Shared Cultural Experiences

The fam and I just got back from Disney World! What a wonderful vacation, as it always is. Unlike a lot of visitors to Florida for the Disney vacation, we drive instead of flying. It’s a solid 14 hour drive and for some, that may seem like insanity. For the most part, it’s a much more enjoyable experience. You get to see the rest of the country and experience some different things. For example: North Carolina has the best barbecue in the country, hands down. Texas, St. Louis, South Carolina…they all stake claim to the “best” and they are all wrong. Fight me. South Carolina is an interesting combination of roadside attractions, tourist trap beaches and the dynamite duo of casual and overt racism! Think I’m over-stating the racism? Check out Maurice’s BBQ in Columbia. The food is delicious. The “Lee surrendered, I didn’t” paraphernalia sold in the gift shop is not as delicious.

“Mmmmm! This is delicious! Wait…is that ‘Dixie’ being played on a banjo I hear? Why do they keep asking me about my feelings about states rights?”

You’ll have to forgive me if the “racism and the South” thing pops up a bunch. I just finished watching Ken Burns: The Civil War so it’s kind of top of mind. Plus, you can read my review of it if you’d like :) At any rate, as you travel south towards Disney World, you also pass through Georgia. Don’t stop there. It smells. The people seem nice if you’re in a pinch and you MUST stop there, but take it from me, it smells bad. Ever smelled a paper plant? Yeah…that. It’s like farts only it doesn’t dissipate. That’s Georgia. They do have peaches…but so does every other state. I love peaches and you would think I would subsequently love the Peach State. Nope. Keep your funk to yourself Georgia. Plus, the Braves suck. No wonder Sherman burned everything: he was trying to cleanse that smell. Too soon?

I kid! Georgia is a fine state, with perfectly lovely people residing there. I’m talking a lot of crap for no reason at all. Let’s get to the point:

My point in all of this was to share an anecdote from my travels. The Disney trip? The rides were great, the food was amazing, the hotels were top notch, all in all it was a wonderful week. Oh, and I met Wil Wheaton in line for the Slinky Dog Coaster in Toy Story Land. No big deal, right? Haha, I tried so hard to play it cool. It didn’t work because I was gushing all day. Stay tuned for the podcast as I’ll talk more about it there.

BUT MY POINT, the thing I was trying to get to when I distracted myself, let’s get to that. Disney is always great. On our way home, we stopped in South Carolina for the evening and decided to grab some dinner. I looked up local restaurants and saw that this particular town had a sit down Pizza Hut! This was exciting news as those are a dying breed. We walked in and the place looked empty. There were still tables, chairs, booths, a counter to order at, etc but it seemed stripped down. The manager let us know that they were not the normal sit down establishment any longer: it was essentially an order and pick up location. We were welcome to sit down at the tables and dine, but there was no soda machine or ice. Our beverages would have to be from a bottle. We were a bit disappointed by this but we were also hungry so we sat down after ordering our food.

The manager brought us our food and I asked her matter-of-factly “so what’s the deal? Why are you only half of a Pizza Hut?” She proceeded to tell me a story that is far too common in our country.

“Corporate is shutting us down,” she said. Something that most of us have had to deal with either as an employee or customer of an establishment. “They took my soda fountain, my ice machine, my salad bar, all of the video games except the Galaga/Pac Man…but at the last minute they decided not to close us. They won’t return any of the equipment though so here we are.” My son remarked that the one video game they had was still pretty cool but you could see the pain in the manager’s face. “You think that’s cool? This whole back wall was video games. When I was a girl, we would come up here on a Friday night to play video games and eat pizza. It was the best.” The initial pain in her eyes changed to joy when she spoke of those memories. She loved this Pizza Hut. It was HER Pizza Hut, tied to her formative years and her home town. She was the manager of a store that was a part of the community.

This Pizza Hut doesn’t actually belong to her. It belongs to some franchisee or corporate entity who looks at this brick building with the strange roof as a line item. It’s just an “underperforming” store in a district or region that isn’t making enough money to cover the rent or operating costs or whatever other reason they have to close the location. This is not an indictment on capitalism or corporate business structure. I don’t know all the particulars of this location or how Pizza Huts in South Carolina perform, but Pizza Hut’s parent company Yum Foods is not interested in these sit down locations. They said so themselves. That doesn’t mean that it’s the right decision for a community, it’s just the “right direction for a company.”

we all had a Pizza Hut like this in our hometown…had. It most certainly has been shut down at this point.

I’m sure that this manager who grew up popping quarters in Pole Position was not the only person spending her Friday nights doing this at the local Pizza Hut. These are the sort of places that matter to a community. They’re the kind of places that you want to be able to visit when you come home to visit your folks. You want to bring your kids so they can see what you did when you were their age. These establishments disappear in the blink of an eye because someone making millions of dollars a year doesn’t feel like dealing with it any more. It’s the cruelty of capitalism and business: if you’re not profitable, you’re expendable. If you don’t fit with the “new vision,” you have to go.

It’s also a byproduct of the chain restaurants/retail stores. The mom and pop places that are local fixtures stay around because you know the guy who owns “Sam’s Pizza.” You went to school with his kids. You mowed their lawn for a few extra bucks and got a free slice of pizza when you stopped in the shop. Why should any of us care if the CEO of Pizza Hut made two less million this fiscal year? Eff that guy! He lives thousands of miles away and has never even seen my hometown! The answer to that question of “why should any of us care” is simple: we didn’t know better when we were kids. Blockbusters, Hollywood Videos, Pizza Huts and their kind all showed up in town when we were young and we had seen the commercials. They had the cool giveaways and toys! They had the celebrities endorsing them, they had to be better than our local joint we frequented! We’re learning this lesson now, unfortunately. We spent our money at the franchises and the mom and pop places couldn’t compete. They fought as long as they could, but they ended up retiring to Florida and closed the shop. Now, the corporate stores are feeling the pinch, too and they have no problem pulling up stakes. We’re left with empty store fronts, lacking job prospects and a desolate town.

In telling this story, it made me wish there was something I could do to fix this. I wish I could have stood up and stretched my southern-gentleman suspenders and said “have no fear, ma’am. My name’s Mike Pizzaford and I’m fixin’ to buy this here Pizza Hut. I got a soda fountain and ice machine out in the truck. Let’s make this place hop again!” Alas, that’s only a goofy dream. I don’t have solutions to this problem, but it is definitely that. Every small town seems to be suffering the same fate: their stores are closing up faster and faster. Business is not easy. It is said that 30% of new businesses fail during the first two years of being open, 50% during the first five years and 66% during the first 10. It’s not easy for anyone. Maybe I just notice it more than I did as a kid. One of the inevitabilities of life is change. I’m sure those who grew up at the turn of the 20th century were shocked to see how much their country, and to a lesser extent their home towns, changed by the 1920s or 30s. We’re seeing that today only in a different extent as online sales outpace in-store purchases and long-standing retail establishments fall apart. These sorts of thing are just part of change. What is sickening is seeing chains like Macy’s prepare to leave their former employees with nothing as the CEO’s and investors were scheduled to get multi-million dollar compensation packages. It’s the worst part of capitalism all wrapped up in a single sentiment. This visit to Pizza Hut brought all these thoughts flooding into my mind. I know that’s a lot to think about when I should have just been thinking about the Pepperoni pan pizza and breadsticks we got.

The world is not perfect. I’m well aware of this fact. Not all companies can stay afloat forever. Things can’t always be the same. For many businesses, it’s change or die. Pizza Hut’s transition to an all carry-out/delivery model may prove successful for them. I would still order a pizza from them every now and then, but at the same time, if given the choice, I’m going with a local place because of decisions like this. I like the ability to choose whether we will eat in or carry out. That manager in South Carolina who grew up around this Pizza Hut and it is part of her life? She may make more money and have an easier life as they move her to a new, smaller location with no wait-staff. There could still be a good ending to this story, but it’s difficult to see it that way while sitting in a restaurant that has had a good deal of it’s equipment taken while people still show up to eat there.

Those “brand changes” that Yum Foods is making: who are those for? The customer? The employee? Or is it for the bottom line of the company so they can make more profits without sharing them down the chain? Greg Creed, CEO of Yum Foods made 13 million dollars last year. That’s an increase of 50%. You mean to tell me that he made 6 million more dollars while shutting down a good portion of his stores? In a way, that’s success, but to do so and cut people out of careers? It seems pretty callous. Our president got famous for saying “it’s not personal, it’s just business.” But it is personal. It affects people’s lives so that you as CEO can bring home another 6 million dollars. Will any of those loyal employees see any of that 6 million? We all know the answer because we’ve heard this story before.