rolling new food laboratory inventions for american chain restaurants thread

kinda disappointed by this article's uncharacteristic lack of poetry, like a bad issue of harper's on autopilot, all democratic critique & effete dulled-by-failing-memory bildungsroman - also hey it is not topical ???, this all occurring in quarters long since concluded, do you have a specific interest in the mccafe heyday or are you just enjoying the archives (i love this, it feels genuinely like a hysterical take on the present, /recent past, like those awful globalization-panorama movies, babel, china, 'uncle sam's', 5th avenue, if not 'like don delillo' then at least 'like a richer & more stimulating bret easton ellis', i feel there are also fast food brand analogies we could make here) - but i'm consoled by the casual dispatch from barry klein in the comments, training a wry eye on the developments, reluctant to get too excited as a guy who's been burned before, encyclopaedic knowledge of failed pilot projects accumulated not only through company reports and the presentation materials that make it out of the lab but over short weekend-day day-trips with early starts, making the long drive to indiana count by being sure to make it there for the 6am breakfast, playing it safe & ordering traditionally but also comprehensively before catching up on sleep in the lot for four, five hours through until noon & then driving over to a second location right at the saturday lunch-rush peak to feel the heat of the operational complications, get a sense of table service via phone first hand, this man out of place able to feel the staff's whelm & so, calculating gains & losses on the fly - deinstalling the booth phones, laying off a greeter, saving some time forgoing wraps - also able to fully inhabit & be present inside a doomed & so temporary exercise, all food ephemeral but not at this level, not under these arches, almost tingling spooning the last of a commercially moribund branded red pepper omelette from his plate, knowing all this was going, the year 2000 this feeling something like a new phase, a younger man's game in retrospect, even this food service dawn from his chair now feeling so much like a dusk, like a close, the early twilight hours of the long night of the mccafé, all-day breakfast in this place just another reminder of shorter, sharper, younger days

post of the week, thank you

I just introduced Ian Bogost to ßurgerßusiness on Twitter

http://i.imgur.com/4wtRl5U.jpg

http://lovelace-media.imgix.net/uploads/491/68274740-a109-0133-6b56-0ec5ba6aa2f5.jpg

http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/how-arby-s-turned-its-brand-around-after-years-identity-crisis-169009

this is the second puff piece on arby's i have seen today

now i need arby's

Raspberry flavored hamburger buns.

http://laist.com/2016/02/06/gd_bro_burger_bringing_raspberry_bu.php#photo-1

D:

http://www.kentucky.com/news/business/article78164582.html

Taco Bell going upscale with open kitchen

New designs feature open kitchens, communal tables and in some cases alcohol

Plans include opening 2,000 more restaurants by 2022

Elements include reclaimed wood, beachy note

Things I don't want to see more of inside a Taco Bell:

• The kitchen.

what alcohol pairs best with taco bell? fortified wine? smirnoff ice?

PGA & Kool-Aid

bud lime-a-rita for sure

haven't tried spiking the mountain dew varieties exclusive to TB but I bet there's something that'd work

New designs feature open kitchens, communal tables

And I'm out. Don't even want to do that shit at good restaurants.

Why does anyone do those communal tables? The number of people who like them must be really small and quiet because I only ever hear people say they hate them. At best, some people... don't care? (myself included)

Who is the person who is like SICK, COMMUNAL TABLE *high-fives stranger*

I would mind them if it was like eating a meal at the bar. You know, where people idle and make chit-chat but you've got not obligation to respond. No one's facing you at the bar other than the staff, though.

I have never had a stranger attempt to chit chat me while eating at a communal table at any kind of restaurant, they're like non-communal tables but with the vague risk of bumping someone's elbows. Maybe in the south or something it's different

the Quesarito, inspired by the culinary roots of Mexican-inspired food

XD

http://i.imgur.com/wao2Stn.jpg

alexander wept

lol

i guess the logic is that if everyone knows about pink slime anyway they might as well start molding it into whatever-the-fuck shapes. looking forward to thin, crunchy, all-white-meat chicken spaghetti.

made me think of this

http://www.sushishop.com/images/en/sushi-taco.gif

It took me a good half a minute to understand what the deal was with that taco.

marinated all white meat chicken, shell

I support this molded chicken product

there is also a picture of me out there enthusiastically eating that kfc thing that had two pieces of breaded chicken instead of a bun, though

The idea for the chicken shell goes back to 2013, when Taco Bell’s senior director of innovation, Heather Mottershaw — better known as the mastermind behind the Waffle Taco — imagined a taco shell made from chicken Milanese.
But senior managers, including Chief Marketing Officer Marisa Thalberg, were not instantly on board. “They really weren’t into it because it is so different,” Garcia said.

“Think of all the crazy firsts that have existed in time and civilization,” Thalberg told BuzzFeed News. “Dare we say even the creation of the wheel probably seemed a little odd at first until someone said, ‘Ah, that’s really a good thing!’”

The dream of a fried chicken shell may have never been realized if not for the diligence of Steve Gomez, Taco Bell’s manager of product development. He calls it “a passion project,” and made it his mission to get other employees to try it. Looking back, he says he “was probably borderline annoying” in efforts to spread the word.

To even get to the test phase in 2015, the team had to shop the product to executives in headquarters, and then work with suppliers and stores to explore the viability of offering it at a larger scale.

The challenge, according to Garcia, is assuring consumers that the chicken shell isn’t weird fair food or “jestery.” “We wanted to make sure people took it seriously,” she said.

“When you explain it to someone they create a visualization in their mind, but it you put it in front of someone and say, ‘Try it,’ then it’s like, ‘Okay, I get it,’” Gomez said.

The meaty new chalupa, in fact, basically just tastes like a fried chicken wrap without the wrap. And it’s spicy, and stuffed with lettuce, tomato, cheese and avocado ranch sauce.

Taco Bell has found in the test that the vegetables somehow manage to give the meaty, deep-fried chalupa a “health halo” in the eyes of consumers. “We were getting feedback like, ‘It’s so healthy. It’s so fresh,’” said Garcia. “That really surprised us because it’s fried chicken.”

Taco Bell has found in the test that the vegetables somehow manage to give the meaty, deep-fried chalupa a "health halo" in the eyes of consumers. "We were getting feedback like, 'It's so healthy. It's so fresh,'" said Garcia. "That really surprised us because it's fried chicken."
Venessa Wong / BuzzFeed News

“We’re not going to market it as a health food item — I promise,” said Thalberg.

If the Naked Chicken Chalupa does well, there will likely be other versions of it down the road. “Every year the benchmark gets higher and higher for new, big taco-innovation ideas,” said Gomez.

Taco Bell’s approach to product innovation typically is focused on new product lines that it can expand with variations and flavors, such as the Doritos Locos Tacos, but with a deep-fried chicken shell, “it really feels like you’re at the end of the innovation line. What do you do next?” said Garcia. “We will think of something, of course.”

Jestery.

“We’re not going to market it as a health food item — I promise,” said Thalberg.

If the Naked Chicken Chalupa

See, "naked" seems like one of those feel-good, meaningless words designed to imply healthiness. Like "natural" or "clean" or whatever.

better known as the mastermind behind the Waffle Taco

Everything about this is fantastic.

Can you imagine the weird shit "borderline annoying" execs try to push on their co-workers at TBHQ?

I mean, fried chicken taco shell, that's one of the ones that got out of the gate.

the "naked chicken" products at a lot of places end up either dry or rubbery anyway

o_0 at comparing a moulded chicken taco shell to the invention of the wheel.

Also reminds me of this, which in true ILX fashion enrages me for some reason whenever I go past. Not the concept, but the name https://www.facebook.com/nkdchicks

no kidding, the wheel is pretty obvious in retrospect

http://i.imgur.com/GG3jawS.jpg

lock thread and may god have mercy on our souls

tbh i would go out of my way to a bk that sold those, just to try at least

Reminds me of the 7-Eleven "Loaded Doritos" which were... not good iirc

Wasn't there an article about a journalist who visited a burger ideas taste test who had a mac & cheese burger, and suggested making it spicy?

"And add some MSG, please."

think that was a This American Life ep

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/569/put-a-bow-on-it

xp

there's a local burger place that has a burger where the bun is two breaded and fried mac and cheese blobs

circa1916, that's it. Thanks.

msg is meaty not spicy. most fast food has msg.

it's savory

umami can this really be the end