It would be great if you could stop and get great food when you are driving between big cities like Los Angeles to San Francisco or Chicago to St Louis. Right now the pickings at the half way stopping points are pretty much fast foods, the Waffle House and places like the Cracker Barrel. It takes too long and the food is barely above tolerable.
What if there was a small chain of specialty restaurants that catered to up-scale travelers. They are situated at the best stopping places between the major cities, they have great food, served quickly and courteously and while you are eating they gas up your car and wash the windshield. The restrooms are delightful and the decor is elegantly local.
The trick to make it successful would be to use the new GPS and cell phone technologies now available. A customer leaving LA would access the menu on her cellular phone and pre-order lunch. The restaurant would track the phone via GPS so that as they pulled into the driveway the meal would be ready and the table would be set. The food would be great. Terrific young chefs who are struggling to find a niche in the high cost cities would clamor to be able to master their craft and build their reputations out on the highway.
This idea came up because I was reading a book titled An Appetite For America by Stephen Freid at the same time that I was driving a lot of miles on the interstate. Even I get tired of Beef Jerky and Starbucks Coffee. The book is about the Fred Harvey Company that for almost a century fed train travelers in the same way I am proposing feeding interstate travelers.
People driving $50,000 cars shouldn’t have to eat fast food.
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