It sucks. Also we have a lot of areas called food deserts, where there aren’t any real grocery stores nearby and people there tend to rely on fast food even more.