I’m home sick again, surrounded by way too much pollen! Following a visit to the doctor I found myself ready for an early lunch, so while waiting for a prescription I drove over to our local Chipotle, a fairly new (to our area, at least) burrito chain. We love the place. It’s simple; portions are large, tasty, and reasonably priced; and it’s hippified! What little decor they have is earth-toned and ’60s-based. There are signs touting the free-range, voluntary cow-and-chicken-to-slaughter nature of the meats. Even the napkins are healthy and hip – you know, those rough, multi-grained ones that never quite get all the grease off your hands and face but make you feel great about helping the planet in not doing so. There’s this note on the back of the napkins:
Our napkins are made without bleach and from 90% post consumer recycled paper. Use them again to wipe the guac off your chin.
I’m not a big fan of “guac,” but doesn’t that blurb make you feel warm and fuzzy?
Next to the food and the always-pleasant, young staff (the kids in our Chipotle, at least, are like the fast-food equivalents of Apple Store staff: energetic, hip, ambitious… You know they’re not going to be stuck behind a fast-food counter the rest of their lives), however, the thing I dig most about Chipotle is the music they play. One time I walked in and The Clash‘s “Washington Bullets” was blaring over the soundsystem. How I love that song, and how it seemed to fit – more or less – in Chipotle’s progressive take on fast food! Today, while paying for my burrito, I heard something from The Clash catalog that, in 1979, I never expected to hear on a corporate playlist and then a few years later regretted having to hear in the form of the singles from Combat Rock. Today, in Chipotle, I heard something hipper than “Washington Bullets.” It wasn’t “Bankrobber.” It wasn’t even “Bankrobber Dub.” It was the Mickey Dread-toasting dub version of “Bankrobber,” a version so hip and obscure that even this Clash fan can’t remember the exact name without having to look it up (and I’m not doing that right now, sorry).
Which corporate chain has your favorite playlist?
Corporate food still sucks.
Wawa plays great music. (Wawa is a local convenience store akin to 7-11). They play upbeat 60s music, but typically deeper tracks that you rarely hear on oldies stations. I can imagine each Chipotle may have music picked by the individual restaurant itself, but I figure Wawa must be programmed corporately. I continue to search the want ads for a listing for a Wawa DJ.
I like Chipotle (veggie, just one scoop of rice, black beans, extra guac, and please wrap it up tight so I can eat it by hand, thanks), but I’ve never noticed their music.
My Gold’s gym plays music videos and it’s a horrific mix. Thank god for Ipods.
My local grocery store chain seems to favor adult contemporary/singer songwriters, and it’s all right. Those of you too young to remember Muzak have no idea how bad the bad old days were.
Those Chipotle kids sure can wrap ’em tight, can’t they? “Hand-rolled burritos!”
Is it too much to think that Wawa at least once in a while plays “Wah Wah” off All Things Must Pass?
Good question, misterioso. I’ve yet to hear it played there. It’s a 24-hour place, otherwise I’m sure it would blare out of their system as soon as the first customer walks in the door each morning.
Or that 7-11 plays “Looking for a 7-11?”
They should be crankin’ the regular album version, the Concert for Bangladesh version, and the outtake instrumental only version. Every day.
Furthermore, is there a Wawa in Mahwah? I really hope so.
I’ve noticed that Whole Foods and Trader Joes sets their play lists according to the expected demographic shopping at that time. While some of the usual 80’s stuff gets my toe tapping, I’ve been saddened that I am soley being courted for my supposed boomer pay check appeal (ha ha, I get the last laugh there). I don’t think I’ve heard a song that has aired after 1989 in either of those fine food establishments. Love pre-1989 music, but come on corporate music consultants, people are still creating music (and some of us boomers still go to hear it!).
Our local Chipotle’s aren’t quite as earth toned and 60’s-based as the ones you describe, and are instead more 90’s mod. But love those burritos! I’ll pay more attention to music next time – I’ve been overly focused on the guac and those nice,grainy brown napkins.
Wawa has specifically banned “Wah Wah” so as not to foster any “I don’t need your Wawa” sentiment.
They do, however, regularly play the Apple Jam in its entirety.
Unless I’ve been misinformed, Chipotle is owned by McDonald’s®. We saw a bunch of them in Chicago, and someone told me that’s who owned them. It is tasty, though.
General, I almost had to throw up what was left of my hippified early lunch. Thankfully I found this line on Wikipedia:
Read the full entry at your own risk:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipotle_Mexican_Grill
Nevertheless, I maintain my sense of shock and delight at hearing that Clash piece of excess over their system today.
i heard Dark Side of the Moon from start to finish at Trader Joe’s once.
I was once in a Waffle House in Lafayette LA, and on the juke box they had a country song called “Workin’at the Waffle House,” which we could not resist playing. The looks we got from the poor people who *were* workin’ at the Waffle House were lethal.
I like Chipotle. Anyone with black beans is okay in my book. I like QDoba’s Ancho Burrito, too. I liked the music at the QDoba I was in better than Chipotle, too. I can never hear anything in Chipotle, it’s all metal and steel and it’s always packed and loud. The QDoba had some New Pornographers playing the last time I was there.
I once heard Sept. Gurls on the gas pump speakers at a Lukoil station. That was a bit disorienting; it was like I was living in a parallel world where Radio City really was a smash hit.
A while ago in that gun-to-your-head thing I said my favorite song was Baby Blue. I was thinking specifically of the chills-up-my-spine feeling I got from hearing it unexpectedly while food shopping at the Thriftway. Had a similar experience with that song in a Wawa.
All of our local Waffle House features various and sundry Waffle House-related tunes. There’s an entire row of WH tunes! (I always play Johnny Cash…)
TB
Please forgive me if I’ve mentioned here before…
A year or so back I walked into an Old Navy to see what all the fuss was about and as I entered I thought “gee, that singer sounds familiar…wait…its Joe!” They had “Punk Rock Girl” playing over the sound system. I felt a little uncomfortable until the song was over.
I remember hearing the Ramones in the Acme once…
I once saw a little feature about Camper Van Beethoven which included them doing an acoustic version of “Take the Skinheads Bowling” on one of those gas pump TVs. It seemed very odd to me.
geo – I saw the tail end of that CVB story once – it was at a Sunoco…
The other night we were in “Spanky’s” bar in Manayunk, next door to the rehearsal spot. A girl played that Seger “Old Thyme Rock and Roll” song – the Tom Cruise film-clip soundtrack, and something else equally feh. Then came on “I Wanna Be Sedated.” We all looked at each other in Times-They-Are-A-Changin’ perplexity.
Somewhere I posted about the time I was in Cabela’s – yes, here. It was on Facebook. Here’s the part of my note:
And last night we went to Cabela’s, which is the immense store full of dead animals where the doughy, blinking future of the American people go to wiggle their vestigial limbs and dream of killing things. It is an entertaining place for the kids to run around, and it is huge. It is about as big as people from the city believe the outdoors to be. Well, anyway, while there, I heard Deodato’s amazing funk take on “Also Sprach Zarathustra”, which some of you, if you’ve heard it, may have heard in the movie “Being There.” In any case, I spent about forty seconds on the elitist’s centrifuge of suddenly wanting to disavow a song I like simply because such a lame establishment got their mitts on it, and then allowed myself to enjoy without rancor.
FYI – heard Devo’s “Freedom of Choice” at 6:00 AM in a Wawa yesterday. I sure didn’t see that coming.
There’s not much that gets me riled up (outside of displays of ignorance from educated people) but what REALLY bugs me is when I hear a song I have loved for decades prostituted in some cheesy ad campaign.
Here in Australia their is a white goods chain called the “Good Guys” who did horrible, horrible things to “Good Vibrations”, and another white goods store stole “Whatever You Want” by Quo. Grrrrrr…….
Then Ronald McDonald stole “Rock On” by David Essex to sell more burgers:(…….