Blog Entry 5: Summary and Response Essay

     In chapter 1-3, the book talked about how the "Founding Fathers" built their fast food chain restaurants from little to what we all see today. All have their restaurants all over the world. It also talked about the up and downs of the stories when the fast food restaurants was still expanding to today's world wide restaurant and most of them are symbol that represent of American culture.The most interesting issue is how restaurants like McDonald, Burger King and others suddenly turn from a normal restaurant to a children-based restaurant.
     At the beginning of the book Fast Food Nation, it told us that the fast food restaurants was first a normal burger joint but with the new feature of drive-by. With the amount of cars in the late 1900's people often drive a car instead of walking, and most driver like to stay in the driver's seat, so how can restaurants serve customers like them? Simple, the owners figure a way called drive-by, which allowed driver to drive through a line and order their food, pay the money then wait at the end of the line for their food to be packed and handed to them. Those kind of restaurant often seen at the sides of highways, due to the amount of cars passing by the highway each days, which made the idea of drive-by order a successful idea toward attracting more customers.
     Suddenly at the 1970's, starting with McDonald's then the rest of other big fast food chain restaurants start to targeting at children of age under 7. They start to make a whole new meal for kid, the Happy Meal, which include a little toy that most children recognize and want to have. And shooting children commercial that would attract more children to pay a visit to their restaurants. One of the executive said this:" Children's commercial brings in children, which brings in parents, which brings in money." All of the sudden change on the fast food restaurants is because the opening of Disney Land in California, and all the children movies that attracted lots of young children which made the owners of McDonald, Burger King and others to recognize that children do and in fact bring in a ever greater potential of selling their products. In fact, McDonald copys the Disney Land and built little play grounded within the McDonald called McDonald Land, which allow kids to have fun before or after eating and the parents don't have to worry about the children playing at the play ground while they eat their hamburgers, it also make them feel like they are a great parents just by bring their child to eat and play at McDonald. When you walk into a McDonald today, you can see the tile is all in the 3 colors, white, red and yellow. Which looks like a children based restaurant.
     Due to the change of McDonald and other fast food restaurants, the major customer is no longer adult as it use to be back in the 1960's, now it's major customer have been replaced by children.