Like Gordon, I generally try to eat at local places, rather than franchises, when I'm on the road. I find it amusing that both Gordon and I, despite our shared intellectual interest in franchising, stay away from the joints ourselves. In fact, Gordon and I may be acting irrationally, at least from a branding perspective.
Why do people tend to stop at McDonald's or Arby's on a road trip? Answer after the jump.
Branding, of course. The search costs are high for someone passing through on the interstate. Suppose you are trying to get in 500 miles one day and stop in a small town for lunch. You could go stop at a motel and ask for recommendations, then inspect the menu at a few different places, etc. But this is time-consuming, and since you may never come through the town again, you have no reason to invest in the research.
Instead, the rational consumer just looks for the golden arches. Fast food companies spend money creating and advertising the brand, and they enforce standards on franchisees to ensure some minimum level of quality. Most of the time, when you stop at McDonald's, you know what you'll get. It may not be gourmet quality, but it's not likely to give you food poisoning. When you stop at a local diner, you are rolling the dice. Worse yet, the diner's owner knows that many customers are just passing through, and so she has less incentive to produce a high quality product. Especially with difficult-to-observe things like kitchen cleanliness.
There are strategies to beat this lack-of-repeat-play problem. One basic strategy is to go to places that appear to be crowded with locals. Stay away from the empty places or places where the majority of license plates are out of state. Judge Michael taught me an even better trick: go where the cops go. Cops eat a lot of food in their car, and they tend to go to places where food is fast, cheap and pretty good. (Truckers seem indifferent to food quality, and instead look for product attributes like food quantity, big parking lots, roomy booths, and truck stop amenities like showers and table-side phones.)
Travel guidebooks (the kind that list B&B's) can also help. AAA guidebooks, back when they were in wider use, gave roadside diners an incentive to maintain high quality. I am hopeful that as mobile technology improves, it will be possible to type an exit number or intersection into your phone and instantly see reviews of local establishments. (Google Local, through SMS technology, can get you listings but not much in the way of reviews.)
Why go to all the trouble? Why not just stop at McDonalds? Well, sometimes I do, esp. when time is of the essence. But while I have nothing against franchised restaurants, I do prefer to support small business and entrepreneurship. I appreciate a diversity of eating options and want to do my part.
Also, and I suspect Gordon is with me here: It's just fun to try out new places. I'd rather risk the occasional disappointment than just have another bland and boring roadside experience.
Finally, there is my fondness for the open road. And when I think of roadside Americana, I think small town diner, not Travel Plaza McDonalds.
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1. Posted by Will Baude on July 18, 2005 @ 10:39 | Permalink
My mother and I have a corollary for finding food at airports, where the transient problem is even greater because there are so few locals.
Go where the pilots go. In airports they are the culinary analogue to the cops.
2. Posted by Dave! on July 18, 2005 @ 12:23 | Permalink
I think eating at local places is great... First, because as a (former) small business owner myself, I like to support them. Second, because you find really great places that way. Yes, it does take extra time, but as anyone who goes anywhere with me can tell you, I'm slower than molasses and usually late anyway.
However, there's another reason aside from branding: location. If you're an interstate (as opposed to U.S. Highway or State Road) chances are the McDs is located *right* at the end of the off-ramp, situated very conveniently next door to the gas station. Sure, it's not far to drive into town, but it's also *right there*. Which is less branding, and more "location, location, location."
The cop tip is dead on though, it works well in cities, too. Here in Chicago, our cops are some of the best fed anywhere. ;)
3. Posted by Eric Goldman on July 18, 2005 @ 13:41 | Permalink
It strikes me that people may eat at franchises for yet another, perhaps more fundamental reason--maybe some of them actually LIKE (or think they like) the food...? Eric.
4. Posted by Vic Fleischer on July 18, 2005 @ 14:43 | Permalink
Yes, many people do like the food. I'm not trying to make some kind of false-consciousness argument. But I still think there's a difference in the frequency at which people eat at franchises while on the road (98%? 95%? Just a guess) vs. near home (60%? No idea, really).
Location is certainly part of it too. Still a bit of a puzzle, tho, why the local diner doesn't relocate at the end of the off-ramp. Locals seem willing to drive from town to the offramp to go to McDs.
5. Posted by Will Baude on July 18, 2005 @ 15:08 | Permalink
I think the location-segregation makes some sense. Places that rely on branding to bring in customers want to locate where there is a large number of people who are familiar with the brand-- e.g., the offramp. Places that rely on word-of-mouth want to locate where there is a large number of people who have heard the word, even if that number is much smaller-- e.g., downtown.
I do suspect (sans empirical evidence) that a McDonalds by the freeway gets less local traffic than the same McDonalds downtown, but 1, the freeway traffic makes up for it, and 2, there may be two McDonalds owned by a single owner in such a location anyway.
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