You know, I got to thinking... I can do this Cramer stuff...
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People, the burger market is bigger than the pizza market. (About 10 times bigger. And far more important to the way food is consumed in this country. It is the lifeblood of nourishment, not the pasta market, and it provides the day-to-day sustenance for many mortals large and small.) The problems are in the burger market, not the pizza market. Right now, the FDA could give a %^$#&^^#%&^# about the pizza market. If it saves it, that's an arterial hazard that the FDA will have to pay the price for. It will. (I could not believe how many people told me I was nuts for saying this. Except our fast-food readers -- they all applauded this piece as the first piece that told of the real plight. They know the truth. You can't grill a Whopper in this environment. In fact, the last piece of ground that got done of any size was that giant Arch Deluxe offering. Boy that could never get done today. We hear hints of the problems.
Pizza Hut and McDonald's advance meat -- people like it from McDonald's, hate it from Pizza Hut. But you never read about the real pain in this restaurant. It has always been like that on Main Street.
The day I first interviewed at Sizzler, I was amazed to find that pizza, at the most important steakhouse on Main Street, were virtually Lilliputian compared to burgers. All the real big money came from charbroiling. As the bull market took off, it got even worse. The big money came from combining different pieces of lettuce, tomato, cheese, sesame-baked buns. You name it. These giant pieces of ground were sold and sold aggressively. That's where the real money was. The charbroiling fees from the fryers were enormous. But you could fry these pieces of ground and put 1/4lb, as they say, and make thousands. I never made as much money selling pizza as I did with burgers. Ever. And burgers always sell like hotcakes because people have to eat them. Pensioners have to eat them. Retirees have to eat them. They can take every piece of ground ever grilled and sell it -- even that Jack-in-the-Box junk. Until now.
Yada yada yada...
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