• Drusas@fedia.io
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      2 months ago

      TIL the word “stroad”. Thanks. I just looked it up, and it’s so much the norm in almost every place I’ve lived that it was hard for me to even grasp the concept at first. Because that’s practically every road. (Although I must say I disagree with how they define street versus road because nobody actually uses those words as being especially different from one another in real life.)

      • 9point6@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        FWIW I’ve always intuitively held the same distinction. Streets are walkable and have stuff on them, cars optional but at low speeds if they are there. Roads are not walkable and link up areas for car use.

      • Landsharkgun@midwest.social
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        2 months ago

        It comes from how the Netherlands defines it. Since they use Dutch, English-speakers had to kind of scramble to find any word that would fit.

  • grue@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    What you’re looking at is a policy failure on multiple levels:

    1. Car-dependency in general, both in terms of transportation planning (making a stroad) and zoning (allowing the business to have a drive-thru to begin with).
    2. Failing to validate the capacity of the site design before approving it (yes, I know this was opening day – but several drive-thrus near me overflow out onto the street every day, even after having been open for years, so this kind of failure is definitely a thing!).
    3. Failure to have the police show up to clear the traffic and ticket everyone blocking the road (possibly as well as the business itself).
    • FireRetardant@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      There should be some kind of laws around drive thrus, their capacity, and blocking roads. Unfortunately since there aren’t any yet i doubt a cop could actually ticket anyone. Plus a cop is just as happy to wait in the line and block the road as well, because that has been normal and business as usual since drive thrus have existed.

      What is really frustrating is try blocking those same lanes as pedestrians or cyclists waiting in a line and suddenly everyone will tell you how unsafe and rude you are.

  • jaywalker [they/them, any]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    I will never understand the American obsession with mediocre fast food. I watched this happen with literally every new fast food place that opened in a small city off an interstate in Alabama. I can at least understand why small towns get excited for something new, but it’s always just shitty food or in this case just some fucking chicken tenders?

    • thejevans@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      My experience in the US is that as soon as you leave a densely populated area, the good, interesting food options drop off a cliff. In car dependent suburbia, these are often the best they have

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techOP
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      2 months ago

      I have had good chicken tenders from restaurants, but never chains. Chains I don’t understand why people get them. For the same price and better taste you can just go to the store, get some frozen ones and pick them in the air fryer. Heck season them a bit and I’d argue they’re the same as any fast food ones

    • Belly_Beanis [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      This was the case in my town when In-n’-Out burger opened up. The line there is still huge years later now after it opened. We tried it to see what the big deal was and it was…slightly better than Burger King? Yet it costs the same as a local burger joint who have way better food. I do not understand American taste buds.

      • jaywalker [they/them, any]@hexbear.net
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        2 months ago

        Yeah I actually live on the West coast now and saw that in a nearby city that has a lot of options for food. I actually really like in n out but I don’t like any food enough to wait in a line like this. I would skip at least one meal first.

    • Drusas@fedia.io
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      2 months ago

      Americans are overworked and underpaid with limited access to childcare and healthcare. Most have little free time or energy to cook. They rely on prepackaged foods and fast food.

      It sucks. Also we have a lot of areas called food deserts, where there aren’t any real grocery stores nearby and people there tend to rely on fast food even more.

  • thedirtyknapkin@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    FUCK.

    that’s my hometown.

    haven’t been there in years, but i used to walk there a lot. i typically just had to walk on the grass or in the ditch next to the road. then i had to plan my entire route around where i could cross the roads. very very few places to do that, and almost none that were safe.

    got harassed by the cops once because i was walking at night with a flashlight in that town. walking is so uncommon there that it’ll get the police called on you.

    also, more town than city.

    same kind of crazy line formed there when they got chick-fil-a and portillo’s. it’s in Wisconsin, so they got chick-fil-a late and portillo’s early in their respective spreads across the country.

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techOP
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      2 months ago

      Ha sorry, but I’m not surprised you had such difficulty walking. I also grew up in the Midwest where if you’re walking people assume you must just be poor and can’t afford to drive. Weird weird culture

  • CaptDust@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    Raising Cane’s did this when they opened their store by me. They sent out mailers for free meals and stuff on opening day, the lines stretched around the block and they had police handling traffic. It’s marketing fluff to make a ruckus in a new market.

    Surprise surprise once people had to pay, I’ve never seen lines like this again there.

    • Crackhappy@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      desert asphalt dystopia sounds like a late night soft heavy metal band that plays in Las Vegas every night.

    • Davidjjdj@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Good question, I saw the opening of canes in another town that had cops directing traffic in the inlet, probably 3 or so cars working just to get people their (honestly incredibly mediocre) fried chicken.

      • FireRetardant@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        A job that could have been done by anyone in a high vis vest and some traffic control training. But i guess canes probably argued the road is city property so it should be the city’s problem, even though it is canes business practices causing the problem.

  • harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 months ago

    Raising Cane’s is such a garbage operation. HQ staff had to help run some stores to meet opening dates. They couldn’t get enough staff to open on time because “no one wants to work anymore.”

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    2 months ago

    In my town there is usually a long drive thru line for Raising Canes, but it snakes around the parking lot rather than the stroad. The few times I go there I park, walk in, and walk out with my food before the person who would have been ahead of me at the drive thru has even ordered.

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techOP
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      2 months ago

      I will never understand how someone can justify waiting in their car for over 40 minutes for fried chicken. Not to mention the parking lot is empty! How do they not just think “I’ll just park and go in”?

      Seriously I don’t even wait at nicer restaurants for an hour. I’ll find something else.

        • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techOP
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          2 months ago

          Hey, also former drive thru worker! Unless drive thru was pretty much empty it was almost always guaranteed to be a longer wait. Exact same experience as you, people took longer getting situated in their cars slowing everyone else down

          And god help me how in the living hell do you wait for over 10 minutes in a freaking drive thru only to get to the menu and say “uhmmmm what do I waaaant…”. Ffs it’s a MCDONALDS. You’re going to order the number 3 and a diet coke like you do all the time Sharon.

    • Drusas@fedia.io
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      2 months ago

      I’ve never even heard of Cane’s. Is it a Midwestern thing? Southern?

    • Swallowtail@beehaw.org
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      2 months ago

      I count roughly 15 cars in line, which could be as few as 15 people. All that space taken up for such few people…