How Fast-Food Eaters Split Along Ethnic Lines

Bloomberg | May 29, 2013 | V Wong

[dennisw]

Bloomberg so cannot be posted but here is the link>>>

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-05-29/how-fast-food-eaters-split-along-ethnic-lines

 

[IbJensen]

mmm,mmm,mmm. Dat Popeye chicken be the goodest.

[sportutegrl]

I went to the Popeyes in Seattle last weekend. It looked like every single black person in the city was there.

[KarlInOhio]

It looks like they didn't control for the demographics of the areas where the restaurants are. Thus a restaurant chain on the west coast will have more Asian customers than a national chain. Duh!

[MrB]

So, is it still racist to say that certain ethnic groups prefer certain types of food?

I guess that depends on if you’re white (automatically racist) or not (can’t be racist).

[ConservativeStatement]

So, Barry would visit Taco John’s and then Checkers?

[Cowboy Bob]

When I lived in New Orleans, I was told that if you want really spicy chicken, you’ll have to go to a Popeye’s in the black part of town...they toned it down for the white folks.

[aberaussie]

We are big Popeye’s fans and we are often in the minority at the store nearest us, but in the store in the middle of Winter Park, FL, the majority of customers are Caucasian, at least when we have visited. I think location has a lot to do with who visits.

[wrencher]

Another poorly-phrased, poorly-targeted, phony poll from a media outlet? Say it isn’t so!!!

Innumeracy runs rampant. Disinformation to be ignored.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

[RedMDer]

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[jboot]

McDonalds is an odd ommission. I've often heard blacks refer to MCD as "our place," and here in the Baltimore area some restaurants enforce it by giving non-blacks glacially slow or no service. The one nearest to my house is a prime example. If you are white you get a lot of "we outta that" or "we don't serve that". So I stopped going there. I am sorry that no one was polled about our other local bistros, "ChickNTrout" and "HipHop Chicken." I wonder what the ethnic breakdown in those restarants is like? ;-)

I've never seen a Churches Chicken anywhere except in run-down inner cities. Do they exist elsewhere?

[fella]

Wow! I just found out from my fast-food eating habits that I'm Asian

[Sherman Logan]

Right. In n Out Burger was more popular with Asians and Hispanics, but it’s only available on the west coast, where a large percentage of these ethnic groups reside.

I can tell you from personal experience that this chain is at least equally popular with white people who have access.

[Sherman Logan]

I’m apparently Hispanic.

[csmusaret]

Down home we call Church’s Chicken Da Holy Bird.

[texas booster]

From the comments section:

Yup - it's clearly geographic all the way down the line. All the Caucasian restaurants are based in Canada, the upper Midwest, or the Mountain West. All the black restaurants are based in the South. All the Asian restaurants are based on the Pacific coast (Panda Express is from Cali), and four of the Hispanic restaurants are based in California and one in Miami.

The fact that virtually all Weinerschnitzel and In-n-Out restaurants are in border states or Nevada explains their Hispanic clientele a lot better than “roots in their ethnic background”. And vice versa for Taco John's, with almost all their restaurants in the top 15 whitest states - compare 62 locations in Iowa to 3 in Texas.

Take In-n-Out. Until it moved into North Texas, I would regularly stop at one on the way to the airport in CA, NV and AZ. I made sure that it was on my bucket list for "Things to Force my Kids to do on Family Trips".

As with many "studies", there is much to look at besides the raw statistics.

[Charles Martel]

When I lived in New Orleans, I was told that if you want really spicy chicken, you’ll have to go to a Popeye’s in the black part of town...they toned it down for the white folks.

Yep, that's true. It wasn't that they changed the spice mix, but they definitely played with the amount that they used. The "mobile" Popeye's (built on an 18-wheeler trailer) that they used to haul out to the Mardi Gras parade routes always seemed to use an extra measure of Al Copeland's spice mix.

[Charles Martel]

I've never seen a Churches Chicken anywhere except in run-down inner cities. Do they exist elsewhere?

I've seen them combined with gas station convenience stores in the Dallas metroplex (suburban areas, not run-down). BTW, I've read that Church's is no longer owned by that Islamic investment bank.