Part 7 (1/2)
The McDonald's Corporation had never expected the case to reach the courtroom. The burden on the defendants was enormous: Morris and Steel had to a.s.semble witnesses and official doc.u.ments to support the broad a.s.sertions in the leaflet. The pair proved to be indefatigable researchers, aided by the McLibel Support Campaign, an international network of activists. By the end of the trial, the court record included 40,000 pages of doc.u.ments and witness statements, as well as 18,000 pages of transcripts.
McDonald's had made a huge tactical error by a.s.serting that everything in the leaflet was libelous - not only the more extreme claims (”McDonald's and Burger King are... using lethal poisons to destroy vast areas of Central American rainforest”), but also the more innocuous ones (”a diet high in fat, sugar, animal products, and salt... is linked with cancers of the breast and bowel, and heart disease”). The blunder allowed Steel and Morris to turn the tables, putting McDonald's on trial and forcing a public examination of the chain's labor, marketing, environmental, nutrition, food safety, and animal welfare policies. Some of the chain's top executives were forced to appear on the stand and endure days of cross-examination by the pair of self-taught attorneys. The British media seized upon the David-and-Goliath aspects of the story and made the trial front-page news.
After years of legal wrangling, the McLibel trial formally began in March of 1994. It ended more than three years later, when Justice Rodger Bell submitted an 800-page Judgement. Morris and Steel were found to have libeled McDonald's. The judge ruled that the two had failed to prove most of their allegations - but had indeed proved some. According to Justice Bell's decision, McDonald's did ”exploit” children through its advertising, endanger the health of customers who eat there several times a week, pay its restaurant workers unreasonably low wages, and bear responsibility for the cruelty inflicted upon animals by many of its suppliers. Morris and Steel were fined 60,000. The two promptly announced they would appeal the decision. ”Mc-Donald's don't deserve a penny,” Helen Steel said, ”and in any event we haven't got any money.”
Evidence submitted during the McLibel trial disclosed much about the inner workings of the McDonald's Corporation. Many of its labor, food safety, and advertising practices had already been publicly criticized in the United States for years. Testimony in the London courtroom, however, provided new revelations about the company's att.i.tude toward civil liberties and freedom of speech. Morris and Steel were stunned to discover that McDonald's had infiltrated London Greenpeace with informers, who regularly attended the group's meetings and spied on its members.
The spying had begun in 1989 and did not end until 1991, nearly a year after the libel suit had been filed. McDonald's had used subterfuge to find out who'd distributed the leaflets, and also learnt from its spies how Morris and Steel reacted to the company's legal action. The company had employed at least seven different undercover agents. During some London Greenpeace meetings, about half the people in attendance were corporate spies. One spy broke into the London Greenpeace office, took photographs, and stole doc.u.ments. Another had a six-month affair with a member of London Greenpeace while informing on his activities. McDonald's spies inadvertently spied on each other, unaware that the company was using at least two different detective agencies. They partic.i.p.ated in demonstrations against McDonald's and gave out anti-McDonald's leaflets.
During the trial, Sidney Nicholson - the McDonald's vice president who'd supervised the undercover operation, a former police officer in South Africa and former superintendent in London's Metropolitan Police - admitted in court that McDonald's had used its law enforcement connections to obtain information on Steel and Morris from Scotland Yard. Indeed, it was officers belonging to Special Branch, an elite British unit that tracks ”subversives” and organized crime figures, who informed McDonald's of the pair's ident.i.ty. One of the company's undercover agents later had a change of heart and testified on behalf of the McLibel defendants. ”At no time did I believe they were dangerous people,” said Fran Tiller, following her conversion to vegetarianism. ”I think they genuinely believed in the issues they were supporting.”
For Dave Morris, perhaps the most disturbing moment of the trial was hearing how McDonald's had obtained his home address. One of its spies admitted in court that a gift of baby clothes had been a ruse to find out where Morris lived. Morris had unwittingly accepted the gift, believing it to be an act of friends.h.i.+p - and was disgusted to learn that his infant son had for months worn outfits supplied by McDonald's as part of its surveillance.
I visited Dave Morris one night in February of 1999, as he prepared for an appearance the next day before the Court of Appeal. Morris lives in a small flat above a carpet shop in North London. The apartment lacks central heating, the ceilings are sagging, and the place is crammed with books, boxes, files, transcripts, leaflets, and posters announcing various demonstrations. The place feels like everything Mc-Donald's is not - lively, unruly, deeply idiosyncratic, and organized according to a highly complex scheme that only one human being could possibly understand. Morris spent about an hour with me, as his son finished homework upstairs. He spoke intensely about Mc-Donald's, but stressed that its arrogant behavior was just one manifestation of a much larger problem now confronting the world: the rise of powerful multinationals that s.h.i.+ft capital across borders with few qualms, that feel no allegiance to any nation, no loyalty to any group of farmers, workers, or consumers.
The British journalist John Vidal, in his book on the McLibel trial, noted some of the similarities between Dave Morris and Ray Kroc. As Morris offered an impa.s.sioned critique of globalization, the comparison made sense - both men true believers, charismatic, driven by ideas outside the mainstream, albeit championing opposite viewpoints. During the McLibel trial, Paul Preston, the president of Mc-Donald's UK, had said, ”Fitting into a finely working machine, that's what McDonald's is about.” And here was Morris, in the living room of his North London flat, warmed by a gas heater in the fireplace, surrounded by stacks of papers and files, caring nothing for money, determined somehow to smash that machine.
On March 31, 1999, the three Court of Appeal justices overruled parts of the original McLibel verdict, supporting the leaflet's a.s.sertions that eating too much McDonald's food can cause heart disease and ruling that it was 'fair comment' to say that workers are treated badly. The court reduced the damages owed by Steel and Morris to about 40,000. The McDonald's Corporation had previously announced that it had no intention of collecting the money and would no longer try to stop London Greenpeace from distributing the leaflet (which by then had been translated into twenty-seven languages). McDonald's was tired of the bad publicity and wanted this case to go away. But Morris and Steel were not yet through with McDonald's. They appealed the Court of Appeal decision to the British House of Lords and sued the police for providing information about them to McDonalds. Scotland Yard settled the case out of court, apologizing to the pair and paying them 10,000 in damages. When the House of Lords refused to hear their case, Morris and Steel filed an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights, challenging the validity not only of the verdict, but also of the British libel laws. As of this writing, the McLibel case is entering its eleventh year. After intimidating British critics for years, the McDonald's Corporation picked on the wrong two people.
back at the ranch.
WHEN THE FIRST McDonald's opened in East Germany, in December of 1990, the company was unsure how American food would be received there. On opening day the McDonald's in Plauen served potato dumplings, a Vogtland favorite, along with hamburgers and fries. Today hundreds of McDonald's restaurants dot the landscape of eastern Germany. In town after town, statues of Lenin have come down and statues of Ronald McDonald have gone up. One of the largest is in Bitterfeld, where a three-story-high, illuminated Ronald can be seen from the autobahn for miles. McDonald's opened in East Germany, in December of 1990, the company was unsure how American food would be received there. On opening day the McDonald's in Plauen served potato dumplings, a Vogtland favorite, along with hamburgers and fries. Today hundreds of McDonald's restaurants dot the landscape of eastern Germany. In town after town, statues of Lenin have come down and statues of Ronald McDonald have gone up. One of the largest is in Bitterfeld, where a three-story-high, illuminated Ronald can be seen from the autobahn for miles.
During my first visit to Plauen, in October of 1998, McDonald's was the only business open in the central market square. It was Reunification Day, a national holiday, and everything else was closed, the small shops selling used clothing and furniture, the pseudo-Irish pub on one corner, the pizzeria on another. McDonald's was packed, overflowing not just with children and their parents, but with teenagers, seniors, young couples, a cross-section of the town. The restaurant was brightly lit and spotlessly clean. Cheerful middle-aged women took orders behind the counter, worked in the kitchen, delivered food to tables, scrubbed the windows. Most of them had worked at this Mc-Donald's for years. Some had been there since the day it opened. Across the street stood an abandoned building once occupied by a branch of the East German army; a few blocks away the houses were dilapidated and covered in graffiti, looking as though the Wall had never fallen. That day McDonald's was the nicest, cleanest, brightest place in all of Plauen. Children played with the Hot Wheels and Bar-bi that came with their Happy Meals, and smiling workers poured free refills of coffee. Outside the window, three bright red flags bearing the golden arches fluttered in the wind.
Life after Communism has not been easy in Plauen. At first there was an outpouring of great optimism and excitement. As in other East German towns, people quickly used their new liberty to travel overseas for the first time. They borrowed money to buy new cars. According to Thomas Kuttler, the hero of Plauen's 1989 uprising, thoughts about Friedrich von Schiller and the freedom of their forefathers soon gave way to a hunger for Western consumer goods. Kuttler is disappointed by how fast the idealism of 1989 vanished, but feels little nostalgia for the old East Germany. Under Communist rule in Plauen, a person could be arrested for watching television broadcasts from the West or for listening to American rock 'n' roll. Today in Plauen you can get dozens of channels on cable and even more via satellite. MTV is popular there, and most of the songs on the radio are in English. Becoming part of the larger world, however, has had its costs. Plauen's economy has suffered as one after another, old and inefficient manufacturing plants closed, throwing people out of work. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Plauen has lost about 10 percent of its population, as people move away in search of a better life. The town seems unable to break free from its past. Every year a few unexploded bombs from World War II are still discovered and defused.
At the moment, Plauen's unemployment rate is about 20 percent - twice the rate in Germany as a whole. You see men in their forties, a lost generation, too young to retire but too old to fit into the new scheme, staggering drunk in the middle of the day. The factory workers who bravely defied and brought down the old regime are the group who've fared worst, the group with the wrong skills and the least hope. Others have done quite well.
Manfred Voigt, the McDonald's franchisee in Plauen, is now a successful businessman who, with his wife, Brigitte, vacations in Florida every year. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal Wall Street Journal, Manfred Voigt attributed his recent success to forces beyond his control. ”It was dumb luck,” Voigt explained; ”fate.” He and his wife had no money and could not understand why McDonald's had chosen them to own its first restaurant in East Germany, why the company had trained and financed them. One explanation, never really explored in the Wall Street Journal Wall Street Journal profile, might be that the Voigts were one of the most powerful couples in Plauen under the old regime. They headed the local branch of Konsum, the state-controlled foodservice monopoly. Today the Voigts are one of Plauen's wealthiest couples; they own two other McDonald's in nearby towns. Throughout the former Eastern bloc, members of the old Communist elite have had the easiest time adjusting to Western consumerism. They had the right connections and many of the right skills. They now own some of the most lucrative franchises. profile, might be that the Voigts were one of the most powerful couples in Plauen under the old regime. They headed the local branch of Konsum, the state-controlled foodservice monopoly. Today the Voigts are one of Plauen's wealthiest couples; they own two other McDonald's in nearby towns. Throughout the former Eastern bloc, members of the old Communist elite have had the easiest time adjusting to Western consumerism. They had the right connections and many of the right skills. They now own some of the most lucrative franchises.
The high unemployment rate in Plauen has created social and political instability. What seems lacking is a stable middle ground. Roughly a third of the young people in eastern Germany now express support for various nationalist and neo-n.a.z.i groups. Right-wing extremists have declared large parts of the east to be ”foreigner-free” zones, where immigrants are not welcome. The roads leading into Plauen are decorated with signs posted by the Deutschland Volks Union, a right-wing party. ”Germany for the Germans,” the signs say. ”Jobs for Germans, Not Foreigners.” Neo-n.a.z.i skinheads have thus far not caused much trouble in Plauen, though a black person today needs real courage to walk the city's streets at night. The opposition to American fast food voiced by many environmentalists and left-wing groups does not seem to be shared by German groups on the far right. When I asked an employee at the McDonald's in Plauen if the restaurant had ever been the target of neo-n.a.z.is, she laughed and said there'd never been any threats of that kind. People in the area did not consider McDonald's to be ”foreign.”
Around the time that Plauen got its McDonald's in 1990, a new nightclub opened in a red brick building on the edge of town. ”The Ranch” has an American flag and a Confederate flag hanging out front. Inside there's a long bar, and the walls are decorated with old-fas.h.i.+oned farm implements, saddles, bridles, and wagon wheels. Frieder Stephan, the owner of The Ranch, was inspired by photographs of the American West, but gathered all the items on the walls from nearby farms. The place looks like a bar in Cripple Creek, circa 1895. Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Frieder Stephan was a disc jockey on an East German tourist ferry. He secretly listened to Creedance Clearwater, the Stones, and the Lovin' Spoonful. Now forty-nine years old, he is the leading impresario in Plauen's thriving country-western scene, booking local bands (like the Midnight Ramblers and C.C. Raider) at his club. The city's country-western fans call themselves ”Vogtland Cowboys,” put on their western boots and ten-gallon hats at night, and hit the town, drinking at The Ranch or joining the Square Dance Club at a bar called the White Magpie. The Square Dance Club is sponsored by Thommy's Western Store on Friedrich Engels Avenue. Plauen now has a number of small western-wear shops like Thommy's that sell imported cowboy boots, cowboy posters, fancy belt buckles, work s.h.i.+rts with snaps, and Wrangler jeans. While teenagers in Colorado Springs today could not care less about cowboys, kids in Plauen are sporting bolo ties and cowboy hats.
Every Wednesday night, a few hundred people gather at The Ranch for line dancing. Members of Plauen's American Car Club pull up in their big Ford and Chevy trucks. Others come from miles away, dressed in their western best, ready to dance. Most of them are working cla.s.s, and many are unemployed. Their ages range from seven years old to seventy. If somebody doesn't know how to line-dance, a young woman named Petra gives lessons. People wear their souvenir T-s.h.i.+rts from Utah. They smoke Marlboros and drink beer. They listen to Willie Nelson, Garth Brooks, Johnny Cash - and they dance, kicking up their boots, twirling their partners, waving their cowboy hats in the air. And for a few hours the spirit of the American West fills this funky bar deep in the heart of Saxony, in a town that has seen too much history, and the old dream lives on, the dream of freedom without limits, self-reliance, and a wide-open frontier.
epilogue: have it your way
WORLDS AWAY from The Ranch, Dale Lasater stands in a corral full of huge bulls, feeding them treats from his hand. Be-hind him on this warm spring day, the Rockies are still white with snow. Lasater is in his early fifties, with a handlebar mustache and wire-rimmed gla.s.ses. He wears worn-out jeans and boots, and a well-ironed, b.u.t.ton-down s.h.i.+rt, looking part-cowboy, part-Ivy Leaguer. The bulls that crowd around him seem almost sweet, acting more like a bunch of Ferdinands than like fierce symbols of machismo. They were bred to be gentle, never dehorned, and never roped. The Lasater Ranch occupies about 30,000 acres of shortgra.s.s prairie near the town of Matheson, Colorado. It is a profitable, working ranch that for half a century has not used pesticides, herbicides, poisons, or commercial fertilizers on the land, has not killed local predators such as coyotes, has not administered growth hormones, anabolic steroids, or antibiotics to the cattle. The Lasaters are by no means typical, but have worked hard to change how American beef is produced. Their philosophy of cattle ranching is based upon a simple tenet: ”Nature is smart as h.e.l.l.” from The Ranch, Dale Lasater stands in a corral full of huge bulls, feeding them treats from his hand. Be-hind him on this warm spring day, the Rockies are still white with snow. Lasater is in his early fifties, with a handlebar mustache and wire-rimmed gla.s.ses. He wears worn-out jeans and boots, and a well-ironed, b.u.t.ton-down s.h.i.+rt, looking part-cowboy, part-Ivy Leaguer. The bulls that crowd around him seem almost sweet, acting more like a bunch of Ferdinands than like fierce symbols of machismo. They were bred to be gentle, never dehorned, and never roped. The Lasater Ranch occupies about 30,000 acres of shortgra.s.s prairie near the town of Matheson, Colorado. It is a profitable, working ranch that for half a century has not used pesticides, herbicides, poisons, or commercial fertilizers on the land, has not killed local predators such as coyotes, has not administered growth hormones, anabolic steroids, or antibiotics to the cattle. The Lasaters are by no means typical, but have worked hard to change how American beef is produced. Their philosophy of cattle ranching is based upon a simple tenet: ”Nature is smart as h.e.l.l.”
Dale Lasater's iconoclasm seems bred in the bone. One of his grandfathers headed a Texas cattleman's a.s.sociation during the early 1900s and led the fight against the Beef Trust, testifying before Congress and calling for strict enforcement of the ant.i.trust laws. In retaliation, the Beef Trust refused for years to buy Lasater cattle. Dale Lasater's father, Tom, dropped out of Princeton after the Wall Street crash of 1929 to become a full-time rancher. Hard times forced him to seek ways of raising cattle inexpensively. He decided to let nature do most of the work. He bred cattle to be gentle, fertile, and strong, not caring in the least how they looked. He combined Herefords, Shorthorns, and Brahmans to make a whole new breed, only the second new breed of cattle registered in the United States. And he gave the breed an appropriately American name: the Beefmaster. In 1948, Tom Lasater moved his family from Texas to eastern Colorado. Despite the anger and disbelief of his neighbors, he refused to kill predators or to allow hunting on his land, permitting animals that other ranchers exterminated - rattlesnakes, coyotes, badgers, ground squirrels, gophers, and prairie dogs - to flourish. He thought cattle benefited more from the challenges of a natural ecosystem than from any human efforts to control the environment.
Tom Lasater is ninety years old now, and his memory is failing, but he still has the aura of a strong patriarch. As Dale bounces an old cream-colored Suburban Custom Deluxe along one of the ranch's dirt roads, his father sits in the back seat, wearing a cowboy hat, a bolo tie, and thick black gla.s.ses, silently staring at the Beefmasters scattered across the prairie. He scrutinizes them, and every so often asks Dale about a particular animal. The cattle roam a landscape that appears vast and unspoiled. The Lasater Ranch is a wildlife sanctuary. The native gra.s.ses are thriving, tall cottonwoods grow along the stream banks, and herds of antelope graze alongside the cattle. Dale parks the truck, and I walk a short distance to a rocky outcropping. The Suburban now seems like a small, insignificant speck compared to what surrounds it. Pikes Peak and Cheyenne Mountain rise to the west, and in every other direction the prairie extends to the horizon, the shortgra.s.s moving in waves, blown by a steady wind.
Beyond the Lasater property line, the land is not faring so well. Smaller farms and ranches in the area have been disappearing for years. A population loss that began in the 1950s has recently slowed, but too late. Many small towns have become virtual ghost towns. In the little commercial district of Matheson, along a dirt road named Broadway, the feed store, the general store, and a repair shop have all been abandoned. The whitewashed buildings have quaint, fading signs, and stand empty. The large, brick elementary school that Dale Lasater attended - built at the turn of the century, its architecture full of American optimism - is now used by a local rancher to store grain.
Before taking over the family ranch, Dale Lasater spent a year in Argentina as a Fulbright scholar, ran a feedlot company in Kansas, and managed cattle ranches in Texas, Florida, and New Mexico. He has come to believe that our industrialized system of cattle production cannot be sustained. Rising grain prices may someday hit ranchers and feedlots hard. More importantly, Lasater finds it hard to justify feeding millions of tons of precious grain to American cattle while elsewhere in the world millions of people starve. He respects the decision to become a vegetarian, but has little tolerance for the air of moral superiority that often accompanies it. Growing up on the prairie gave him a view of Mother Nature that is somewhat different from the Disney version. Cattle that are not eaten by people, that are simply allowed to grow old and weak, still get eaten - by coyotes and turkey buzzards, and it's not a pretty sight.
Dale Lasater recently set up a company to sell organic, free-range, gra.s.s-fed beef. None of the cattle used in Lasater Gra.s.slands Beef spent any time at a feedlot. The meat is much lower in fat than grain-fed beef, and has a much stronger, more distinctive flavor. Lasater says that most Americans have forgotten what real beef tastes like. Argentine beef is considered a gourmet item, served at expensive restaurants, and almost all of the cattle in Argentina are gra.s.s-fed. Recent findings that gra.s.s-fed cattle may be less likely to spread E. coli 0157:H7 have strengthened Lasater's determination to follow a different path. Along with a number of other innovative ranchers in Colorado, he is trying to raise cattle in a way that does not harm consumers or the land. Hank was a dear friend of his, in many ways a kindred spirit. Lasater doesn't think that his little company will revolutionize the American beef industry; but it's a start.
Sixty miles away, on South Nevada Avenue in Colorado Springs, Rich Conway helps run a family business that's also bucking the tide. Conway's Red Top Restaurant occupies a modest brick building on a street full of old western motels, the kind with animated neon Indian chiefs on their signs, the kind where the U in the 4-U Motel is a golden horseshoe. Rich Conway's been through a lot. He's had a motorcycle accident and a bad car accident, later slipped on some ice and broke his back. Now in his early fifties, Conway walks slowly with a cane, but has a handsome, weathered face, a Zen-like calm and a tough, independent streak that keeps him going, against the odds. He's a survivor. When I asked why the Conway family provides health insurance to all the full-time workers at the restaurant, he smiled politely, as though the answer was pretty obvious, and said, ”We want to have healthy employees.”
Rich Conway's parents started working at the Red Top not long after it opened in 1944 and bought the restaurant in 1961. He grew up working there, along with his nine brothers and sisters. Conway's Red Top - with a little spinning top on its yellow sign - became a local favorite, thanks to its large, oval hamburgers, homemade fries, and friendly atmosphere. The restaurant continued to thrive in the 1970s, despite an invasion by national fast food chains that landed up and down South Nevada. But Conway's almost closed in the early 1980s, after the death of Rich's father. The restaurant's local suppliers helped keep it afloat until new financing could be arranged, a story whose details bring to mind It's a Wonderful Life It's a Wonderful Life. Conway's Red Top now has four locations in Colorado Springs. Rich Conway was president of the family business until 1999; his younger brother Jim now has that job. Their brother Dan is the finance director, their sister Mary Kaye is the marketing director; another brother, Mike, is the operations manager; another sister, Patty Jo, is an a.s.sistant manager - and many of the thirty-seven Conways in the next generation work at various Red Top restaurants. The family has an intense, personal commitment to their work, and it shows. According to food critics Jane and Michael Stern, Conway's Red Top sells some of the best hamburgers in the United States.
At the Conway's on South Nevada, hamburger patties are still formed every day by hand, using fresh, not frozen, ground beef. The meat is obtained from GNC Packing, a small, independent processor in Colorado Springs. The buns come from a bakery in Pueblo. Two hundred pounds of potatoes are peeled every morning in the kitchen and then sliced with an old crank-operated contraption. The burgers and fries are made to order by cooks who earn $10 an hour. They wear baseball caps that say ”Conway's Red Top: One's a Meal.” The workers are not told what to do by fancy computer software, there's take-out but no drive-through, and the food is only slightly more expensive than what's served in the half-empty Wendy's across the street. One day I met a customer at Conway's who has regularly been having lunch there for fifty years.
The Conway family is now debating how to expand the business without compromising the values responsible for its success. Opening new restaurants could provide financial opportunities for the dozens of Conway offspring, but could also involve a good deal of risk. The timing may be right, however, for a few more Red Tops to open. As the rest of Colorado grows more bland and h.o.m.ogenous, Colorado Springs seems to be getting more independent and open-minded. The quirkiness of the downtown may indeed overcome the uniformity of the outlying sprawl.
In the 1999 Colorado Springs mayoral race, Mary Lou Makepeace - a single mother with a fine surname for consensus-building - was elected to a second term, soundly defeating a right-wing candidate backed by Focus on the Family. Mayor Makepeace had helped persuade the voters of Colorado Springs, perhaps the nation's most Republican city, to vote for a tax increase. The additional revenue was used to protect open land from development. She has also spearheaded new investment in public parks. And she has helped launch the redevelopment of fifty-eight acres of land near the downtown business district, an area that was once a thriving neighborhood but has been largely abandoned for years. The project embraces the goals of the ”new urbanism,” a movement opposed to mindless sprawl, combining residential buildings with commercial and retail s.p.a.ce in a way that encourages walking and discourages driving. The aim of the Lowell Neighborhood is not to get rid of cars, says architect Morey Bean, but to put them in their proper place: preferably out of sight in underground parking lots.
It may be tempting to dismiss Conway's Red Top as a holdover from an earlier era, a business whose low-tech methods are quaint but obsolete. And yet one of America's most profitable fast food chains operates much like Conway's. In 1948, the year that the McDonald brothers introduced the Speedee Service System, Harry and Esther Snyder opened their first In-N-Out Burger restaurant on the road between Los Angeles and Palm Springs. It was the nation's first drive-through hamburger stand. Today there are about 150 In-N-Outs in California and Nevada, generating more than $150 million in annual revenues. Harry Snyder died in 1976 - but at the age of eighty, Esther still serves as president of the family-owned company. The Snyders have declined countless offers to sell the chain, refuse to franchise it, and have succeeded by rejecting just about everything the rest of the fast food industry has done.
In-N-Out has followed its own path: there are verses from the Bible on the bottom of its soda cups. More importantly, the chain pays the highest wages in the fast food industry. The starting wage of a part-time worker at In-N-Out is $8 an hour. Full-time workers get a benefits package that includes medical, dental, vision, and life insurance. The typical salary of an In-N-Out restaurant manager is more than $80,000 a year. The managers have, on average, been with the chain for more than thirteen years. The high wages at In-N-Out have not led to higher prices or lower-quality food. The most expensive item on the menu costs $2.45. There are no microwaves, heat lamps, or freezers in the kitchens at In-N-Out restaurants. The ground beef is fresh, potatoes are peeled every day to make the fries, and the milk shakes are made from ice cream, not syrup.