Americans love to eat out. The National Restaurant Association says we spent close to six hundred million dollars on eating and drinking places and that’s just for the first half of the year. In many small southern towns, fast food restaurants are the place to bring the family for a burger and shake. That includes Citronelle here in Alabama, Tunica in Mississippi, and Tallapoosa in Georgia. They’re all home to less than four thousand people and they all have a fast food chain called Jack’s Family Restaurants. APR Gulf coast correspondent Cori Yonge revisits this story she first brought to the national audience of Marketplace, how for this Alabama-based quick service restaurant, rural towns are the secret sauce.
“Will this be for here or to go hon? It’ll be for here. All right,” asks the cashier at a Jack’s Family Restaurant.
Roy Hollie’s favorite sandwich at Jack’s is the Big Bacon. Today he’s in Citronelle, Alabama. Hollie is an exterminator for a pest control company and there are seven Jack’s in his rural territory. He eats here a lot.
Probably once, twice a week, depending on where I’m working. What area I’m in,” says Hollie…