can you explain the different between a fistfight in a denny's parking lot versus a wendy's parking lot? I feel like there are subtle but consistent differences between the two occurrences that, as a non-USian, are lost on me
This is among the hardest asks I've ever received, because in my experience with anyone who's not a resident of the US or Canada it's kind of hard to explain the way fast food occupies the public consciousness here.
Part of the Divide is Wendy's is cheap quick dirty fast food and Denny's is more of a sit-down place, but in a weird Niche between that and a proper restaurant that we call Quick Service. If you've ever listened to the adspeak fevered madness that is Justin McElroy's Munch Squad you might be a little more familiar. These places are still profit maximizing capitalist hellscapes, but they don't give up the experience of actually sitting down and eating somewhere, whereas especially post-covid people don't think of the fast food chains like wendy's as a place you sit down to have a meal with friends, you grab and eat and go.
Wendy's is everywhere. There's a Wendy's in probably almost every town in the US that's got a population of over 2000, they are the subjects of jokes because like McDonald's and Burger King they are everywhere they are Burger Joint they are not that exciting, it's shorthand for normal ass place. If you see a fist fight in a wendy's parking lot, it is not that significantly different to me than a fist fight anywhere else. Someone got pissed, someone took a swing, what have you, insomuch as fist fights are kind of common in the US.
Denny's, on the other hand, has garnered a strange reputation. They used to be open 24/7 no matter where they were, and they lean very heavily on the American Diner aesthetic that not a lot of other chain restaurants really do anymore. Being open 24/7 already draws odd company, but denny's itself is also weird. Their Online presence and advertising are constantly bizarre, their headquarters is a giant cement monolith that would even make a brutalist want to give it some color and shape, and their menu that they had as a tie-in for Peter Jackson's Hobbit movies was so good it became a thing of legend. There are several theories that Denny's is just an American cryptid, which kind of is— while in the age of delivery it's not as true as it once was, it used to be in the 2000s and earlier that you just ended up at Denny's if you were out after 10:00 p.m., it just happened. It's not as breakfast focused as it's snooty older sister the International House of Pancakes (IHOP), and it lacks the true PVP violence of its unhinged Southern cousin Waffle House. If a fist fight breaks out in a Denny's parking lot something is going down, something weird is happening, and while the fight itself might not be that more spectacular than a Wendy's parking lot fight there is something about it that just tips it over into the uncanny.
To reduce it to video game terms, Wendy's parking lot fist fights are the normal mooks and enemies in any given level, whereas a Denny's parking lot fight is that boss or enemy who's not the final boss, but weirdly memorable that everybody seems to talk about.
I hope this is in some way elucidating. I might not be the best source, as I am well associated with Denny's and still eat there often despite there only being one left in the city, and it is well known that I hate Wendy's on top of it being just a shitty company and by far the restaurant that has made me violently ill the most times, fourfold beyond the next offender. I think, though, just about anyone will agree that Denny's fights are always weirder.
Also I don't remember the fights I was in !t either because it was during the time where I drank a lot so most of it's gone. Funny, now that I'm sober I don't get in altercations all the time. Wonder why that is.
even better than me taking one of my own shitposts too seriously and it spiralling into an essay is when someone else does the essay part, thank you Andréa for this fascinating and informative perspective!
On the one hand part of me is like oh thank God others think this is coherent, that was worried that it was illegible rambling
On the other hand I put maybe 5 minutes of thought into this, it's scaring me that people are considering it a decent analysis
You're welcome? I guess????
