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Man the SD is a tough crowd! There is no way BM (heh heh) is as bad as hospital food, unless your hospital is affiliated with a fine dining restaurant.
But keep telling yourself that you’re better than those plebes that eat from [shudder]* chain restaurants*. [the horror!] Maybe someday you’ll believe it.
As for the subject of the thread, maybe it’s a specific restaurant. We still get napkins at ours. Though I do think not having trash bins is a silly thing. I haven’t noticed the premium sides, though maybe they are ones I don’t normally get.
That’s hilarious. I’m picturing the look on the cop’s faces. “There’s an in-progress armed bank robbery! …at a fried chicken place?” “Uh, lunch break?”
OTOH, my boyfriend informs me that some fast food restaurants installed silent alarms in their walk-ins because robbers would herd the staff into them and then block the door. So it could have been installed by Boston Market and then forgotten with staff turnover.
We did specifically learn from the cops that that silent alarm was associated with the bank that used to occupy the building, so it wasn’t that - just an oversight on the part of the remodelers.
You know, I think that to this day I can still recite from memory all the side dishes we served back when I was there, just from having to recite the entire list over the drive-thru headset every time some clueless customer decided to ask what sides we have instead of looking at the menu board;
Mashed potatoes, stuffing, mac & cheese, creamed spinach, squash, sweet potato casserole, steamed veggies, green beans, cinnamon apples, potatoes au gratin, tomatoes au gratin, garlic dill new potatoes, chicken noodle soup, chicken tortilla soup, coleslaw, chicken salad, potato salad, tortellini salad, side Caesar, baked beans, corn, cranberry relish, rice pilaf, and cornbread.
(90% of the time I rattled off that list, they ended up going with mashed potatoes and stuffing.)
It’s probably an independent store instead of a company or large franchisee. The company stores and big players tend to keep up the details. It’s the solo or small-franchise owner/ops that get to the point where they try to save nickels by not putting out napkins or trash bins that have to be emptied. And it’s usually slow suicide, as others have pointed out - the place is so unpleasant or annoying that even regulars stop going back, provoking further frantic cuts…
All I know is the one near me had a banner reading “RIBS. Hurry! Limited time only!” that they had up for exactly 11 months and 2 weeks. 2 weeks after taking it down, it went right back up for another 6 months (to be replaced with a new banner reading “PULLED PORK. Limited time only!”).
And it was the same batch of meat!
I haven’t eaten at a Boston Market in over 10 years. But the napkin thing they must have taken that straight out of Subway’s playbook. They put one napkin in your bag with your sandwich and that’s it. If you want more, you have to ask the cashier for extra, and then the employees look at each other like, well if you don’t tell, I guess I can give you a couple more.
Are paper napkins that expensive?
Subway is pretty unique among fast food chains in that all of its locations are franchised - IIRC, there’s only one company-owned location, right next to corporate HQ, and it’s more of a test kitchen than a business that’s expected to generate a profit.
Franchise operations are going to tend to be bigger penny-pinchers than corporate-owned restaurants because they have to pay a franchise fee on top of all the usual expenses that come with running a restaurant.
Funny, that’s exactly what I said to my wife. We don’t eat there…
Not just one location. I noticed this pence before and up I thought that too. But my OP was from another store, same napkin policy.
snickerrrr…
Yep, I haven’t been to a Boston Market in years; because it was just too expensive.
Who’s with me on this… if a restaurant only raises prices on part of their sides; to call them “premium sides” it only serves to highlight the fact that there’s a price change. Most people don’t pay attention to that kind of thing. I’d think that raising prices on ALL of the sides would have a better chance of going unnoticed as compared to suddenly having “premium sides” on the menu.
Don’t worry. Once all this minimum wage increase stuff comes about they will raise all the prices, not just a few sides.
Gotta pay the people that walk your food to the table for you somehow.
Nah. What they NEED to do is remove those items from the steam table for a few months; THEN bring them back* as “premium” sides.
*that is, make new batches of them. Don’t just toss them in the freezer for 90 days. :eek:
Margins are rarely so tight they can’t afford it. It’s more often just that people will let them get away with it. It’s a nice opportunity to introduce a price hike and blame it on something else.
I live in the burbs of a large city. We have a fair number of mid to high-end restaurants, but, sometimes I don’t want to take out a second mortgage to eat out, and it’s nice to clog your arteries with some tasty fast food once in a while.
Prior to 2007, we had one and only one fast food establishment in town—McDonald’s. So, you can understand my excitement when it was rumored years ago that a second fast food joint was coming to town.
I’m salivating at the prospect of maybe Popeye’s or Bojangles setting up shop (I loves me some spicy fried chicken, dirty rice and cat-head biscuits!). Instead, we got Boston Market. Meh, a bit better than McDonald’s, I suppose—but, I really wanted those big greasy biscuits. They lasted about a year, closed shop and opened again as…you guessed it—another McDonald’s. :mad:
To this very day: 2 McDonald’s and nothing else.
*
Hey kids, where’d ya like to eat tonight, Restaurant Medure, Ruth’s Chris…or McDonald’s?*
Well the choices now are Restaurant Medure, Ruth’s Chris…McDonalds or McDonald’s?
Yeah, the BM by me has napkins, and even a little area near the drink machine that has various barbecue and hot sauces and little cups if you want them.
I mostly go and get a half-sandwich and a couple of sides (new potatoes and usu. spinach) for lunch as takeout. I don’t honestly know if they bring out your food or not these days.
That sentence made me laugh immoderately.