7.7.20 Bee-otch of the Day: Chick-fil-A

BECOME AN AFFILIATE OF T-SHIRT HELL AND MAKE SOME MONEY!

Bee-otch of the Day honors are awarded Monday through Thursday; Bee-otch of the Week is awarded Sunday morning on Chuck69.com.

 

-------

Name: Chick-fil-A
Age: 53
Occupation: shitty chicken restaurant
Last Seen: Atlanta, GA
Bee-otched For: getting owned in Traverse City

----

For 45 years, the Flap Jack Shack in Traverse City has been the northern Michigan resort town's answer to IHOP and Denny's.

Opened in 1975, it was once a franchised chain with restaurants throughout northern Michigan and even Florida where co-founder James Burley owned a few locations himself. The chain had humble beginnings in downtown TC's historic Arcade Building. Eventually, their location on US-31 would serve as the chain's flagship. 

However, in 2010, health problems caused chain co-founder James Bender to close that restaurant. Thankfully, only a few months later, Grand Rapids restaurateur Jeff Lobdell reopened FJS, which joined his other banners including other Traverse City area greats The Omelette Shoppe and Boone's Prime Time Pub. Lobdell, who is based in Grand Rapids also owns the Beltline Bar, Grand Coney and Bagel Beanery.

The Flap Jack Shack served as a warm, friendly place for a nice, hot breakfast for decades. Their retro, 1970s feel brings back memories of a much-more-basic time for those who grew up in the Cherry Capitol.

Recently, mixed emotions rose when it was announced that the Flap Jack Shack would be demolished to make way for a new restaurant: a Chick-fil-A. The popular chicken sandwich chain, headquartered in Georgia, had long-wanted a location in the Cherry Capitol region. Obviously, like any new development in Traverse City - pop. 15,000 - there was mixed reaction. The chain's food is quite popular, though many have long-argued about the chain's giving to anti-LGBTQ+ groups. 

Lobdell's original plan post-demolition was to move Flap Jack Shack to a newer and smaller location. But now, it appears that the Shack will serve up more pancakes for years to come.

Last week, Chick-fil-A announced that they've withdrawn from building on the Flap Jack Shack site because of a land dispute with a neighboring property. If built, the Chick-fil-A would have been between an apartment complex and a Walgreen's. Not only that, it would be the first business as you enter Traverse City one US-31. I guess Traverse City-ites will have to go somewhere else for Chick-fil-A's shit sandwiches. 

But, hey! Big Boy - just a few blocks from the ill-fated Chick-fil-A - now has a new chicken sandwich. Not only that, it actually looks appetizing!

True, some are PISSED that Big Boy replaced their iconic checker-panted, slick-haired boy carrying a double-deck hamburger with a little blonde-haired girl carrying a chicken sandwich. Both the girl and the sandwich is named Dolly, and if you're a huge Big Boy fan, you probably know from their comic books that Dolly is Big Boy's girlfriend. 

(Fun Fact: The original Big Boy logo was designed by Ben Washam, a longtime Warner Bros. animator. He designed the logo for the company's founder, Bob Wian, whose customers included a little boy who loved his hamburgers. He nicknamed him "Big Boy", and the name stuck.)

Granted, the changeover is pure sacrilege to some. But let's remember something: in my neck of the woods in Grand Rapids, there's more former Big Boys than those in business. One is now another burger-based chain, Bagger Dave's, another is now a Mediterranean restaurant and another is currently abandoned, but was supposed to reopen as a Chinese restaurant. Today, only two Big Boys remain in the Grand Rapids metro: downtown and Grandville. 

And upon further look into Big Boy's website, they simply reimaged their iconic logo. Nothing to see here, move along.

If I was in Traverse City and had to choose between Chick-fil-A and a Dolly, I'd pick the Dolly. Sorry, but I can't support a company whose values discriminate the LGBTQ+ community. Personally, I'm somewhat critical of any company that stays closed on Sundays because of religious reasons. But, it ain't hurting both Chick-fil-A (the Cathy family is worth over $12 billion) and Hobby Lobby (founder David Smith is worth $8 billion). Tragically, there's a market for racism and stupidity and those two places live and breathe it.

What's even more retarded on Chick-fil-A's part is the fact that they wanted to demolish an already-established restaurant. Yet, Traverse City is LOADED with vacant spots to build one. Look at East Bay: Wendy's, Robby's, Schelde's and Ruby Tuesday are all gone. Ferchrissakes, how long has Hooters been abandoned? For a billion-dollar company like Chick-fil-A to tear down a beloved icon in Traverse City for one of their shitty chicken joints is far, far-more unholy than Big Boy replacing their logo with a little girl. 

Forever, Traverse City and other small towns have had a stigma: if you're not white, straight, Christian, wealthy or over 21, fuck you. Trust me. I grew up 30 miles from TC and the only thing for a teen to do year-round was go to the mall. My now-former stepsister - whom I'm still friends with - had it bad, too. Both her parents were conservative. Her mother was an alcoholic and she was raised in shitty trailers. Not only that, she's related to a controversial former mayor. As a teen, she came out as bisexual. One day when she was in high school, she was with a female friend, holding hands when a male classmate walked behind her and called them "dykes". She angrily went to the principal's office to report him. The principal's response? "If you want to display this behavior, this is what happens."

Sadly, this type of talk was a huge reason why she started cutting herself. She had a voice and was constantly being silenced because of her sexuality and the fact that she was just a teen. I knew a few folks in northern Michigan who were part of the LGBTQ+ spectrum who were too scared to leave the closet simply because of the bass ackwards culture northern Michigan people are known for.

Look, since the senseless murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and too many people killed because of race, our country has worked hard to eliminate anything that promotes our racist and vile past. The days of Aunt Jemima are numbered, and so is that of Uncle Ben and Cream of Wheat's Rastus. Statues of Confederate generals have been torn down and the last state in America to have the Confederate emblem on their state flag, voted to eliminate it. A statue of a slave owner is just as offensive to blacks as a building housing a Chick-fil-A is to the LGBTQ+ community. 

Northern Michigan needs to work on being more acceptable towards different people and culture other than just being a lily-white place where people pretend that there's not a problem in the world. Many people who live up north do so because they have the misconception that it's safer. Yet, there's several towns up north that have nearly-abandoned downtowns loaded with broken-down buildings like Alba and areas without even a basic grocery store like Ellsworth. And yes, there's crime. Thankfully, the fact that Chick-fil-A won't be building a location up north soon is a win-win for everybody and it needs to stay that way.

And unlike the new Dolly sandwich, this is a bigger cluckin' deal.

--

  ----

Got a Bee-otch to nominate? E-mail us @ chuck69dotcom@gmail.com. All suggestions (except for me) are welcome!

Bee-otch of the Day Archives can be seen on http://beeotchoftheday.blogspot.com

Bee-otch of the Day is a production of Chuck69.com, Grand Rapids' site for Stern, politics and more!

CHUCK69.COM IS ALWAYS ON!