That's like 30 people in line. It takes half a block and a lane of the stroad to fit 30 people.
this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2024
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if only there was some other way to transport and have 30 people be in one place at a time
TIL the word "stroad". Thanks. I just looked it up, and it's so much the norm in almost every place I've lived that it was hard for me to even grasp the concept at first. Because that's practically every road. (Although I must say I disagree with how they define street versus road because nobody actually uses those words as being especially different from one another in real life.)
It comes from how the Netherlands defines it. Since they use Dutch, English-speakers had to kind of scramble to find any word that would fit.
FWIW I've always intuitively held the same distinction. Streets are walkable and have stuff on them, cars optional but at low speeds if they are there. Roads are not walkable and link up areas for car use.
What you're looking at is a policy failure on multiple levels:
- Car-dependency in general, both in terms of transportation planning (making a stroad) and zoning (allowing the business to have a drive-thru to begin with).
- Failing to validate the capacity of the site design before approving it (yes, I know this was opening day -- but several drive-thrus near me overflow out onto the street every day, even after having been open for years, so this kind of failure is definitely a thing!).
- Failure to have the police show up to clear the traffic and ticket everyone blocking the road (possibly as well as the business itself).
There should be some kind of laws around drive thrus, their capacity, and blocking roads. Unfortunately since there aren't any yet i doubt a cop could actually ticket anyone. Plus a cop is just as happy to wait in the line and block the road as well, because that has been normal and business as usual since drive thrus have existed.
What is really frustrating is try blocking those same lanes as pedestrians or cyclists waiting in a line and suddenly everyone will tell you how unsafe and rude you are.
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'm sure that is related but as my friends were "progressive" Democrats we might need to use a wider definition of what it means to be right wing. Plenty of "progressive" white people still have racist hangups.
Plenty of "progressive" white people still have racist hangups.
Some of them think they aren't racist when they see the world as a series of tourist attractions and try to flex on their dinner guests by bragging about the authentic exotic experiences they had with authentic foreign people while wandering into tourist traps. 
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Oh 100%
Also, people are influenced by the beliefs of their community, even if they don't agree on everything.
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.
Yeah I actually live on the West coast now and saw that in a nearby city that has a lot of options for food. I actually really like in n out but I don't like any food enough to wait in a line like this. I would skip at least one meal first.
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.
FUCK.
that's my hometown.
haven't been there in years, but i used to walk there a lot. i typically just had to walk on the grass or in the ditch next to the road. then i had to plan my entire route around where i could cross the roads. very very few places to do that, and almost none that were safe.
got harassed by the cops once because i was walking at night with a flashlight in that town. walking is so uncommon there that it'll get the police called on you.
also, more town than city.
same kind of crazy line formed there when they got chick-fil-a and portillo's. it's in Wisconsin, so they got chick-fil-a late and portillo's early in their respective spreads across the country.
Ha sorry, but I'm not surprised you had such difficulty walking. I also grew up in the Midwest where if you're walking people assume you must just be poor and can't afford to drive. Weird weird culture
Raising Cane's did this when they opened their store by me. They sent out mailers for free meals and stuff on opening day, the lines stretched around the block and they had police handling traffic. It's marketing fluff to make a ruckus in a new market.
Surprise surprise once people had to pay, I've never seen lines like this again there.
So does canes have to pay the city to have that cop at drivethru or is the taxpayer going to pay for that?
Good question, I saw the opening of canes in another town that had cops directing traffic in the inlet, probably 3 or so cars working just to get people their (honestly incredibly mediocre) fried chicken.
A job that could have been done by anyone in a high vis vest and some traffic control training. But i guess canes probably argued the road is city property so it should be the city's problem, even though it is canes business practices causing the problem.
Raising Cane's is such a garbage operation. HQ staff had to help run some stores to meet opening dates. They couldn't get enough staff to open on time because "no one wants to work anymore."
In my town there is usually a long drive thru line for Raising Canes, but it snakes around the parking lot rather than the stroad. The few times I go there I park, walk in, and walk out with my food before the person who would have been ahead of me at the drive thru has even ordered.
Before I left CA, I remember seeing one of these fucking places opening up in my area. Yes, the line was very long and remained so for months every time I went past it.
Why?
I really, really don't understand treat hogs that can wait an hour or longer for that, sucking in exhaust all the while.
I will never understand how someone can justify waiting in their car for over 40 minutes for fried chicken. Not to mention the parking lot is empty! How do they not just think "I'll just park and go in"?
Seriously I don't even wait at nicer restaurants for an hour. I'll find something else.
It truly is car brain, including the car brain belief that drive thru is always faster.
As a former drive thru worker, I can tell you that that is untrue, but the drive thru chuds were pretty much definitively more aggressive, more obnoxious, and more likely to further delay the transaction by being boomer assholes and inspecting their food and making petty demands if anything is even slightly out of place (or if they're fishing for a refund and lying).
Hey, also former drive thru worker! Unless drive thru was pretty much empty it was almost always guaranteed to be a longer wait. Exact same experience as you, people took longer getting situated in their cars slowing everyone else down
And god help me how in the living hell do you wait for over 10 minutes in a freaking drive thru only to get to the menu and say "uhmmmm what do I waaaant....". Ffs it's a MCDONALDS. You're going to order the number 3 and a diet coke like you do all the time Sharon.
And god help me how in the living hell do you wait for over 10 minutes in a freaking drive thru only to get to the menu and say "uhmmmm what do I waaaant...."
My most common and hated experience every day in drive thru:
bing
static
recorded pitch starts
"UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH*
"UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH*
minute or two passes, horns honking
"ARE YOU THERE?! HELLO?! HELLO?!"
To quote a guy overheard complaining about Cane's in an airport: "bland white people food"
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I would quit the first day as worker there seeing that line.
I count roughly 15 cars in line, which could be as few as 15 people. All that space taken up for such few people...
And a business built largely around car dependence.
*a typical American town
I'm not familiar with Raising Cane's, but the same thing happens at any Chick-fil-A near Seattle (we don't have any in Seattle proper). It doesn't even have to be a new opening. Meal time on a weekday? Chick-fil-A has a line around the block.
That one in Bellevue that they'll wrap around the block and onto 405? And no one cares that they're just stopped on the freeway blocking lanes for fucking chicken?
This should be illegal. Drive thrus need capacity like a dining room. How is it fair for public infrastructure to be blocked so a private company can sell chicken? It is also a massive safety hazard.
That's the main one I'm thinking of, yes. What a terrible location for a place so busy.
I always do Ezells now when I crave chicken. Zero need to go to chick fil a in this town
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Happened in ABQ as well
I was on a beach vacation in Florida and the young dude serving me ice cream at the ice cream shop heard I was from Austin and said "I heard y'all have Raising Cane's there!" Like WTF was that? I can only assume that was the brain dead Florida culture I've heard so much about
Oh dude, so many fuckin times I have people want to talk to me about chain fuckin restaurants. "Oh I hear we're getting an olive garden!" "Did you see the Texas Roadhouse just opened", oh can't wait!
Who gives a shit that yet another chain is opening. How empty is your life where an olive garden opening is something you're actually excited about? Go find a local Italian place that serves real Italian food. Find the local chicken place. Guaranteed it's about the same price as chains now, and the family running it will be much happier for your business than the suits in charge of the chain.
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