Americans love their burgers. Even
vegetarians. Actually, the whole world loves meat (or something like
it) between two slices of a bun, or bread (or something like it) and
has for centuries. The sandwich wasn't really invented by The Earl of
Sandwich so he could keep playing cards in the 1700's, that's just
the name that stuck. Although the actual inventor of what we now know
as the hamburger is up for dispute (Wikipedia not only has a
“Hamburger” page, there's a “History of the Hamburger” page
as well as a “History of the Hamburger in the United States” page), several
people seemed to do the same thing at the same time: put a patty of
ground beef between two slices of toast or stiff bread and sell it at
fairs and carnivals in the late 1800's. Because a ground beef patty
was at the time called “Hamburg steak,” it seems rather logical
that the name became popular- probably at the St. Louis World's Fair
of 1904- and stuck, no matter where the sandwich travelled. Calling
it a “ground beef sandwich” just doesn't have the same ring to
it.
The hamburger also gave rise to the
franchise restaurant, which was really unheard of until White Castle
started in the early 1920's. McDonald's took it to a different level
after World War Two, and every chain restaurant that exists does so
because of the success of the McDonald Brothers and Ray Kroc
(although if it wasn't them, it would have been somebody else- the
production-line America that homogenized America in the 1950's, from
houses to automobiles to grocery stores, would have found its way to
food eventually).
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| The very first drive-through at the very first In'N'Out |
Recently, many smaller hamburger chains
have flourished because of a backlash to places like McDonalds and
Burger King and the rest of them. Over the past month, purely
unintentionally, I've been to several of the “boutique hamburger
chains” that continue to gain traction all over the country- HabitBurger, Super Duper Burger, SmashBurger, Five Guys Burgers and Fries,
and the most famous of them all- In'N'Out Burger. Even though
In'N'Out and McDonalds started in the same area (SoCal- San Bernadino
and Baldwin Park, 45 miles away from each other according to Google
Maps) and the same year, 1948 (when the McDonald brothers reorganized
their 8-year-old successful restaurant to focus on quick-service
burgers). But while the McDonald brothers went the franchise route,
In'N'Out stayed privately held and stayed close to home (their first
non-SoCal restaurant opened in 1992). Now, thanks to the big chain
backlash, they're considered boutique even though they invented the
drive-through window.
And once I'd gone to three of the above
mentioned places, I thought about doing a “burger comparison.”
And after I thought about it for five minutes, I realized that
there's no reason to compare these places. That's because quality of
the burger doesn't really matter in your visit- it's
the ability to go somewhere that you usually can't get to. For
instance, I used to live in a town with two Five Guys within minutes
of each other. And I went to Five Guys maybe once every six months.
Well, due to my ever-changing addresses, the nearest Five Guys is now
an hour away. So when last Thursday I found myself within a couple of
miles of Five Guys, I went there. And when on Saturday I found myself
within a couple of miles of a different Five Guys, I went there. And
really, I went for no other reason than I can't get to Five Guys as
easily as I once could.
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| I wonder what Walter is saying? |
We're all like this, and it's because
of something I like to call “enforced scarcity,” one of my
favorite phrases to discuss supply-and-demand. The selective
expansion of any chain- not just a restaurant- isn't a problem any
more, it's actually an unintentionally positive marketing ploy. Why
do so many people covet Pliny the Elder beer from Russian River
Brewing in Santa Rosa, California? It's because the way the beer is
made the brewers don't want it in transit too long, even if it's
shipped in a refrigerated car. Boom- they've created “enforced
scarcity.” When do you most want a Starbucks coffee, which is
available pretty much on every corner in every town you've ever been
to? You want it when you're camping deep in the wilderness. Enforced
scarcity. When do you want McDonalds? Probably when you're on the
road in the middle of nowhere. When do you want an In'N'Out burger?
When you're somewhere they're not available and you're watching The Big Lebowski for the 928th time. I have been to Vegas a
few times with a good friend of mine who insists on dining not at
Wolfgang Puck's or any of those five-star restaurants- he wants to go
to Cheesecake Factory because there isn't one within 200 miles of
where he lives. I now live 15 minutes from a Cheesecake Factory, and
I know that if he ever comes to visit, we'll have to go there. I
doubt I'll go there until then. But that's enforced scarcity for you.
So really, none of the boutique burger
chains are better than the other, they're just either more
accessible to you or they're not, and your desire to go to one of
them is based on how close they are to you. That's the difference.
And with the kind of choices I now have, I
can be choosy. That means of the five boutique chains I have nearby,
SmashBurger is off the list. It's not like it was bad, their ground
beef sandwich just wasn't on the same level as the other four. Now,
if I was on a raft floating the ocean for weeks, I certainly wouldn't
turn it down, but I'd probably have a real hankering for a Jumbo Jack
instead. Enforced scarcity, indeed.
photos courtesy: smithsonianmag.com, In-N-Out.com, jeremiahwallace.blogspot.com, calwatchdog.com
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