Smidget’s Comments

So IHOP's are redesigining the interior of their restaurants. I thought it was perhaps because of the semi-old design. So I walk in and I'm immediately taken by the new design, it was nice! Let me say, I love IHOP and to see them revamping it is awesome. So I'm eating with a friend, I'm noticing all the new stuff, and then I see it. Let me pause and reiterate something here before I go on; it is called the INTERNATIONAL House of Pancakes. If you walked into an IHOP before the new design, you saw other countries flags, a globe (of some sort), and things of that nature. Ok, moving on. One of the new wall-hangning thingies is a basic square about 3 x 3 feet divided into 4 square-sections. The top-right and bottom-left sections are pictures of pancakes and a skillet or something. The top-left and bottom-right pictures are meant to represent the US flag: blue w/stars on top, red w/ white stripes on bottom. At first I'm like, this is a cool design (I do some graphic design myself and appreciate neat stuff), then I continue to look around and realize, everything in the new design is USA oriented! Here's my gripe (I know, it took a while to get to it): They took everything and anything that had to with "international" and threw it out the window. Why? I think it's because of the war on terror, the war in Israel, and the current state of the US being inolved in so much international s*it. Corporate-IHOP doesn't want customers to be reminded of the world when they're eating; they want people to see the US flag, and US symbolism everywhere and feel comfy. The only thing left that's international in that place is the menu, they've abandoned everything else in order to use patriotism to make profit. It's like going into a restaurant in Ireland called "American Burger Palace" and getting a menu with such items but the enviroment being Ireland-orientated because they don't want to have anything to do with America. It's stupid! Corporate-IHOP is using patriotism to profit, on a level that required them to redesign their entire restaurant chain!! That's BS. If I walk into an "International" anything, I don't want to see Americana everywhere. I want to be greeted with pictures of international affair, food, whatever the case may be. I'm still going to eat there because the food is awesome but I'm not going to enjoy myself!! *humph!*

Wednesday, April 4, 2007