Alumni , News. Arts Media and Culture , alumni. Tools UW Office Email. UW Google Email. Information Technology. Space Requests 25Live. UW Seattle. UW Bothell. Academics Academic Advising.
Academic calendar. Canvas login. Degrees and majors. Study Abroad. Teaching and Learning Center. Admissions Freshmen. Transfer students. Graduate students. Military and veterans. International students. Campus Life Clubs and organizations. And so, after seven years in business, Dick and Mac sold the theater in and shifted industries from entertainment to food service.
In the next town over, Monrovia, on a decade-old thoroughfare called Route 66, they crafted some borrowed lumber into an octagonal open-air food stand and cut a deal with Sunkist to buy fallen fruit, 20 dozen oranges for a quarter.
Fortified by spectacle, satisfied day-trippers would then sidle over to the Airdrome to sate more basic needs, their thirst and hunger, with a fresh orange drink and a hot dog. This venture was so successful that the brothers were able to import their parents from New Hampshire and open two more stands. The future, they were certain, involved appealing to drivers.
Soon, they believed, the work week would shrink to under four days, leaving Americans with abundant leisure time in which to tool around in their cars—and stop to eat. They dismantled their stand and ventured farther east, to the growing desert city of San Bernandino, or San Berdoo as locals called it, a long-established trading hub 60 miles outside of Los Angeles. Ever thrifty, Dick and Mac outfitted these ladies in usherette uniforms recycled from the Beacon, embellishing the already theatrical flourish of service to your window.
The declaration of armistice allowed the curtain to rise on an era of playful abandon, which suddenly swept over the most banal aspects of life. Americans had been banking both their money and their desire for fun, and now they were making up for lost time. By , 40 million cars jammed the roads. Taxes collected on fuel sales allowed the construction of wide new thoroughfares offering access to large swaths of America and new possibilities for adventures. All this meant a need for expanded services: gas stations and restaurants and motels.
The journey became as critical as the destination. Eating meals outside the home became not just socially acceptable but a sign of carefree affluence. Eating a meal delivered directly to the window of your beloved new vehicle punctuated the feeling car ownership allowed. Roads that had once been thick with orange groves were now dotted with quick-serve restaurants.
While once a mound of ground beef was considered to be a tasteless and suspect blob of glop, suddenly the hamburger was de rigueur. Drive-ins became minefields of unsavory behavior, filled with loitering teenagers who smoked and blasted the jukebox and engaged in sexual shenanigans in the parking lot with the hired help. Staff seemed to churn through a revolving door; employees would quit or no-show, regularly leaving their employers in the lurch.
None of this served to diminish sales. A steady flow of customers kept a cast of 20 carhops hopping and the parking lot, with room for vehicles, brimmed to capacity, the go-to place in town for the younger set. In the face of this success, in , Dick and Mac made the bold, perhaps foolish, decision to step back and reassess, closing their doors for a hiatus. Dick and Mac asked themselves how they could prepare hamburgers, fries and shakes as efficiently as possible.
How, they wondered, could they streamline operations for maximum profit? How could they distinguish themselves from the other drive-ins? How could they speed up service? In their quest for answers, they drew inspiration from East Coasters named Levitt. To begin with, the brothers analyzed their business receipts to identify the best sellers, and slashed their menu from twenty-five items to the nine most popular items, nixing the pricey and labor-intensive barbeque. Dick deviously posed as a freelance writer and ventured into Los Angeles to sleuth out trade secrets from the candy industry.
Dick enlisted a mechanically minded friend to fashion an automatic condiment dispenser that doled out a precise squirt of ketchup or mustard at the push of a button. A mechanized press allowed for the quick formation of beef into patties. To keep up with demand for milk shakes, Dick and Mac purchased eight state-of-the-art blenders called Multimixers, which allowed them to churn out frothy drinks—five at a time per machine.
Surplus could be stored in the fridge, ready for the asking. Offering choice, the brothers said, dashed the speed. To execute the next phase of their makeover, they retreated, in the dark of night, to the tennis court behind their home. Using thick chunks of red chalk to plot the action, they choreographed an assembly line of food preparation and delivery, where workers could most efficiently grill the meats 40 patties in seconds , fry the fries servings an hour , and dispatch an entire meal to a hungry customer in just 20 seconds.
Nonplussed, the next day the stoic brothers plotted it out all over again. This hamburger dance allowed Dick and Mac to address the costly issue of personnel. The alluring carhops were swiftly marched out of the picture: Customers would have to get out of their cars and—gasp—walk to the window to order. The new staff was to be all male, outfitted in tidy, conservative paper hats and white uniforms which imbued them with an air of surgical cleanliness and precision.
Women employees, the brothers believed, presented an unnecessary distraction. Factoring in the lower labor costs, the brothers could now charge crucial pennies less than the competition. Fifteen cents for a burger, ten cents for a bag of fries, and twenty cents for a creamy, triple-thick milk shake. Dick and Mac were counting on the math of their reduced operational costs, plus a high volume of sales, to add up to a handsome profit. Customers roundly despised it.
Some drove into the lot, only to peel off when no carhop appeared. Others lamented the loss of the old, longer menu and the inability to customize. All to no avail.
0コメント