The Case of the Disappearing Franchise

Proof

America's Test Kitchen

Society & Culture, Food, Arts

4.4 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 10 September 2020

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Historian/Fast-food Detective Marcia Chatelain is our guide as we explore the cases of American fast food franchises that once were, until they vanished without a trace. The Mid-century was the height of fast-food franchising: McDonalds, KFC, White Castle. But what about the chains that didn’t survive? From pyramid schemes and copycats to acquisitions and fish wars, we explore the culprits in the cases of the disappearing franchise. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thanks to this season's presenting sponsor, Kohler. They design innovative
0:04.4	sinks and faucets for people who do their best work in the kitchen.
0:07.6	The number one thing is trapezoids. This is Mike Nielsen.
0:14.0	The roof is sort of this weird trapezoid and then it has what I affectionately call the roof hump, but basically that little bump at the top that's also really just a series of trapezoids. I have developed a weird
0:24.7	spidey sense for old pizza huts where this is 100% true this has happened multiple
0:29.3	times now where I have driven around and I just you know the hairs kind of go up on the back of my neck where
0:34.2	we're in a good area for an old Pizza Hut.
0:36.6	Maybe you know the feeling. You're on a road trip or driving through an unfamiliar suburb, and all of a sudden,
0:44.4	deja vu washes over you. You've been here before, right? You recognize the
0:51.5	brick pattern, the oddly shaped windows, the trapezoidal roof.
0:56.0	But when you get a closer look, this isn't a restaurant.
1:01.0	It's actually a funeral home or a pharmacy or in some cities a
1:07.2	gentleman's club. But it absolutely used to be a pizza hut.
1:16.8	And I've been driving around and I have that feeling
1:19.6	and sure enough within a block or two,
1:21.2	there it is, there's the old Pizza Hut.
1:22.7	Now it's a, you know, a laundromat or something.
1:25.4	Mike runs a website called Used to be a Pizza Hut.
1:28.4	It documents the current lives of former Pizza Huts.
1:31.5	The site has been written up in the Washington Post and
1:34.2	Bloomberg News and it inspired this performance on Jimmy Fallon.
1:38.4	It used to be a Pizza Hut, it's not a Pizza Hut anymore.
	...

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