There are so many fast food restaurants nowadays that I imagine the competition for the American gullet is quite competitive. For some reason, however, I have noticed an awful lot of emphasis being placed on the sheer mass of the food product.
Granted, when producing a commercial, I am sure that the producers want to make certain that the product brand and size all lodge themselves into the minds of the viewing public. Burger King has managed to make a lot of clever, entertaining commercials, and they are memorable, without advertising that their food comes in some sort of bucket or is a whole “two pounds” of anything, although the name “Whopper” would tend to focus on the size, but since the term has been around for nearly forty years now, I will cut BK some slack. The Whopper and Whopper Junior father and son characters are hilarious, and that spot where they CG’d in the Burger King over some 70’s football game footage making that long arduous touchdown in slow motion was fantastic.
I have two specific businesses who’s advertising just rubs me the wrong way. One being a national chain, and the other a local 
phenomenon here in Iowa.
I will tackle the better known first… Hardee’s. Not only do I find the disembodied voice of the commercials’ narrator condescending, but the disgusting way their food is sloshed down in slow motion at the end of the ad and the sheer mass of the food is enough to put one off their own food for a month.
I am taken back to ridiculous scene after scene of grown men sucking the melted cheese off of the wrapper their three-pound burger was delivered in, a guy watching his buddies removing the words “cheater” from the side of his car in spray paint, a woman acting like a gluttonous man in the cab of a semi eating her taco salad with her bare hands, or the stupid claim that “showing large breasts on television isn’t allowed.” That one just threw me, man. You can show large breasts on T.V., I am certain. Otherwise, Dolly Parton would never have been able to be broadcast from the Grand Ole Opry throughout the 60’s and 70’s.
All the while that same annoying “I-know-so-much-more-than-you-dolts-who-aren’t-filled-to-the-gills-with-testosterone” condescending voice delivers his tripe over and over.
I have not eaten at a Hardee’s for years now, and from what I can tell, you can’t even order a sane sized sandwich there anymore. They’re all these “monster burgers.” What the Hell happened to the Big Deluxe? They had the best fish sandwich, hands down, of any fast food place in the U.S., but then something happened and they felt the need to focus on gluttony.
I, for one, will never eat at a Hardee’s again, simply because I find their commercials so insulting.
Now, for the same sort of concept on a local scale. There is a chain of “Mexican” restaurants here in the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City area called Panchero’s. The only thing that is remotely Mexican about the food is that they are called “burritos” and “quesadillas,” etc.
Their big selling point is, once again, the sheer size of the food. For some reason, their burritos have earned the reputation of being quite popular with the hackey sack kicking neo-hippie crowd here. This explains a lot, I guess. After spending a hot afternoon of playing Frisbee golf and smoking pot, they are probably famished, and would eat a sack full of gym socks if tossed in their direction, which actually would have a little more flavor than the offerings of Panchero’s.
I tried the place once and found the food to be as bland as packing peanuts. Their meat had no seasoning, their sauce was just a red, flavorless, watery liquid, and the tortilla, while the size of a garbage can lid, was slightly damp, noneventful, and had a rubbery stretchy quality to it that I found rather unappetizing. The burrito was stuffed full of beans, rice, meat, guacamole, and some lettuce. Like I said, though – it was a dull event, and I thought to myself, “Maybe I caught them on a bad day.”
A few months later a new Panchero’s opened near my apartment across town, so I thought I would go give them another try. After all, the place employed many a hippie, so maybe I caught them at a bad time.
No.
Once again, I was treated to the most boring, dull, but gigantic ‘burrito” I had ever encountered. That was it. I heard a radio commercial for the place months later. It started with a voice asking “Welcome to Panchero’s. What can I get you?” To which I rhetorically always responded to the radio by saying, “A bucket to vomit in.”
At one point, after these two negative experiences transpired, a guy I worked with decided that we would all go to Panchero’s for lunch.
“Their food tastes like crap though,” I reminded him, and in his amazement that anyone would dare challenge the magnificentness of this place, he uttered the response, “Yeah-but they give you a lot.”
What in the Hell kind of mentality is this? “Hey – They’re selling dog turd-kabobs down at the church.”
“Oh – No thanks. I’ll pass.”
“Yeah- but they give you a lot.”
I don’t know why. Maybe it was because I had just started at the place and didn’t want to come off as a party pooper when it came to the going-out-for-lunch-with-the-rest-of-the-help-in-the-office ritual. Maybe, deep down, I thought they deserved a THIRD chance. After all… the hippies, right?
Something inside me snapped when I entered the business, though, and upon arriving at the counter the hippie on duty asked what he could get me, and with God as my witness, along with the rest of my co-workers, I opened my mouth and these words emerged:
“Yeah. What do you have that doesn’t taste like shit?”
I left. I just was in no mood, and I promise you this. If ever you come through Iowa and want to be severely disappointed in a Mexican food experience – please, by all means, visit a Panchero’s.