This week I’m drawn into yet another ’90s movie that had a crystal-clear tie into product placement: 1993’s Demolition Man, a Sylvester Stallone-driven blockbuster featuring a pre-Speed Sandra Bullock and a delightfully unhinged Wesley Snipes.
In it, Stallone is cryogenically frozen for 30 years, and he awakens to battle his also-crygonically frozen foe, Snipes. They awaken to a futuristic and seemingly utopian Los Angeles without violence, swearing, or toilet paper (shout out to my three seashell peeps!).
The movie is a fun ’90s romp, and I won’t get into any spoilers. It leans heavily on sending up the classic dystopian novel Brave New World — Sandra Bullock’s character is a wink to it, as she’s Lenina Huxley.
To get back to product placement: Taco Bell, we learn, is the only restaurant to have survived what Lenina refers to in passing as “the franchise wars.” Because of these battles, all restaurants are now Taco Bell.
This, of course, is meant to be just a joke (the idea of Taco Bell serving fine dining food is laughable) and a commerical tie-in (Taco Bell could promote the movie with themed cups and bags). But given how late-stage capitalism is unrolling before our very eyes, the idea isn’t so implausible, at least in a different way.
We’ve already been gearing up for it, if you remember the hotly contest chicken sandwich wars back in 2019. Chick-Fil-A had long been the reigning chicken sandwich king in America, but the sassy New Orleans-inspired Popeye’s shook the fast culinary world when they debuted their version of a chicken sandwich. Sales skyrocketed, and soon every other fast food chain — from Carls Jr to the perenially sad and depressing Boston Market — hopped on the fried chicken train, all hoping to cash in on some of the success.
America did not need 20+ versions of a chicken sandwich. Most are now gone from menus, although Popeyes and Chick-Fil-A still are going strong and are arguably the gold standards in the field.
It’s a perfect example of the joke that “capitalism breeds innovation.” It doesn’t. It’s kind of like how in 2014, in the wake of the wildly popular ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, every non-profit c-suite held emergency meetings asking their millenial staff members how they too could go viral with a social media stunt. None did.
We survived the chicken sandwich wars, thank god. But I think what’s next for fast food in America is if certain franchises and chains will survive the rampant inflation and price gouging that’s plaguing our society.
Growing up, I remember a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder Extra Value Meal costing around $5. Granted, that was 30 years ago, but the prices grew slowly. The other day, I noticed the prices of all Extra Value Meals topping $10 — a price that I’m not sure I’m willing to pay anymore for a crappy burger meal. For a few dollars more, you could head to a fast casual place and at least have a little ambience and better quality.
In response to declining sales across all of the chains, many are engaging in a trompe-l’oeil shrinkflation deals — think Wendy’s 4 for 4. You get a seeming deal, but it’s really tiny portions of food (the “value” size French fries I got recently somewhere consisted of maybe 7-8 fries). So many chains have these deals because people want the illusion of our old, affordable prices, even if the value isn’t there. Reaching into your pocket to pay $13.99 for a Big Mac meal actually physically hurts.
It’s possible to endlessly hypothesize about the meaning behind these price increases. Was is the pandemic? The supply chain was 100% affected. Is it now the inflation affecting society as a whole? Possibly. Restaurants almost always operate at razor-thin margins when it comes to profit. But it’s also quite likely that it’s just greed. Businesses don’t drop prices once they go up, and I believe that’s where we’re living now.
So, what would a franchise war today even look like? It certainly wouldn’t be a race to the bottom, price-wise. Something similar happens on ticketing resale websites like Stubhub. Prices fluctuate leading up to an event like a concert or a ball game. The day of, when you log on to see if prices are dropping if the demand isn’t there, often reveal something fascinating. Instead of dropping prices from say, $100 to $20 to ensure that you make at least some of your money back, many sellers hold the line. They do this to make sure consumers don’t learn that you can wait.
Otherwise, everybody would just hold off as long as possible. It’s a long game — they may lose a few grand occasionally, but they’re purposely trying to change consume behavior so they don’t lose more money in the long run. Which, of course, is objectively shitty, especially because these scalpers are preventing real fans from seeing their favorite performances in a world that’s already costing them an arm and a leg.
I’m curious if restaurants will do something similar. Instead of lowering prices, I imagine some will simply go out business, particularly VC-backed franchises that are being gutted anyway. If so, perhaps Taco Bell will in fact win the franchise wars, and all restaurants will become Taco Bell.
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