THE GURGLING COD

Fast food -- not so fresh, after all

An interesting, if TL;DR discussion of the word "fresh" in fast food marketing. If you don't have time to read, you can a) see the tag for this post, or watch this commercial:

 

Applebee's: Honoring Veterans, pissing on workers

So, on one side veterans and active duty military eat for free today at Applebee's.

On the other hand,  this:

An Applebee's New York area franchisee is the latest CEO to go public threatening drastic plans to avoid costs associated with the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare.

"We've calculated it will [cost] some millions of dollars across our system. So what does that say -- that says we won't build more restaurants. We won't hire more people," Zane Tankel, chairman and CEO of Apple-Metro, told Fox Business Network on Thursday.

Apple-Metro, which runs 40 Applebee's restaurants, employs from 80 to 300 people at each of its locations. Obamacare mandates that businesses with more than 50 workers must offer an approved insurance plan or pay a penalty of $2,000 for each full-time worker over 30 workers.

So, this is what the gentlemen in the digital camo are fighting for? Sounds like Guiteau Monday to me. On a somewhat related note, Papa John's is threatening similar measures. In the case of Applebee's and Papa John's, shitty fast casual riblets and shitty pizza is no great loss. Recently, however, Aziz Ansari pointed out that the problem w/ the Chick-fil-A vs gays situation is that Chick-fil-A is very tasty - as he observed, if it were Long John Silver's nobody would care. 

More generally, it's interesting to the Cod that 2012 has been a year where fast food has become politicized, but in terms of gay marriage and health care, rather than on its own, rather dubious, terms. 

Owl>Chicken, or: The Owl - where activists eat for free!

So this whole Chick-fil-A/Gay thing is really starting to eat my brain, a la Gatesgate '09. On the one hand, folks who don't get that free speech is pointless if that speech does not have consequences, on the other folks whose commitment to civil rights begins and ends w/ not eating chicken sandwiches. But, there is a man in Greenville, SC who is living Biblically, specifically Ezekiel 22:30, And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it..."

In this case, the gap was a Chick-fil-A drivethrough, and the man was Jeffrey Martell: 

One man was arrested at a Greenville Chick-fil-A Wednesday after police say he blocked both drive through lanes with his vehicle as part of a protest. Officers arrested Jeffrey P. Martell, 30, after they say he tried to disrupt the business on Laurens Road.Martell is charged with trespassing and nuisance conduct.  His car was towed from the restaurant. He is due in court at 9:00 a.m. Thursday.

Martell was released, and ordered not to trespass on CFA property until the trial. But! The good news is that he won't have to be visiting any fast food chains for his meals: 

We've never been shy of our support of gay marriage. In the wake of the recent chick-fil-a controversy a friend of the Owl peacefully protested by blocking the drive-through of the Laurens rd store earlier today. 

While we aren't hugely concerned with where our customers get their chicken fix, we are passionate about activism - be it through protest, education, or example. 

Our friend decided to take action in this specific way to show his support for the cause. He's currently in jail waiting for bail which we find sad and exceptionally funny in equal measure. 

Just to say it publicly: Jeffrey Martell eats free at The Owl for life.

Free eats at one of the Southeast's most exciting new restaurants instead of soggy chicken sandwiches? Sounds like a good trade to me. 

 

Eatin' good, er Busting Caps in the Neighborhood.

Two men who were rooting for the 49ers over the Saints were shot in the parking lot of an Applebee's restaurant in unincorporated Duluth Saturday night, according to Gwinnett County Police.

Ok:

1) Who roots for the 49ers over the Saints?

2) Who goes to Applebee's to watch football?

Add Chick-fil-a thinks you are stupid

The Cod was there first, but glad to see Gawker piling on Chick-fil-a, and this is a great lede: 

When Chick-fil-A isn't spending millionstrying to clog the channels of gay rights legislation as effectively as their grease-soaked poultry mittens clog human arteries, the Atlanta-based restaurant chain expends its energy in equally productive ways. 

Unfurtunately, the intersection of Chick-fil-a regulars / kale sympathizers / Gawker readers is small. But for them, remember, you can make your own damn chicken sandwich. 

News flash: chicken is not kale

So, tasty, albeit homophobic fast food chain Chick-fil-a is sweating a tiny VT outfit about a trademark. The ish? The fried chicken sandwich folks fear that folks will confuse the eatmorekale.com brand with their Eat Mor Chikin campaign. For your convenience, Chick-fil-a's flagship product at left, and kale at right. So, Chick-fil-a customers -- ask yourself: how stupid does Chick-fil-a think you are? In any case, sign the petition and tell the fast food behemoth to back up. 

Guiteau Monday rolls on -- love and theft with Herman Cain and John Lennon

And Guiteau Monday rolls right along, with the GOP Frontrunner(!)* donning a white robe(!)** and singing a parody of John Lennon's "Imagine" that simultaneously pisses on the laudable yet mawkish sentiment of that song, and in its delivery suggests Stepin' Fetchit doing a Paul Robeson impression.

*The GOP is so desperate not to have a Black president that they will stop at nothing, including electing another Black president?

**Historically, not a popular look among African Americans. 

Add Guiteau Monday: Colonel Sanders hates YOU

So, KFC has this thing called the Famous Bowl, which is basically elective gavage for people, as far as the Cod can tell. And now they added bacon: 

 

Short of The Colonel getting on the roof with a Barrett M107, hard to imagine a more antisocial menu offering. With the razors, it took Gilette close to a decade for them to make a razor with as many blades as the fake razor in an early Onion. Real fast food has caught up to 30 Rock's Cheesy Blasters in less than half the time.

 

Breastaurant beef? Or, if you made out with your roommate that one time, that's cool w/ Huffpo.

The Cod is pro-breasts* and pro restaurants, but not so much pro-when the one is the raison d' etre for the other. So, when I clicked over to the story about how Hooters was suing breastaurant parvenu Twin Peaks for  theft of trade secrets, I expected that the gist would be that Hooters wanted exclusive control over the idea of women with large breasts serving food -- possibly worthy a lazy, layup post --  but in fact, it seems the defendant "Hummel downloaded and emailed to his private account a “substantial volume” of Hooters documents, including plans related to management, recruitment, distribution and sales." So, it's basically a regular lawsuit, which happens to involve two restaurants that employ scantily clad female servers. Newsworthy? Well, since the Huffpo <3 T&A, sure, because you can illustrate the article with pictures of these servers, and their breasts, scantily clad. 

It gets a lot creepier. Between the third and fourth grafs, this text appears: 

HuffPost readers: Have you worked at a Hooters before? If so, we'd like to hear about your experiences. Email [email protected]

Call the Cod a prude, but that seems to be veering from lefty website territory into one hand-on-the-keyboard-the-other-in-the-Noxema territory. 

 

*But, please, think before you pink. Also, this.

So, Demi Moore buys a Happy Meal

And wouldn't you know it, it's just another Guiteau Monday: