Coming to Terms

English 110
Quick Casual In “A Look at the Intersection of Fine Dining and Fast Food”, Brenda Falk discusses the differences and similarities in fast food and fine dining. Her main focus throughout the article is the new found overlap in these two dining techniques. She also seems to feel that soon these two dining techniques could easily become one known as “quick casual”. In this article she jumps around from point to point whether it be reasoning behind certain dining styles, types of changes in these styles, or how they affect each other. Her argument was based fully on fast food restaurants adopting ideas from fine dining restaurants . Falk inserts an inordinate amount of her own feelings on the topic and doesn’t analyze the subject as well as she should have. She focuses mainly on the fast food business while lacking in her analysis of fine dining. She also should have made the paper more about what caused the changes in the restaurant business instead of the changes themselves. In the essay Falk has many examples of foods and restaurants that have changed and became noticed for their modern style, such as Panera Bread and Chipotle. She appeals to a large audience by adding examples many people can relate too. On the other hand, her article is extremely biased in multiple ways. She makes too many generalizations that may not particularly be true in some cases. For example she states, “ the fact that people today hate to make choices, preferring to have the best of both worlds...” (Falk,33). This may not be exactly true for everyone. She uses the previous quote to support her argument in saying that since people are so indecisive quick casual would be a good alternative. Another instance is when she states, “There are significantly more calories at table service restaurants” (Falk, 35). The prior quote shows her bias towards dine-in restaurants because she only uses negative examples of fine dining. Furthermore, her essay is very restricted. She aims her essay towards adults and college students with her use of language and examples of certain restaurants; But a lot of her writing makes you think otherwise. The core of her essay is stating that quick casual is the new alternative to fine and fast food dining. Though she never takes into consideration the ideas of being a vegetarian or that college students have dining halls or even the fact that not all people eat out. She had good arguments but they did not affect the people they were meant to affect. One of her main argumentative statements is at the very end of her essay when she says, “The country is focused on problems with obesity and poor eating habits ..... until major changes are made, food prepared at home will almost always be healthier than food eaten away from home” (Falk,36) . These type of statements should have been more prominent in the essay, she only brings up this type of conflict in the last paragraph and nowhere else. By tying in the eating at home or the obesity aspect more, she would have had a strong argument. As mention earlier, if she touched on all the aspects possible that would have made her essay more relevant Some of her most outstanding focuses were “Trend Mapping” and the “Trickle Down Theory”. Trend mapping helps culinary experts predict which menu items will be popular in the future. The trickle down theory helps quick casual restaurants enhance their menu with more fine dining dishes. These ideas help customers make smart choices. I was impressed with her inclusion of these two innovations because they go right along with her topic and fit into the main idea . Even though her essay was poorly structured at some points, there were also some good points throughout. I feel that her style was very laid back and readable because she used places her target audience have been and can relate to, as examples.
Brenda Falk creates this article with the objective of describing the many similarities between the food industry and that the in between “quick casual” style is the most convenient. She successfully describes these similarities and elaborates on the new innovative style but never fully creates a legitimate argument. If she discussed more on the topic of eating at home or the factor of money or even brought in some positives of fine dining, that could have created a stronger argument. She has a great sense of organization and style but needs to focus more on her analysis of the topic.