I don’t know Jack
It may come as no surprise to you that I’m not a fast-food fan. For me it’s not the principle of the thing: I just don’t like the taste, for the most part. And if a lot of calories are going to be involved in a food item, it had better be extra-yummy.
I used to take my son to McDonald’s when he was little, as a very special treat for him (the playground! the Happy Meal!). But I usually didn’t have much to eat there myself, except perhaps some fries. Same for Burger King and the rest.
But recently I was with some friends on a trip out west and one of them waxed eloquent about the culinary charms of Jack in the Box. I had heard of the chain, of course; how could a person travel around the US and not notice them? But I couldn’t remember ever having stepped foot in one.
Why would I? After all, they combined two of my most hated items: fast food and jacks in the box (jack in the boxes?). I’d owned one of the latter as a child, and although I wasn’t especially scared of it, I found its suddenly appearing and disappearing clown head creepy, and its feeble mechanism readily and frustratingly breakable.
But my friend kept talking about how good the food at Jack’s was, especially the egg rolls and the sirloin burger and the…well, suffice to say this didn’t sound like a McDonald’s menu. So we stopped at one.
I have to say I was favorably impressed, although I’m not talking gourmet dining here. But this was clearly the most yuppie-ish fast-food haven around. Jack tries harder, and succeeds in getting out a product that is at least somewhat tasty and somewhat varied in scope. As the Jack Wiki entry says:
Jack in the Box also offers an American version of ethnic cuisine…Jack in the Box also carries seasonal items such as pumpkin pie shakes, Oreo mint shakes, and eggnog shakes during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. In some locations, local delicacies are a regular part of the menu. Locations in Hawaii, for example, include the Paniolo Breakfast (Portuguese sausage, eggs, and rice platter)…In the Southern United States, the company offers biscuits and sweet tea. In Imperial County, California, some locations sell date shakes, reflecting the crop’s ubiquity in the region’s farms. In the spring of 2007 Jack in the Box also introduced its sirloin burger and followed this up with recently the sirloin steak melt.
Now of course you may know all this—especially if you live in the west or the southwest. I learned from going to Jack’s website that the company does not have any franchises in the northeast or northern midwest, and not many in the southest, either, although my friend had distinctly remembered a presence in the northeast. The puzzle was solved when I learned that Jack had at one point expanded into the northeast and then pulled back and regrouped when things didn’t go well.
Jack is good on regrouping, as its ad campaign (which, if you don’t live in the northeast, you may also be familiar with; I had never seen them before) has emphasized. The “Jack” character in the ads still has that creepy-clown quality, although he’s got a quasi-hipster style now. But the ads themselves are clever and not always PC.
Here’s a fairly typical one:
I happen to like this one a lot:
Jack in the Box posts the calorie content of its meals right up there on the menu for you to contemplate when you’re ordering, and the information is mighty sobering indeed. So I’m not going to mourn the northeast’s lack of Jack too much. Each item has about half my recommended caloric intake for a day, and some contain my entire caloric intake for a day.
Another thumbs up for Jacks. The fast food to have if you’re having only one!
Extra high fives for their recent get rid of the scary clown logo and call it just “Jack.”
You might get some flak from Tatyana.
I’m doing pretty good as just down the street is a J in the B and an In and Out, which is famous here in Calif.
We have some superb fast food here in CA, particularly In N Out, Tommys (chili burgers and chilidogs), and a bunch of outstanding (and some very poor) Mexican food places. The Mexican places are interesting, because a small hole in the wall joint that looks run down might be much better then a large expensive sit down place.
Jack in the Box, back in the 70s IIRC, got in trouble for horse meat and / or kangaroo meat. For that reason, some people won’t eat there, ever. I like their tacos, two for $1. They are very different then the carne asada and shredded beef tacos in a Mex place, but they are tasty. That said, I can undestand why some would be put off by them, they are a bit greasy and you have no idea what kinda meat they use. If that kinda thing doesn’t bother you, they taste good and are cheap (in fact that was my lunch today-4 tacos for $2).
What you east coast types likely have that we lack is the excellent Jewish prostami sandwitches. We have some of that, but I suspect yours beats our.
Chik Fil-A wins the fast food contest.
fudruckers…
not to be confused with pudf….
and what wins fast food for me?
the southern rib joints..
faster than the fast food
you can have a rack and food as fast or faster than a burger… 🙂
and in ny… we have hotdogs and pretzels and such so fast, there are no doors (street vender)
some roach coaches are surprisingly upscale
Have to put in a plug for Hardees/Carl’s Jr. They revamped their burgers quality about 3-5 years ago, and now produce items that probably rival a decent sitdown place. Also improved the fries markedly.
Haven’t had a chance to run across a Jacks in the area, but I’ll keep my eyes open.
My brother and his family are big fans of the Five Guys burger chain. And I keep hearing alot about In and Out. I’ve never eaten at either of them. I need to up my burger game.
I remember when I was a kid my family refused to eat at Jack’s. I think it had something to do with the food scandal that Don refers to, but it’s been so very long ago I can’t recall the specifics.
Man I miss Jack.
Lived in Arizona growing up. Jack >> McDs. I occasionally get some Jack when I visit family in Missouri.
But I can live with Whataburger. We still have an original A-frame store in town.
You haven’t lived ’til you’ve had Jack’s fried tacos. A So Cal specialty in selected places.
Or, um, so I’ve heard.
But the ads themselves are clever and not always PC.
At the end of the second ad Jack says “gratsi lala with lelo” She says: “just go!”
“lelo” means stupid, slow, even mentally retarded. Definitely not a PC ad.
I’m surprised Jack didn’t get a storm of protest from Atzlan , MECHA, or some such lefty Hispanic protest group.
“Just go.” LOL.
Don: about the excellent pastrami—that’s true in New York. But in the whole northeast, New York is the only place I’ve ever found where you can get really really good pastrami. Everywhere else it’s mediocre.
I’m craving a steak breakfast burritO right now…
meat ya ’round the cornah!
Love me a Jack in the Box….none here in Wisconsin, but they were all over DFW when I lived there. Still….Chick-fil-A is still my choice.
In & Out is aggressively expanding into our area. Although I have not tried it yet, Mr. Bother says they’re mediocre.
Ah, yes. The J in the B two tacos for a dollar…since the demise of the original Supertaco, the ultimate junk food! Just thinking about them makes me look around for antacids!
Never cared for Jack, but Five Guys …yes
Hey…what about some White Castle sliders?
Don’t see those here in Texas but I get some when I visit my sister in Louisville.
Here in Central Texas, I head for one of my favorite independent BBQ joints as first choice (check out Tin Star in Bertram), or Chick Fil A (their soft ice cream is even pretty good). Short Stop chili cheese bugers are good too.
And Neo and Don…check out Katz’s in Austin for a pretty good pastrami sandwich…not NYC good but acceptable.
In ‘n Out is IT for hamburgers in Southern California.
Back in the ’70s I used to eat at a Jack in the Box in Columbia, Maryland, so I guess they did try the East Coast. I don’t remember the food as anything exceptional. Of course, there were a lot of McD wannabes in those days, before the market shook out. Chains that aren’t around anymore–Roy Rogers, Burger Chef, Gino’s, etc.
I like Fazoli’s – Italian fast food. Unfortunately, none in the northeast.
Five Guys burgers are good, but their fries leave a lot to be desired.
Jack is pretty good. Just reading this makes me want to get a Sourdough Jack.
I haven’t had Chick-Fil-A yet, but I’ve heard they are opening up to five Bay Area locations by the end of the year.
Most of our Hardees were bought out by Tim Horton’s (the Canadian coffee-and-pastry franchise), but they were great. I always liked that the ones in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan never gave in to the lukewarm food pressure (after the granny sued McD’s for too-hot coffee).
I actually still tend to stop at McDonald’s. When I drive across the state, I like to get the Asian chicken salad or the oatmeal, and they’re one of the few drive-throughs that still has cheap, good black coffee.
I love burgers. All kinds of burgers. I can enjoy the charms of various kinds of burgers, from mass-produced fast food burgers to the ones in local mom-and-pop restaurants.
There was an excellent burger thread at PJM about a month ago. I linked that at It’s About Liberty, and another good discussion ensued.
I have to put in a good word for Jake’s Wayback Burger. They seem to be concentrated in the Northeast, and one recently opened near me. They claim to recreate the taste of traditional small burger joints, and indeed their burger reminded me of a place I used to go to when I was a kid, which was owned by former major league baseball pitcher Bobby Shantz. Yes, he did work behind the counter.
But before that, I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and I remember Frisch’s Big Boy. The owner of Frisch’s learned the ropes from Bob Wian of Bob’s Big Boy in California, where the double-decker burger was invented.
My family moved away from Cincinnati when I was eight. About twenty years later I had occasion to drive through the area, and I made a point of stopping at a Frisch’s. I wasn’t disappointed. Sometimes you can go home again.
Oops, I messed up the first link, to the PJM thread.
Actually, it’s amazing that I did as well as I did, considering all the links in my last comment.
I’ve tried to cook my own burgers, and, frankly, they suck. They don’t compare to anything I can buy, even at McDonalds or Burger King. There must be some kind of trick to it.
Ahhhh, food in Cincinnati. Some of the best meals I ever had were at La Maisonette…a Mobil 5 star.
Understand they closed the downtown location and were moving. Did that work out OK?
When my wife and I drive to Texas from the east coast, it’s become almost a tradition that I get a few jack-in-the-box-tacos at the first JITB we see. They are unique. Just don’t expect them to taste like a taco. They’re Jack-In-The-Box-Tacos, not tacos. And, like with the veggie burgers at work (which are great if you don’t expect them to taste like hamburges), JITB tacos are great in their own right. Just don’t expect them to taste like tacos.
I think they’re great.
Back when I used to work for a Fortune 5 company, it was traditional for people to dress-up every Halloween. Not everyone, just about 25% of the people did. You still had to have your normal day, but if you wanted to do it in costume, fine.
.
I was walking to the cafeteria for lunch when I saw Jack (the Jack in the Box Ronald McDonald character) walking down a side hallway.
I didn’t even bat an eye. I just assumed that the CEO of Jack in Box (i.e. Jack) was visiting our company that day. Like seeing Dave Thomas (from Wendy’s).
Only 30 seconds later did I realize that it was Halloween and that Jack wasn’t real anyhow. I had just seen so many of his TV commercials that the character had turned into a valid person for me.
.
BTW, I never ate at Jack in the Box. My wife actively loathes the place. She had a bad experience at one once.
I live around the corner from a Jack in the Box. I eat there regularly. The nice thing is that they will make the food the way you want it. I am on a low carb diet and get my burgers and breakfast jacks without buns, wrapped in lettuce instead.
Their salads and grilled chicken are pretty tasty as well.