Poll of the Day > Pizza is not fast food

(+) Yeah! (+)

You have to wait a long time for it to cook and even longer if you get it delivered.

tbh, yeah. I never really thought of pizza as fast food

It can be.

I definitely consider Pizza Hut fast food. Mainly because the only time I ever ordered it I walked up to a food court Pizza Hut Express in Penn Station, ordered a mini-pizza to go, they made it in about 5 minutes (aka they reheated one that was already cooked), and they handed it to me in a little box and I ate it on the train.

And if you go into most Italian places and just order a slice or two as opposed to a full pizza, they'll generally just cut slices out of a pre-made pie and reheat them for a few minutes, and generally be on your way just as fast as any actual fast food place.



Revelation34 posted...

You have to wait a long time for it to cook

That's most fast food these days honestly.

One of the main complaints about fast food today is that its entire selling point used to be that it was both fast and cheap. Now you drive up to a McDonalds and you'll wind up sitting in the drive-up for 15 minutes and pay $20 for a meal. At which point you might as well have just gone to a diner or other eat-in restaurant, or just gotten normal take-out.

It's also not entirely helped by the fact that a lot of the younger generations now want food prepared fresh specifically for them (especially in cases where you order exactly what you want), which is anathema to the entire concept of fast food, which was basically "let's make food on an assembly line and keep popular items pre-stocked under a heat-lamp so we can just hand them directly to a customer". So even if you could run a fast food place like the old days where you're in and out in under 4 minutes, a lot of people would refuse to go there because they'd say they don't want food that was cooked before they got there.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

especially in cases where you order exactly what you want

That wouldn't work in most real restaurants. "I want the salmon with the rosemary chicken sauce and the beer fries that only come with the fish and chips".

it's a fast food.

if you can go into a pizza joint and just buy a slice and walk out all within 4 minutes, then pizza is fast food.

you can make the argument that you can go to a pizza place and order a custom pizza, and it'll take time for it to get to you

in which case, the very easy counter is that you can do that with a fuckin cheeseburger too, or you can go to mcdonalds and get one in 2 minutes

Revelation34 posted...

That wouldn't work in most real restaurants. "I want the salmon with the rosemary chicken sauce and the beer fries that only come with the fish and chips".

I'm talking more about the idea of me walking into, say, a sandwich place where you literally tell them what toppings you want, pick the specific seasonings, and so on. Or a burger place where you can order different types of bun, different cheeses, different toppings, different sides, and so on. As opposed to places that have baseline options on the menu and allow some variation, but where you're generally expected to order from limited options and only have a limited degree of flexibility.

Once you start getting used to the idea of building your entire order from the ground up, it can start to feel less appealing to go to a place that just gives you a set number of options with limited flexibility.

But even in your example, a lot of places would be perfectly willing to do a substitution like the one you mentioned. Like my local Chinese place will sub in white rice in place of the pork-fried rice that is supposed to come with their combo platter meal if you ask. As long as whatever you're asking for isn't ridiculous upscaling (ie, they might not be willing to give you beer fries as a random extra, but they might be willing to sub them in in place of cheese fries in an order that has them). In a lot of cases, it'll depend on the place, and how much freedom they allow waiters and cook staff to deviate.

ConfusedTorchic posted...

it's a fast food.

if you can go into a pizza joint and just buy a slice and walk out all within 4 minutes, then pizza is fast food.

you can make the argument that you can go to a pizza place and order a custom pizza, and it'll take time for it to get to you

in which case, the very easy counter is that you can do that with a fuckin cheeseburger too, or you can go to mcdonalds and get one in 2 minutes

By that logic if somebody made beef wellington and sold it like that that would make it fast food. Or lasagna too.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I'm talking more about the idea of me walking into, say, a sandwich place where you literally tell them what toppings you want, pick the specific seasonings, and so on. Or a burger place where you can order different types of bun, different cheeses, different toppings, different sides, and so on. As opposed to places that have baseline options on the menu and allow some variation, but where you're generally expected to order from limited options and only have a limited degree of flexibility.

Once you start getting used to the idea of building your entire order from the ground up, it can start to feel less appealing to go to a place that just gives you a set number of options with limited flexibility.

But even in your example, a lot of places would be perfectly willing to do a substitution like the one you mentioned. Like my local Chinese place will sub in white rice in place of the pork-fried rice that is supposed to come with their combo platter meal if you ask. As long as whatever you're asking for isn't ridiculous upscaling (ie, they might not be willing to give you beer fries as a random extra, but they might be willing to sub them in in place of cheese fries in an order that has them). In a lot of cases, it'll depend on the place, and how much freedom they allow waiters and cook staff to deviate.

Most things like that in an restaurant are prepped in advance. If they only plan on selling so much of an item they wouldn't allow it to be substituted in that way. Allowed substitutions are usually listed on the menu.

I consider it closer to take out rather than necessarily fast food.
It's brought home.. and idk about you, but I don't eat a whole pizza in my car either unlike a sandwich with fries for example. I also don't eat Chinese take out in my car either, it's brought home and left overs (which always exist) go in the fridge just like pizza.
I also don't live in a place that sells single slices of pizza though either like you may find in Chicago or New York for example. I'm sure that makes a big difference on perspective of pizza being considered fast food or not too!!

Revelation34 posted...

By that logic if somebody made beef wellington and sold it like that that would make it fast food. Or lasagna too.

Sure. Fast food is a question of how quickly you get served, not how quickly the food is cooked. Fast food beef wellington isn't a tremendously viable idea, but that doesn't mean the concept is invalid.

adjl posted...

Sure. Fast food is a question of how quickly you get served, not how quickly the food is cooked. Fast food beef wellington isn't a tremendously viable idea, but that doesn't mean the concept is invalid.

Then nothing is fast food since people sometimes wait 50+ minutes especially during busy days.

Revelation34 posted...

By that logic if somebody made beef wellington and sold it like that that would make it fast food. Or lasagna too.

yes.

we have a spaghetti joint in town, everything is already made, they just assemble it, you can just get a bucket of spaghetti, or a sandwich, or a piece of lasagna, through the drive up in minutes

like everything can be fast food

I literally read this topic after I walked into a Little Caesars earlier today and got 2 pizzas in 5 minutes, and the only reason I had to wait at all is because they didn't have any ready.

GameReviews posted...

I literally read this topic after I walked into a Little Caesars earlier today and got 2 pizzas in 5 minutes, and the only reason I had to wait at all is because they didn't have any ready.

Say what you will about Little Caesars Pizza (honestly, I don't mind it) but their customer service and speed is top notch

Revelation34 posted...

Then nothing is fast food since people sometimes wait 50+ minutes especially during busy days.

Why would you try to define such things based on extreme outliers and not on more typical service standards? Does a race car stop being a race car if at any point in its lifetime it ends up parked?

Revelation34 posted...

By that logic if somebody made beef wellington and sold it like that that would make it fast food. Or lasagna too.

Yes. By definition, if you could figure out a means of both mass producing beef wellington dishes or lasagna, and then keeping it stored to serve on demand, then you have literally created a fast food restaurant that serves those things.

"Fast food" is not a descriptor of the type of food, it's a descriptor of how it's served. ie, fast. And tangentially, it usually involves standardized food and a standardized menu so that food can be pre-prepared rather than made-to-order, preferably served cheaply.

Just because you're used to the idea of "fast food" being "burgers" (or whatever else you might think of) doesn't mean those are the only possible alternatives.

In fact, this used to be a fairly common form of fast food:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat

...and you can serve literally anything in one of them, so long as it's something that can stay preserved for a long enough period of time.



Revelation34 posted...

Then nothing is fast food since people sometimes wait 50+ minutes especially during busy days.

Yes, which is precisely why people have begun to complain that most fast food chains are no longer actually fast food.

Also, if that's the core of your logic, then the problem becomes that the obligation would be on you to define what you think fast food is, in a way that other people near-universally agree upon. You can't just hand-wave it to mean whatever you want it to mean whenever it's convenient for you at any given point in the argument.

Never really thought it was.

Pizza is cheese, meat, bread, and tomato sauce.

Separately those things are healthy. But put them together, and it's unhealthy. Yeah, sure...

I keep a small supply of very basic frozen pizzas to always have one available if through circumstances I can't cook. Ordering a delivery I regard still as something of a luxury indulgence and I do it rarely. It's a calories explosion regardless, fine at times, but not something I can afford too frequently.

ConfusedTorchic posted...

yes.

we have a spaghetti joint in town, everything is already made, they just assemble it, you can just get a bucket of spaghetti, or a sandwich, or a piece of lasagna, through the drive up in minutes

like everything can be fast food

Doesn't make it fast food.

Revelation34 posted...

Doesn't make it fast food.

Ahem.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

the problem becomes that the obligation would be on you to define what you think fast food is, in a way that other people near-universally agree upon. You can't just hand-wave it to mean whatever you want it to mean whenever it's convenient for you at any given point in the argument.

I'm still waiting.

You're edging dangerously close to this, btw:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman



Yellow posted...

Pizza is cheese, meat, bread, and tomato sauce.

Separately those things are healthy. But put them together, and it's unhealthy. Yeah, sure...

https://youtu.be/N202TC00IHM?t=283

Revelation34 posted...

You have to wait a long time for it to cook and even longer if you get it delivered.

Depends on the pizza. I used to live near a 7/11 and would walk down there for two slices of pizza and a drink combo every now and then. It wasnt always available so the person behind the counter would have to cook one up. It was an already prepared frozen pizza, microwaved and it was done and ready to serve within 7 minutes.

I definitely count that as fast food.

It's in a nice medium where it isn't fast food but you can also order it take out and you don't have to pay anyone a tip

It can be, if you fling it hard enough.

Yellow posted...

Pizza is cheese, meat, bread, and tomato sauce.

Separately those things are healthy. But put them together, and it's unhealthy. Yeah, sure...

A burger is cheese, meat, bread AND lettuce

Lettuce is especially healthy for you. so what gives?

there is fast food pizza

much of pizza is not fast food. but there is fast food pizza.

Yellow posted...

Pizza is cheese, meat, bread, and tomato sauce.

Separately those things are healthy. But put them together, and it's unhealthy. Yeah, sure...

It's not that the combination is unhealthy, it's the quantity individuals consume.

MomSpringfield posted...

A burger is cheese, meat, bread AND lettuce

Lettuce is especially healthy for you. so what gives?

Grease & stuff from the oil Pizza & Burgers tend to be cooked in make them unhealthy? It's not as if low calory versions of these don't exist.

OHJOY90 posted...

Grease & stuff from the oil Pizza & Burgers tend to be cooked in make them unhealthy? It's not as if low calory versions of these don't exist.

Pizza and burgers aren't cooked in grease. Who uses hydraulic pump lubricant for cooking? Where do you eat? At a mechanics?

FYI, cooking "grease" is the oils that come out of foods with fats in them when cooking. It does aid in taste and cooking. Fryer oil isn't grease. It's pressed vegetable oil. I will concede that tallow and lard are cousins of grease but they are usually water rendered to eliminate charring and making very stable, long lasting cooking additives.

ReturnOfFa posted...

there is fast food pizza

much of pizza is not fast food. but there is fast food pizza.

It would take at least 20 minutes to get a pizza delivered from Domino's.

Once you have the dough made it doesn't take very long. You do that the night before.

Revelation34 posted...

It would take at least 20 minutes to get a pizza delivered from Domino's.

That would fall under "much of pizza is not fast food."

Why are you having so much trouble wrapping your head around the idea that "fast food" describes the presentation and delivery and not the actual food items involved?

adjl posted...

That would fall under "much of pizza is not fast food."

Why are you having so much trouble wrapping your head around the idea that "fast food" describes the presentation and delivery and not the actual food items involved?

To be fair, I would qualify getting a cheap crap pizza delivered to your literal doorstep in under half an hour to be bloody fast food.

It's obviously going to be subjective, and some people will probably draw the line of 'fast food' at a place that will give you food in under 5 minutes. That's probably the kind of classification @Revelation34 is going for, and I'm mildly curious if that's what he has in mind.

Subjectively though, as far as I can see from basic internet searches, people are going to classify cheaper pizza as 'fast food'. Places like Little Caesars or Domino's. Yes, their pizza will take longer to prepare than say, a McDonald's meal. It's still hyper-streamlined over a typical restaurant experience. You basically just get the 'fast-food' label if you serve cheap crap from a corporate joint, but the $1 slice places also get the label, because they're literally faster than McDonald's etc. I get why Rev disagrees on something that could take around 20 minutes, but I think it's pretty obvious why certain pizza places are generally classified as fast food. They either have the same kind of corporate setup akin to fast-food places, or they actually serve slices, so it's literally fast.

ReturnOfFa posted...

To be fair, I would qualify getting a cheap crap pizza delivered to your literal doorstep in under half an hour to be bloody fast food.

Arguably, but I also wouldn't classify getting a Big Mac delivered to your door in roughly the same time frame to be "fast food." I consider "fast food" to refer specifically to pick-up stuff that's provided rapidly because it's not made to order. If it's getting delivered, it's delivery.

adjl posted...

That would fall under "much of pizza is not fast food."

Why are you having so much trouble wrapping your head around the idea that "fast food" describes the presentation and delivery and not the actual food items involved?

This thread came up specifically because people do call those places fast food.

ReturnOfFa posted...

To be fair, I would qualify getting a cheap crap pizza delivered to your literal doorstep in under half an hour to be bloody fast food.

It's obviously going to be subjective, and some people will probably draw the line of 'fast food' at a place that will give you food in under 5 minutes. That's probably the kind of classification @Revelation34 is going for, and I'm mildly curious if that's what he has in mind.

Subjectively though, as far as I can see from basic internet searches, people are going to classify cheaper pizza as 'fast food'. Places like Little Caesars or Domino's. Yes, their pizza will take longer to prepare than say, a McDonald's meal. It's still hyper-streamlined over a typical restaurant experience. You basically just get the 'fast-food' label if you serve cheap crap from a corporate joint, but the $1 slice places also get the label, because they're literally faster than McDonald's etc. I get why Rev disagrees on something that could take around 20 minutes, but I think it's pretty obvious why certain pizza places are generally classified as fast food. They either have the same kind of corporate setup akin to fast-food places, or they actually serve slices, so it's literally fast.

If you're going by speed only then free bread at sit down restaurants and buffers are fast food.

Revelation34 posted...

This thread came up specifically because people do call those places fast food.

A few different people have asked you for the definition you want to use for fast food. Perhaps you should take a stab at defining it instead of just looking for examples of things that you think don't qualify.

It's also worth noting that "fast food" is often used as a blanket term for any ultra-processed convenience food, regardless of how the restaurant is configured. In that regard, it's being used to refer to the nutritional value of the food, not the delivery format. You'll have to look at the context to figure when that connotation comes into play.

Revelation34 posted...

If you're going by speed only then free bread at sit down restaurants and buffers are fast food.

It's not just speed, it's the extent to which the model prioritizes customer turnover. The idea is for customers to be able to order their meal, receive it, and be on their way quickly, offering a convenient, flexible experience for the customer and allowing the restaurant to serve a large number of people in a relatively short amount of time.

If the expectation is that customers are sitting down to eat (as is the case with free bread and buffets), you don't have a model that prioritizes customer turnover, and therefore you can't really call it fast food.

Revelation34 posted...

This thread came up specifically because people do call those places fast food.

If you're going by speed only then free bread at sit down restaurants and buffers are fast food.

What's your definition for fast-food then? Nebulous like all of us? What's the defining factor - waiting in line and looking at a menu behind the tills?

ReturnOfFa posted...

What's your definition for fast-food then? Nebulous like all of us? What's the defining factor - waiting in line and looking at a menu behind the tills?

Food served fast. It use to include being cheap but that doesn't apply anymore.

How are we defining "fast"?

Revelation34 posted...

Food served fast. It use to include being cheap but that doesn't apply anymore.

So when I get pizza by the slice in less than 5 minutes that is... not fast food?

How about when I order a quarter pounder at McDonald's and it does take 5 minutes?

ParanoidObsessive posted...

It's also not entirely helped by the fact that a lot of the younger generations now want food prepared fresh specifically for them (especially in cases where you order exactly what you want), which is anathema to the entire concept of fast food, which was basically "let's make food on an assembly line and keep popular items pre-stocked under a heat-lamp so we can just hand them directly to a customer". So even if you could run a fast food place like the old days where you're in and out in under 4 minutes, a lot of people would refuse to go there because they'd say they don't want food that was cooked before they got there.

Cmon man, places like McDonald's and taco bell arent doing much different than they were 30 years ago. That shit isn't cooked fresh to order lol. The younger generations ARE however avoiding restaurants like McDonald's though... as they should because its trash and not even any cheaper than clearly better options now

Revelation34 posted...

Food served fast. It use to include being cheap but that doesn't apply anymore.

that means that pizza-by-the-slice places would be fast-food under your definition. it also goes under PO's 'hanging out under a heat lamp' category!

OhhhJa posted...

Cmon man, places like McDonald's and taco bell arent doing much different than they were 30 years ago.

I'm paying 2-3 times as much and waiting 3-4 times as long for my food. Being told to wait in a side parking spot used to be an extremely unusual thing that mostly only happened when you special ordered something, now it's pretty much standard operating procedure. I'd say McDonalds is doing things much different (and much worse) than they were 30 years ago.

There's a reason why there's a ton of "fast food is fucked" videos on YouTube right now. The industry is kind of at a crisis point.

An industry entirely predicated on being cheap and quick is now neither cheap nor quick. That's a large part of why people are pursuing other options (not to mention cost of living skyrocketing across the board, to the point where anything seen as a "luxury" is becoming harder and harder to justify financially).

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I'm paying 2-3 times as much and waiting 3-4 times as long for my food. Being told to wait in a side parking spot used to be an extremely unusual thing that mostly only happened when you special ordered something, now it's pretty much standard operating procedure. I'd say McDonalds is doing things much different (and much worse) than they were 30 years ago.

Well, I did say the prices were fucked now which is why only dumb people willingly eat at McDonald's and the like when there are many high quality similar priced places unless youre in a severely rural area. In terms of the food quality, same garbage as 30 years ago.

They're slower now for multiple reasons. One because they're understaffed because nobody wants to work a shitty job like that for what they pay and also because they're juggling the drive thru line with a ton of mobile orders (people that have moved out of the 20th century). Honestly, imo only the laziest subhumans use the drive thru now when you can just submit a mobile order and walk in and grab it. Can't believe the lines I see at places like chick-fil-a or starbucks because people are that fucking lazy that they'd rather sit in the drive thru for 20 minutes than get out of their car.

I sometimes like to make it known I'm laughing at people as I walk in and out of the restaurant while they sit there on their phones

OhhhJa posted...

The younger generations ARE however avoiding restaurants like McDonald's though... as they should because its trash and not even any cheaper than clearly better options now

For about the same price, I can get a burger from McDonald's that looks like it was run over by a steam roller, or I can get
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/c/c9b6457c.jpg
(That thing on top that looks like a chicken patty? It's a giant cheese curd! And the thing under the burger patty is a massive onion ring.)

Or I can get
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/d/d05a361f.jpg

Expensive fast food really is a problem, I don't know how these companies expect to survive. Currently they are surviving 100% on nostalgia, if they tried entering the market now they would fail

Man, now I want a burger.

captpackrat posted...

For about the same price, I can get a burger from McDonald's that looks like it was run over by a steam roller, or I can get
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/c/c9b6457c.jpg
(That thing on top that looks like a chicken patty? It's a giant cheese curd! And the thing under the burger patty is a massive onion ring.)

Or I can get
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/d/d05a361f.jpg

What are the prices?

Revelation34 posted...

What are the prices?

I'm assuming roughly the same as McDonald's like he said. But yeah, ive been to tons of great restaurants where I can get a burger, fries, and drink for roughly the same price as McDonald's. Maybe a couple dollars more at most considering what fast food places are charging for their dog food

OhhhJa posted...

I'm assuming roughly the same as McDonald's like he said. But yeah, ive been to tons of great restaurants where I can get a burger, fries, and drink for roughly the same price as McDonald's. Maybe a couple dollars more at most considering what fast food places are charging for their dog food

It's Culver's. I don't know the prices since I don't go there.

culvers is the goddamn shit

the curd burger is the best fast food burger i have ever had.

it's just a cheese burger, but the cheese is a puck of deep fried cheese