[rescue] SparcCenter 2000E on Ebay

[N. Miller]

--On Monday, June 23, 2003 1:07 PM -0400 Phil Stracchino 
<alaric at caerllewys.net> wrote:
> Actually, when I wrote the above of Carl's Jr, I completely forgot
> In'n'Out.  This is possibly because In'n'Out is so good I don't think of
> it as fast-food.

In and Out are all family only restaurants--no franchising.  They have
better quality staff b/c they pay at a higher introductory wage (over $9/
hour; managers can make in excess of $75k/yr).  They still have high
turn-over, though.

> It's a California-only chain at this point.  Everything is made fresh
> onsite from fresh local produce.  You can watch them make the fries by
> hand from whole potatoes -- none of the usual crap of extruding powdered
> instant potato mix through a die, they take whole potatoes and push them
> through a set of crossed blades with a lever press.  The beef is
> fresh-ground, the rolls are baked on the premises.

True about the fries (the reason other fast food fries are not as good has
to do with them being frozen--most french fries come from APAC countries
and are fast frozen there and flown to the US).  AFAIK, the beef is not
ground on premises though they do use only fresh beef (i.e. not frozen).
The buns are provided to each InO by a local bakery to the corporate
recipe.  They don't have the equipment on site to bake the buns at the
ones I've been in.  The biggest variation I've had at InO is buns and
under-cooked meat when they are too busy.

I've also noticed that patty size has gone down in the last year.

The husband and I did a lot of investigation of InO because we thought
that one would do really well in Austin, TX b/c of all the transplanted
Californians.  Then we found out that they only did family-owned
stores.

> The secret menu is fun, too.  Two by four animal style, fries well done,
> please.  :)

The best thing about InO is 'protein-style'--burger wrapped in hand-
pulled lettuce leaves.

=Nadine=