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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 18th, 2023

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  • Most baking doesn’t require the precision of weighing. They are rough proportions, not an exact science.

    An experienced baker, or really any kind of chef, will learn over time to make minor adjustments based on a lot of stuff. Maybe a bit less sugar, to taste. Maybe a difference in the brand or exact type of ingredient compared to what you’re used to. Maybe it’s a particularly dry day and you need to add more moisture to the dough.

    If it’s something I have a lot of experience with I don’t even bother with measuring at all, just eyeball it.





  • That is a return to their original business model that led to them becoming a global institution.

    Their dining areas were famously uncomfortable, witht he focus on being easy to clean and maintain and discourage people from lingering. The color scheme of red and yellow is purposefully garish, and combine with the lighting to make you want to get your food and get out.

    There used to be a set of slanted warming shelves connecting the kitchen in the back to the area behind the front counter. You’d walk in during peak times and see rows of sandwiches already assembled and wrapped. You’d order your food and the cashier would reach around and gather the food that had been prepared 15-30 minutes ago. If you wanted a burger without onions or mustard or whatever you’d have to stand awkwardly and wait. The drive-thru used to be quick, maybe a couple minutes total.

    I haven’t been to one in a few years so I’m not sure how it’s changed recently, but starting in the 2000’s they changed their business model to try to compete with places like Subway, Panera, Starbucks, Chipotle, etc. They introduced more greys and browns into their colorways. They expanded the menus with a ton more choice: novelty limited-time sandwiches, “healthy” options like salads and fruits, specialty coffees. They moved to making things to-order instead of having things pre-made. Wait times and prices both increased.

    Every other “fast food” place seems to have followed them. The closest replacement I’ve seen is the expansion of gas station/convenience store food. Places like GetGo and Sheetz near me usually don’t have drive-thru’s, but I can quickly walk in and grab a pre-made sandwich for a few bucks and walk out.

    What you are describing almost sounds to me like a modern automat.





  • If you want artists to get paid, you need to pay them more directly.

    The highest margin for most is probably merch purchased at venues, including physical media. After that it’s probably the merch store on the artist’s website. They make money off of ticket sales for shows too, but there’s a lot of middle-men and actual costs to shows so there’s a wide variance in profit margin. Even local acts at bars: sometimes it’s a pay-to-play scheme where the band could be losing money, sometimes they’re making a few hundred bucks for a night.

    Streaming on Spotify or an ad-sponsored platform like YouTube is going to give small fractions of a penny per-stream to the artist. There’s plenty of artists out there who have opened their books and shown they make more from releasing music as pay-what-you-want than from Spotify.