Drivers idling outside Jack in the Box drive-thru are just the latest Utahns to lose their sense over corporate chains
Small Lake City
By Bill Frost @bill_frost
Salt Lake City's bizarro fascination with corporate chain entities continues with ... Jack in the Box? That's what you were hanging your pointy hat on this summer, SLC? I mean, as a kid in California back in the day, I loved me some Jack in the Box, and I'll admit to being excited when the new JITB was announced as opening just two blocks from my house. I'll step over abandoned babies for an all-day breakfast menu.
But then came opening day in June. Hordes of people waiting in line outside, appropriately under a smirking clown head. A cavalcade of cars stretched a mile up State Street, blocking access to establishments that serve actual food, like Rusted Sun Pizza and Curry in a Hurry. You'd think Jack in the Box was including a free ounce of cocaine and a dirty soda with every order.
We've been here before: Remember the local debuts of In-N-Out Burger? Ikea? Trader Joe's? The profoundly disappointing Raising Canes? (They make one item—chicken fingers—with the taste and texture of a deep-fried wallet.) Utahns lose their minds over a shiny new chain, so much so that they'll sit idling for hours in a drive-thru line in a 100-muffler salute to the late, great ozone layer.
Meanwhile, literally across the street on 2100 South, there's Mad Greek, a humble fast-food joint that makes killer burgers and serves all-day breakfast platters—no line around the block there. Or, as the dashboard clock ticks off another hour in the Jack in the Box drive-thru motorcade, you could just pull out onto State Street and drive a few blocks to another local burger gem, Dolly Donuts. You can get a fat burger, a donut and a beer—top that, Jack.
He can't, but it matters not. The chain sheeple are still lining up at Jack in the Box, though not in the same gate-crashing numbers. Kind of like when Twitter-jumpers realized that Threads doesn't actually do anything but give you a second feed of useless Instagram influencers. Maybe I'll be able to slip into JITB for a Jumbo Jack® burger before Labor Day—watch for it in my Threads.
In the meantime, all we can do is brace for the next Big Chain Opening in SLC, whatever it might be. If a Wahlburgers (owned by Mark and Donnie Wahlberg's brother, Paul) franchise ever comes to town, it would be downright apocalyptic. Worse, reality star Heather Gay could open The Real Hot Wings of Salt Lake City in the Granary District and jam up the west side for months. Damn it, now I want hot wings... #JackInTheBoxSummerSLC2023 #NeverForget
Small Lake City is home to local writers and their opinions.
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