Faster

Bryce Rothenberg

FASTER!

Horwitz’s article about ‘Eating on the Edge” illustrated how food, has become "an additive to a situation, such as a cigarette would be, rather than being definitive"(Horwitz 1).  This idea of eating food or having a meal becoming more of task than a leisurely social activity has resonated with me much more ever since coming to college. Due to how busy I am, I have noticed that I tend to eat much more food on the go and my appreciation for the food that I eat has decreased drastically due to it becoming a more individual experience. This idea is not only shared by me, "In the US, unstructured eating patterns have become more common, while taking time to share food with others is becoming less familiar"(Horwitz 4), many restaurants have now begun to implement fast-service food ideas to the layout of their store, to the way that the store is run, allowing people to get their food efficiently, use their food as a utility if needed, yet also allows them the ability to relax and eat with friends. Both Chipotle and Illegal Pete’s are Mexican grills that service mostly college students, and in my opinion because of the proximity to the University of Denver and the youthful, fast moving culture, the unique efficient layout of each restaurant allows many different people to eat their meals in many different ways. What I mean when I say the restaurant “allows many different people to eat many different ways” is that no matter how a person wants to treat their specific meal at Pete’s or Chipotle that day, either getting it to go and eating it in class or at work, while on the go, sitting alone studying in the restaurant, conversing with your friends sitting at a table, ect., the point I am trying to make is that the accessibility and or utility of the food being produced at these restaurants is absurdly versatile.  This culture that we live in has transformed the meaning of a meal from something that use to be shared with your friends and family, to a means, a utility, that facilitates an ends, being full.

Coming to college I knew that some things would change drastically but I never thought that my appreciation for food or a meal would diminish so substantially. Being on the crimson meal plan, I am not allowed to enter the cafeteria before 11 o’clock in the morning, yet after 11 and until 7 o’clock at night I am allowed to get as much food as I want as many times as I want. This being said, my eating patterns and my appreciation for a specific meals such as breakfast, lunch, or dinner have diminished drastically due to my inability to fully experience or indulge in a specific meal. Due to this change in my eating patterns, I have noticed that I tend to eat much more food on the go and my appreciation for the food that I eat has changed from something I used to completely and utterly love, into a utility. For me this change is something I have come to accept due to the situation that I have been placed in, and the priorities that I have established for myself have put my academics and or my personal success above my enjoyment of specific meals. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely sit down and enjoy my meals every once in a while, but food itself, at this point in time, has become a utility that is essential to my survival and nothing more.

Although this food culture is changing, into a faster paced, efficiently based system, the nice sit down family and friend meals that once were so popular are still present, yet fading into the background. This transition between sitting down and having a meal with your family or friends, to grabbing food on the go, has not only made food a utility, but has changed our culture into a more individualistic society that doesn’t value relationships like they use to. With the introduction of the television as well as the computer our society has changed drastically. While this transition was taking place technologically and culturally, the food industry recognized this significant culture shirt, also known as the “efficiency boom”, and began to make products that suited this emerging generation of fast American youth.

Since the invention of the “TV tray”, the food industry has tailored their products for efficiency and utility, moving farther and farther away from the sit down family meal that use to be the American culture. With the food industry encouraging and advertising, efficient easily accessible meals, the American culture and especially the U.S. youth are being pushed to accept and conform to this fast paced (efficient) utility driven meaning of food. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that the food industry is the reason that Western culture is defined the way it is, what I’m trying to say is that the technological revolution that we are experiencing now, and have been for the past 20 plus years, caused a serious cultural shift, which the food industry recognized and began to cater to. Since the 90’s and the “efficiency boom” (technological revolution), Western culture has become a goal oriented, fast paced, future driven society, much more involved in personal success and business than relationships and leisure. Now as time progresses we are beginning to see restaurants around densely youth populated areas, such as colleges, becoming more fast-service food oriented, rather than sit down, order at the table restaurants, that became so popular in the late 20^th century.

            Being a college student, and living around a college campus allows me to realize the different fast paced culture of the youth, where utility and efficiency are characteristics most sought after. Restaurants who set up shop close to campus have been forced to integrate fast-service food into their layout and management of the store because of the growing demand for fast quality food. “Often, the bottlenecks in service are due to the restaurant’s overall design and setup. ‘Many operations that I have consulted with made all of their mistakes in the design phase,’ Kharasch says. ‘They did not think through every step an employee has to make to get the food out and they did not think about where a guest stands when waiting to order food, or how many registers they may need if the sales are above expectations’”(Brox, Fast Food Fast). For Pete’s I feel that this fast-service food idea was absolutely implemented into the layout of the restaurant, due to the placement of the menu in comparison to where the customers line up, to how checkout and or ordering process goes, Pete’s was tailored for efficiency and the “on the go” college student.

            These “on the go” college students have forced the restaurants surrounding the University of Denver to transform how their food is utilized and appreciated. What I have noticed personally is that these restaurants have changed their layout and or style to accommodate the fast paced youth culture, yet these restaurants have not compromised their ingredients or finished product to allow this service to be faster. Although the food culture maybe changing into an on the go, fast paced system, the integrity of the food and freshness of the ingredients will always be cherished by the provider and the consumer.

            People have become so custom to eating on the go, and because of this, when people are not able to get something quickly and efficiently they will more likely than not to skip the meal than take the time out of their day to sit down and enjoy the meal. In Europe this idea of grabbing a meal to eat while on the go or even skipping a meal is almost unheard of. Food in European cultures is more about the experience than anything else, being able to sit down for 3 hours with your friends and or family and have a leisurely meal is the norm and eating alone is preposterous.

European culture has not been as affected by the “efficiency boom” or technology as the United States and Western culture have, as you can see through the leisurely European approach to food and work and how they intertwine. Work in Europe is seen as just that in itself, work, meaning that people in Europe work to support their family and give themselves the ability to experience leisure, rather than working to be rich, which is seen so much in Western culture. In Europe, during the entire month of August, no matter where you are or what profession you are in, you are on vacation. The way that Europeans view work is that they feel that if their employees are well rested and have time to relax and recuperate that the work that they produce will be much better and a much higher quality. Going along this same line, every day for lunch, European workers get a two-three hour break for lunch during which they can do anything. The importance that companies in Europe are placing on scheduled time for leisure is what is keeping Europe from turning into a more Western based culture. A blog post claiming “I’d Rather Eat at My Desk” launched a massive discussion, “In response to folks writing wistfully about some European countries with their long lunches, Larimore pointed out that, for the working parent, a long lunch is just more time you're not with your kids. Maybe that's the point (they don't seem to be having many kids in Europe these days). But many of us like spending our evenings with our families.”(Vanderkam) For people living in the West in such a goal driven, fast paced society, the idea of long lunches and leisure, as enjoyed by people in Europe, is ridiculous because it is impossible in the society that we live in.                       

With technological advances changing how the Western society we live in operates, the food industry has begun to tailor their products and advertisements to this changing culture, and in doing so are facilitating the fast paced society we have come to know.  As our life becomes more dependent on these fast-service food restaurants, easily accessible, efficient food products, the food industry will continue to make more efficient, utility driven means of food, and the society that we live in will continue to become exponentially faster paced. 

           

             

Works Cited

Brox, Denene. "Fast Food Fast." Quick Fast Food Service Crucial to Success. QSR. Web. 25 Apr. 2012. <http://www.qsrmagazine.com/ordering/fast-food-fast?microsite=5>.

Horwitz, Jamie. "Eating at the Edge." University of California Press. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/gfc.2009.9.3.42 .>.

Vanderkam, Laura. "Should You Eat at Your Desk?" CBSNews. CBS Interactive, 30 Apr. 2012. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. <http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-500395_162-57423885/should-you-eat-at-your-desk/>.