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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