Junk Food Investments
I once listened to an investor talking about his failures as an investor. When shown the stock offerings from Carrols and McDonalds he decided to eat a burger from each and he decided that Carrols had a better product and service, so he invested in Carrols. That was a mistake. Though Carrols is now owned by a conglomerate with the crown jewel being Burger King.
Had I been faced with similar options in the stock history of fast foods I would have made other disastrous mistakes. Cases in point:
You’ve probably heard the story of Colonel Sanders and the success story of Kentucky Fried Chicken. He first franchised KFC in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1952. At the same time there was another fried chicken place that started franchising in Illinois in 1952. This franchise was called, “Chicken Delight.” They had a great slogan , “Don’t cook tonight, call Chicken Delight.” Better yet Chicken Delight delivered. Had I been given the choice back then I would have invested in Chicken Delight.
Another fast food investment mistake would have been between the 1950, Corpus Christi, Texas burger franchise, Whataburger and the Miami, Florida 1954 up-start Burger King. Whataburger started the whole make it your way that was copied by Burger King, and as I recall Whataburger had a flavorful burger and was much better than the first time I had a burger from Burger King.
I wonder if somewhere these franchises dropped the ball. They are all still out there, though some are very regional and have never made it to big time.
posted by The Guy Who Writes This at 4:00 AM
14 Comments:
So I come back to my home town after foggy years of being on the road and I meet a high school buddy who is sporting a pinstripe suit and looking wayyyyy too successful. We shoot the breeze and then he says...hey...I got a hot stock tip for you. Reagan is going to declare tungsten a strategic mineral and stocks on this mine are going to go through the roof. WOW...finally...I lucked out! I buy evrything I can afford which is about $600 bucks worth. I get a real nice parchment paper stock certificate. WOW! Things are looking up. I get to vote at shareholders meetings and become familiar with proxies. Long story short? Stock gets relagated to penny stock...becomes so worthless that they have to combine shares to make them worth anything. My buddy? A Xerox salesman...damn...fooled by the suit. But hey...I still have the stock certificate to bury in an attic trunk somewhere for a great prank after I'm long gone and some future relative thinks he hit the jackpot.
Moose
I guess that shows the difference between good food and fast food. Good food costs more so people won't buy as much of it. Fast food is cheap so it sells more and they can do more advertising. Success is pretty much all in the advertising and volume. I would have gone the wrong way, too. I wouldn't have invested in microsoft because I thought Bill Gates was a dweeb.
I am still steamed at Rat Bastard (name changed to protect the guilty, who was sort of a friend) for changing the King Cheese burger at the the Custard King in Astoria. It was consistently delectable for decades. When Rat bought the place in the early 90's he changed the meat to some institutional grade crap. It's changed hands since but the KCB still sucks. It's like microcosm of whats gone wrong with this world. Buy a good name, then run it into the ground and sell it down the river.
Whataburger is good, but In 'N Out is better. *drool*
Advertising is great ... but word of mouth is better. Unfortunately, it also has a stronger negative side than a positive one.
Look what happened to Jack-in-the-Box in the 80's. What was it, Hepatitis? Pretty much did away with their commercials for a decade. I think they're still recovering from that setback.
i'd rather give my green to the farmers market. they give free melon augmentation advice.
No shit???
Moose, mine was a company that I call Asstracks. I'll write about it someday.
Darev, dosen't it make you wonder about people that are good at picking stocks?
Anon, which brings up a good question, who makes the best burger in the county?
Amy, you are talking about a hamburger place, aren't you? If not the old "in and out" has no comparison to food. Dirty girl!
Walt, I'd forgotten all about that. My mind was flushed by the antenna ornament.
Irish, ......I've got nothing...
Tango, are you two related?
But what if you don't really need augmented melons? I prefer them smallish and without any artificial additives, please!
Here, here! I'm with darev.
Guess we don't need to go to the farmer's market. LOL
whataburger is still up and running in the southwest.
Nulaanne, All the companies I mentioned are still in business. Whataburger was expanding its market in the 60s but they just seemed to stop and fade back to the Southwest.
Not to mention, Custard King doesn't even serve real custard anymore.
Does anyone sell custard anymore?
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