Magazine declares Jacksonville 8th worst city for number of fast food restaurant

[copperfiend]

My in-laws are from Cincinnati. I know all about Skyline and Gold Star. It is religious up there.

[thelakelander]

I ate at Skyline back in June.  They are a local Cincinatti powerhouse but the cinnamon in the chili thing is not for me.

[thelakelander]

Oh, I definitely associate that thing with Cincy and will for the rest of my life.  I'll just try something different the next time I'm there.

[Joe]

LOL. I'm glad I'm not the only one who knows about Cincinnati's obsession with "Chili" (and Frisch's Big Boy - good call on that one too).

But my point is that Cincinnati is probably ranked so low on this list because places like Skyline, Gold Star, and Frisch's flew under the radar and weren't counted - even though they are obviously fast food. I'm sure the same thing happened with Lubi's in Jacksonville. There just isn't a big impact because there's only four locations, not four hundred.

So perhaps this Men's Health ranking is better described as a list of cities with the highest proportion of NATIONAL CHAINS, as opposed to fast food in general.

[thelakelander]

Fair point, Joe.

[Jason]

I see the fast food numbers in a good light.  We're too damned busy enjoying all there is to enjoy in Jax to stop and have a slooooow "quality" dinner or lunch so we prefer to power through the drive-thru and grab a quick bite.  The parks, the beaches, the golf courses, the river, etc are all so amazing that we would just rather spend our time chuggin beers and hamering down burgers to maximize fun in the sun versus sitting through a 30 minute wait for some "sit-down" food.

Am I reaching?


Nonetheless, there will be a new poll out next week.  Don't sweat it guys.

[copperfiend]

yes

[CrysG]

Also, for reasons unknown to me, people in Cincinnati swear by Frisch's Big Boy. But because it is a Shoney's style restaurant, it wouldn't go under fast food.

Because Frisch's Big Boy is delish. There is a Big Boy near Orlando and everyone needs to try it out.

[Overstreet]

Orlando's #s are skewed, or so the appear. Due to the incredibly messed up city limit boundaries, most of the FF joints are technically in unincorporated Orange County.

Thats right the real Orlando is downtown.  The rest of it is metropolitian Orlando (Sandford, OVideo, Lake Mary, Kissimmie, etc., etc.)

[Ocklawaha]

FYI, Oklahoma City is the home of SONIC and LOVES... Orlando only has three job categorys, pump gas, make beds or wait tables. If this survey was for real, counting their fast food joints would amount to about 1/3 of the whole city.

OCKLAWAHA

[DavidWilliams]

I am new to the forum so my apologies if this has already been addressed (I did go through alot of previous posts and didn't see it). Within Jacksonville, are eateries such as Zoe's. Moes, Tijuana Flats etc. classified as "fast food"?

[Springfield Girl]

Growing up in New Orleans the only fast food we ever ate was the Popeye's chicken we picked up on our way to the parades Mardi Gras morning. If we wanted hamburgers it was Bud's Broiler, not McDonalds. My mom and dad were adventurers and were always taking us to dark, mysterious hole in the wall joints. My favorite place as a kid was Ruby Red's. It was on the edge of the Quarter and you entered a door that took you through a long brick hall to the back of the building. You can still go in places in N.O. where people are shouting across the place to each other in French. Having a meal in New Orleans is always an experience.

[Dog Walker]

Popeye's Chicken started in New Orleans.  Popeye Copeland was a Church's Chicken franchisee and asked the chain if he could make his chicken a little spicy since that's what people in New Orleans liked.  They refused his request so he sold his restaurants and started his own chain.  Popeye's later bought Church's just before they went bankrupt and converted them all to Popeye's.  Seems it was more than the people of New Orleans who liked their food a little spicy.

It's hard to get bad food in New Orleans, there are just so many places with good food that the others don't make it except in the Quarter where the tourists don't know any better.  Even the counters at the Katz & Bestoff drugstores had great food.  Ruby's was awesome.

Red beans and rice on Mondays; heaven!

[Springfield Girl]

Red beans and rice on Mondays; heaven!
[/quote]
Oh yeah!! With some crispy french bread on the side. I can't get used to the chewy french bread you get elsewhere. My best friend and I would go to the neighborhood store and instead of candy, chips and twinkies we would get a loaf of french bread to snack on.

"Popeye Copeland" is that how Popeye's got it's name. I knew the chain was started by Al Copeland but always wondered where Popeye's came from. He used to have a huge Christmas light display at his house every year that we would go see during the holidays.

[charlestondxman]

That ranking is probably because Jacksonville has I-95 and I-10. All the tourists coming from up North down to FL and the ones coming up north from Miami and Orlando play a huge part of that. They have to stop at some time, and many of them decide to stop in Jacksonville because there's more options than at many of the Georgia exits.

Every exit off of I-95 has at least 3-4 of them, so that contributes to that.