Original subtitles

- Maybe your stomach is rumbling on a road trip

or you're just a little tight on time.

Well, these classic American icons are known

for speed, convenience, and consistency.

And whether it's breakfast, lunch, dinner,

or a midnight snack, they have got your flavor.

What am I talking about?

One of the most popular and tasty

American food experiences: fast food.

Burgers and fries, tacos, fried chicken,

sandwiches, milkshakes.

The options are endless.

And some come with toys.

The fast food industry accounts for 200,000 locations

spread across the 50 states

and brings in a whopping $239 billion a year.

Today, I'm gonna experience what it's like

to work the line in one of the most iconic

and oldest fast food chains, White Castle.

And we're going to explore the wide world of fast food.

Just how much beef does it take

for this White Castle factory to keep up

with the slider craze?

How did In-N-Out revolutionize the drive-through

and where can we find the only copy

of KFC's secret chicken recipe?

Your order is up

because this is "Modern Marvels: Fast Food."

(upbeat theme music)

(cars whooshing by)

(suspenseful music)

The story begins with a 5 cent burger

and medieval architecture.

White Castle is arguably the original

American fast food restaurant.

Established in 1921,

White Castle started selling slider-sized burgers

for 5 cents and serving their customers with speed,

getting them their food fast.

White Castle has also pioneered carry out fast food

in the frozen aisle in your grocery store

and has been a cultural mainstay for decades.

- [Spokesperson] White Castles, those legendary hamburgers

and cheeseburgers with the irresistible taste.

- Today I've come to this location

of White Castle here in Whitehall, Pennsylvania

to see how it's all done.

We'll also head to the mothership,

White Castle's meat plant

where 156 million sliders are processed every year.

But our fast food journey begins here,

in the trenches, above the grills and the fryers,

where we'll explore the modern fast food industry.

(dramatic music)

(soda burbling from fountain)

- [Adam] Smell of meat on the griddle, sizzling onions,

and fries crackling to life greets you like a warm hug

the moment you enter this tasty haven.

I can't wait to get started.

Now this is big for me because I am well aware

of the magic of White Castle from this side of the counter.

But hopefully today you will expose me

to the magic on the other side.

- Yes, we will.

- There really is nothing that tastes like White Castle.

There is simply nothing like a White Castle slider.

There is nothing like a White Castle clam strip,

a chicken ring.

That flavors keeps people coming back.

I mean, I'm living proof of this.

After Little League games, that was the thing we did.

- Right?

- Okay, so will you show me

how this magical operation works?

- Adam, let's get behind these castle walls and let's do it.

(upbeat music)

Here's your uniform.

- Thank you so much.

(magical wind chime)

Let's get to work. (air whooshes)

My first assignment

breakfast.

(egg sizzles on pan)

- We're gonna do the Belgian waffle,

egg and bacon cheese sandwich.

- Now those of you at home,

do not attempt to adjust your dial.

I'm in a White Castle.

This is a real egg.

So every single breakfast sandwich you guys sell

you guys are cracking fresh eggs for 'em?

- That's right, Adam.

- That is so profoundly impressive.

At the scale that White Castle sells,

operates, and serves clientele,

it's kind of amazing to think

that you guys are cracking fresh eggs.

Now is the opportunity for me

to completely embarrass myself,

not just in front of Haskell,

but all the great hardworking people here at White Castle.

Belgian waffle, bacon, egg and cheese

- [Haskell] We've already got our bacon ready.

So we don't have to do anything there.

It's gonna be good.

And we have our trusty assistant

getting those Belgian waffles in our toaster.

And they actually come from Belgium.

- First, we oil up the griddle and crack some eggs.

(egg sizzles on pan)

How do they control the heat,

so this isn't like a flaming gigantic mess?

- The griddles we use are AccuTemps,

and they're they're set to temp.

So this is set at 300 and it'll never go above or below.

- Meaning these cutting-edge griddles are designed

to keep the temperature consistent

across the entire cooking surface.

Which is kind of a modern marvel unto itself

because knowing the temperature control is so key

and having high technology

that will hold a constant temperature

and every place on this griddle allows you

to have that consistency and that quality at the same time.

And once the eggs are perfectly cooked...

- [Haskell] Voila! - [Adam] Okay.

- [Haskell] We have our Belgian waffles.

- [Adam] And it's the Liege style,

so it's actually a little bit more crispy.

It's got the burnished sugar in it,

not the sort of fluffy waffle

that you might be thinking of in your mind.

(upbeat music)

- [Haskell] So you can take that first egg.

- [Adam] Yes, sir.

- [Haskell] Right on top, all right.

And then we're gonna take a slice of cheese,

right on top. - [Adam] Okay, yes, sir.

- And then we're gonna take two strips of bacon.

Awesome, and then we'll take that other Belgian waffle

and put right on top of there.

And then you're just gonna wrap it up, and there you go.

You've got the classic Belgian waffle bacon, egg and cheese.

- So these things are like a juice box of a real joy.

It's so perfect.

The White Castle box is iconic,

but as with all things in life,

it what's inside that counts.

And you better believe I'm going to eat this.

This smells so good.

This smells like everything that's right with breakfast.

Come on.

The best job in the world.

- Tell me what you think.

(suspenseful music)

- My first thought is,

why has it taken me so long to order this?

(both laugh)

This is maybe the best first day on any job I've ever had.

(both laugh)

But really, excellent.

I think that between the quality of the waffle

and the fact that it's a fresh egg,

it just doesn't feel like any kinda fast food sandwich.

And I think maybe that's where fast food can be

its most successful when it's quick and it's convenient,

yet tastes as close as possible

to something you might make at home.

I mean, really this is unlike any breakfast sandwich

that I could ever order from a drive-through.

This is superb.

White Castle offers this beauty of a breakfast sandwich

all day and it's not the only fast food icon

to make that move.

In 2015 earnings jumped nearly 6%

when an all-day breakfast option was introduced

at the world's reigning fast food juggernaut, McDonald's.

McDonald's started serving breakfast

in 1970 at a franchise owned by Jim Delligatti,

the man who also invented a little sandwich

called the Big Mac.

Another franchiser, Herb Peterson,

changed the breakfast game,

when he invented the Egg McMuffin in 1971.

This iconic breakfast sandwich was developed

as kind of eggs Benedict on the go.

In 1977, a breakfast menu debuted

at McDonald's locations across the country.

And it included hotcakes, sausage, hash browns,

and English muffins.

By 1986, McDonald's is said to serve

one out of every four breakfasts

not cooked at home in the U.S.

Breakfast might be the most important meal of the day.

- [Haskell] Now you're on to the big leagues.

This is where it all happens.

- [Adam] But at White Castle, we've gotta get ready

for the lunch rush.

- So Adam, here you are.

You're at the fry station,

affectionately known as the Beast.

Okay, and the reason why we call it the Beast

is because you'll get hit with a bunch of barrage orders

whether it's fries, mozzarella sticks, chicken rings,

chicken breast, fish, fish nibbles.

They can all come at you at one time.

- Really?

This bad boy can cook every single one

of those foods to crispy perfection.

- If you look up, we've got some screens up here.

This is gonna show you when a customer orders,

all the fry items will show up here.

All right, so be ready for that.

If you look directly straight ahead of you

the red placard there. - [Adam] Yes.

- So you see number one says fries.

Number two says onion rings.

So if somebody orders a fry,

you come look at the fryer, you hit button number one.

That's for fries. - [Adam] Right.

- Button number two is for onion rings.

- [Adam] When a food gets dropped into the oil,

hitting its assigned button tells the fryer to cook it

for a specific amount of time and temperature.

- Here we've got our fries. - [Adam] Yes, sir.

- Right, and on this side, we've got our onion rings.

I'ma keep it simple for you. - Thank you.

- I'm gon' have you on the right side,

- Gotcha. - And I'll let you do fries

and onion rings and I'll stay on the left side,

and I'll do all the other sandwiches.

- Love it.

And as soon as an order pops up on the overhead screen,

it's time to feed the Beast.

- Uh oh, that's on your side, Adam.

- Okay. - Sack of onion rings.

- Got it.

Dammit, dammit.

Not as easy as it looks folks.

- [Haskell] A large, 15 pieces.

- [Adam] Two, four, I wanna make sure

that my count was right.

- [Haskell] There we go. - [Adam] Hit number two.

- [Haskell] There you go.

(air whooshes)

- [Adam] It's a great feeling.

Your number gets called and your order is ready

and waiting for you at the counter.

But before it gets there,

your fast food has gone through an assembly line of workers,

all playing a part in the kitchen.

It's a system designed to keep up with ferocious demand,

and there is demand.

McDonald's sells more than 75 hamburgers every second.

Taco Bell sold a half billion Doritos Tacos Locos

in a little over a single year,

and a new KFC opens up somewhere in the world

every six hours.

- [Haskell] A six piece chicken ring,

a three piece mozzarella,

and I gotta get the hash browns.

- [Adam] And once the orders start...

- [Haskell] But now on your side

you're gonna make a french fry with cheese

and you're gonna have cheese sauce on the side as well.

- [Adam] They don't stop.

I'm telling you, look away for a second

and this fryer jumps up and bites you.

- That's why we call it the Beast.

- [Adam] The Beast indeed.

This well-oiled machine is a testament

to how important deep fryers are for a fast food kitchen.

In fact, one fast food titan built their empire

on an innovative deep fryer.

(dramatic country music)

Kentucky Fried Chicken, home of Colonel Harlan Sanders,

a purveyor of an legendary chicken recipe.

- Many have tried to replicate our original recipe,

Kentucky Fried Chicken, but nobody's been able

to get even close to the signature recipe

that fuels our 24,000 restaurants

and $28 billion of business.

So at the heart of our brand is Colonel Sanders.

He's the founder of the brand.

And he's certainly what made it incredibly successful today.

The Colonel made the world secret recipe

that you know today.

- [Adam] Colonel Harlan Sanders started selling chicken

from his service station in Corbin, Kentucky in the 1930s.

Dedicated to perfection,

the Colonel refined his chicken recipe

until he found the perfect blend of 11 herbs and spices.

The magic secret blend caught the attention of Pete Harman,

who partnered with the Colonel

and opened the first location of KFC.

Harman gave the Colonel's chicken the name

we know it by today, Kentucky Fried Chicken.

And five years after opening the first location,

Harmon also came up with its iconic slogan,

finger lickin' good.

And to get a look at how this classic chicken

gets made today we're frying up a batch

with KFC corporate chef Chris Scott.

Hopefully he'll let a secret or two slip.

- For me, it's really about continuing the legacy

of what KFC already is.

And my role is to create new and exciting dishes,

drawing more customers and make people think

about KFC as an innovative restaurant.

- [Adam] Chris also experiments

with new ways to improve crispiness,

texture, and flavor profile across the KFC menu.

- [Chris] We have a water bath ready to go

for the breading process.

- [Adam] KFC's original innovation

is its signature fried chicken.

And we're about to get an insider's look

at how the magic happens.

It begins with the coating,

where the secret formula gets added.

- First, we're gonna put our flour in, now our seasoning.

- [Adam] Chris could tell us what's in this spice blend,

but then he'd have to kill us.

- The actual blend of herbs and spices is created

at two different facilities.

Half is created at one facility.

Half is created at another.

It then gets shipped to another facility

where it's gonna be blended together.

So that that way, none of our suppliers

actually knows what our full recipe is.

- So we are very secretive about our secret recipe,

simply because every couple of years,

someone claims to have discovered it.

And the reality is there's no way they could have.

There's only one print copy of our secret recipe.

It is stored at a secret safe here in the building

in Louisville, Kentucky at our headquarters.

If it got into the wrong hands,

who knows what would happen to our chicken empire.

- [Adam] After the top secret spices are blended

with the flour, in goes the chicken.

- [Chris] I'm gonna mix it

'til it looks fairly incorporated.

Our pressure fryer's what we're using

to make our original recipe chicken.

It is what the Colonel worked on in inventing.

- [Adam] The Colonel developed a special pressure fryer

based on a standard pressure cooker.

Freshly breaded chicken gets lowered into a chamber

filled with oil and then sealed in.

As it heats up, the oil cooks the chicken skin rapidly

and the pressure building inside the chamber

seals in moisture that would normally evaporate

in open an fryer.

The result, a moist juicy piece of chicken

encased in a shatteringly crispy skin.

- It really creates a juicier product

and it sets our 11 herbs and spices really into it.

And it actually expedites the cooking process.

- [Adam] The original recipe fried chicken is a mainstay,

but what's KFC cooking up for the future?

- We have an amazing innovation history.

We're always innovating on new products

like our new chicken sandwich.

- [Chris] For our Kentucky Fried Chicken sandwich,

we're gonna do is a very similar process

as what we would do for our original recipe,

only instead our chicken filets are breaded twice

for our chicken sandwich.

(chicken sizzles in fryer)

- [Adam] Double breading makes the chicken extra crispy

when it's fried up.

And when it's ready, the freshly fried chicken goes

in a nicely toasted brioche bun

and gets topped with mayo and pickles.

(light cymbal shimmers)

- The future for Kentucky Fried Chicken

is incredibly bright.

We're constantly innovating to bring new

and exciting recipes to our customers.

- [Adam] As for exciting new fried phenomenon

here in the present, I got an order up for White Castle's

loaded fries, a pile of French fries fresh out of "the beast",

covered in real bacon bits, melted cheese, and ranch sauce.

- [Haskell] Oh, that looks beautiful, Adam.

Oh, look at that.

- [Adam] Fortunately, the person who ordered

these loaded fries was me.

(Haskell laughs)

I'm gonna take this order. (groans)

The French fried fruits of my labor,

the operative word being labor

because of the ensuing food baby.

I recommend the loaded fries.

Oh my goodness.

- So Adam, what are you feeling right now?

- Very happy, like so happy.

- I can see that warm, nacho cheese hitting you, Adam.

- You know what it is.

We talked about how having a real egg

really affects how good the breakfast sandwich is.

Things like using real bacon affect how good the fries are.

I'm just gonna run some tests on these in the back there.

I'm going to just gonna do some tests

just for like corporate evaluation

of toppings as related in the mass index.

I'm gonna go back there for a moment,

but I'm gonna eat these fries.

- I'll get back on the Beast. (laughs)

(light cymbal shimmers)

- [Adam] How much did Colonel Harlan Sanders get

when he sold KFC in 1964?

A quarter of a million dollars,

$2 million, or $20 million?

The finger lickin' answer when Modern Marvels returns.

- [Adam] Not long after KFC became a

franchise national brand,

Colonel Sanders sold KFC for $2 million.

Today, the brand is valued at 8.3 billion.

(light upbeat music)

The sizzle, the smell, the taste, the hamburger.

It's an icon of the fast food industry,

and with good reason.

On average Americans eat up to 30 pounds

of burgers every year.

And of all the fast food burger joints you can think of,

White Castle was the first.

But I think now it's probably time

to move further into the menu

to arguably one of the most iconic foods

in the American dining landscape,

American fast food landscape, the White Castle slider.

- You're exactly right, Adam.

We served over 600 million sliders every year.

- [Adam] Ooh, I got to have accounted for

at least a couple hundred of those.

- Well, I'll give you another stat.

We've been open a hundred years.

We've sold over 20 billion in our history.

- That's incredible.

- [Adam] The reason people have scarfed up over 20 billion

of these magical bite-sized burgers

is because of their taste, but also because of their value.

And this was true from the very beginning.

White Castle was founded in 1921

by Billy Ingram and Walt Anderson.

The first White Castle location opened in Wichita, Kansas.

- The story behind the invention of sliders

is that Walt Anderson had become so frustrated

by the time it took to cook a meatball sandwich,

he slammed his spatula down on top of meatball

and flattened into a small patty, inventing the slider.

- [Adam C.] Walt Anderson ran a small shop

outside of factories in Wichita.

And eventually he opened a storefront called White Castle

in part because the building would look like a castle.

The slider sold for a nickel a pop

and they were extremely popular because they were

cheap, affordable, and they were encased

in these little buns that you could take

with you wherever you want.

- [Adam] Over the years,

the price of the original 5 cent White Castle slider

has increased but has always remained affordable.

In 1950, the price went up to 12 cents,

less than half the price of a cup of coffee at the time.

Bye 1970, the price of the slider grew to 14 cents,

about the same as a round trip subway fare in New York.

And today the average price

of a White Castle slider is just 79 cents.

You can get more than 10 sliders

for the average price of a movie ticket.

That's across 377 locations in 13 states

including the one where I'm about to make

the slider magic happen.

- [Haskell] So here we go.

First, we're gonna do our buns,

and we're gonna take out a set of 30 buns.

- [Adam] That's right, 30 buns.

That's because White Castle's signature to-go box,

the Crave Case, can hold up to 30 sliders

and the massive Crave Crate can house 100 of these puppies.

In fact, the custom griddle that we're cooking on

is specially designed to hold exactly 30 sliders at a time,

maximizing efficiency.

How fast you can one of your workers

set up 30 and put together 30?

- From beginning to end,

I've seen team members do it in less than a minute.

- That is deeply impressive.

Let's see if I could break that record.

- Just get under the whole front row.

- Pulling out a stack of 24 buns in one go

is harder than it looks.

- [Haskell] Don't drop the buns 'cause they're precious.

- They are.

Oh boy, oh boy, this is not good.

This is not.

Oh man, I am so sorry.

I am so fired.

Oh God, God the humanity.

Nope, no, no, no records will be broken today.

In my defense, it's my first day.

- [Haskell] We'll just slide in, Adam, like this underneath.

Break 'em at the back.

- [Adam] Oh, come on! - That's your row of 24.

Just like that.

And then we'll just grab a row of six.

We're gonna do 30 sliders on this first round.

- [Adam] And the first step, grilling onions.

- [Haskell] That's perfect.

- [Adam] Okay, it's perfect?

- [Haskell] The next thing is our meat patties,

hundred percent beef.

- [Adam] Yes, sir. - Okay.

So if you open that meat box to your left, that's right.

- [Adam] Okay.

- [Haskell] And then we're gonna come over here

with it and then to the furthest part of the grill

start at the top and just layer 'em down.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,

boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

- [Adam] Like that? - [Haskell] Yup.

- [Adam] These sizzling patties are the heart

of the White Castle slider.

But they wouldn't be the White Castle patties

without those five signature holes in the meat.

And there is a stroke of genius behind this design.

When the slider patty hits the griddle,

they're stacked on top of a layer of grilling onion.

The steam from the onions gets inside the hole,

circulating inside the patty and cooking it

all the way through, which means this is one burger

you don't need to flip.

This cuts down the time it takes to grill

up a fresh batch of sliders.

Ooh wee!

- Now we're gonna do the seasoning.

- Now can you tell me what this is your no?

- That is a special blend just for White Castle,

so I cannot indulge. - Is it really?

- [Haskell] the secrets of that seasoning.

- Okay. All right.

Who know, secret, special herbs and spices

right here at White Castle, okay.

After a gentle dusting, the buns go on top

to get steamed by the hot onions

and meat until they're ready to come off the grill.

- So now you got the original sliders off.

- Yes, sir.

- Each one gets a pickle. - You got it.

- And then we're gonna box 'em up to go.

- [Adam] But there's a problem.

(dramatic music)

Oh no, there's one without a box.

Whatever shall we do with it?

Hmm.

Got an idea.

(upbeat music)

- [Adam] McDonald's Quarter Pounder with Cheese,

Taco Bell's Chalupa and Subway's Foot-long.

These are just some of the items

on menus that have raked in over $50 billion

in annual sales in the U.S. alone.

Every fast food spot has signature menu items.

And at White Castle, it's this juicy slider.

Oh my God, it feels like coming home.

I called my mom, told her we were filming at White Castle.

She began to share memories of how my grandfather loved it.

And think about it, a hundred years.

Since the very beginning of the 1920s,

how many generations have experienced this?

Mmm.

It's true.

White Castle has been serving its sliders for a century,

making it almost as old

as the broader definition of fast food itself.

- [Elizabeth] The history of fast food really starts off

with the creation of the automat lunchroom

in 1902 in Philadelphia.

- [Adam] Automat restaurants serve customers

ready-made food using vending machines.

- Horn and Hardart built the automat to create a way

for people who didn't have time to sit down

and eat a long lunch, commuters specifically.

They were looking for quality meals

very quickly and affordably.

- [Adam] Automat weren't really automatic.

There was an army of workers

behind the walls of the vending machines

cooking and replacing the food purchased by customers.

- So you'd enter the automat and you would choose

what you wanted to eat by inserting 5 cents into a slot

and lifting a little glass window.

And behind that window, you would have things

like mac and cheese or meatloaf or pie.

And then you would go off to the lunch room

and enjoy your meal there.

- [Adam] A decade after kicking off in Philadelphia,

Horn and Hardart leveled up by opening another location

in one of the busiest urban centers

in the United States, Times Square.

Nearly 10 years after that, White Castle's birth

kicked off stiff competition from more fast food icons

like McDonald's in 1948, Burger King in 1954,

and Taco Bell and Wendy's in the 1960s.

This competition and inflation meant a decline

in food quality at the automats compared

to reliable fast food attractions,

like the Big Mac, KFC's fried chicken,

and of course the White Castle slider.

This delicious hunk of joy

is White Castle's main attraction,

but they also room for an occasional guest star.

And I'm about to get the sneak peek

at their latest menu experiment.

- So right now we're gonna be making two

of our limited time only sandwiches,

the Sloppy Joe and the Smokey Joe.

- For those of you who may not know,

Sloppy Joe is usually ground beef,

seasoned with kind of a tomato sauce with vegetables,

but it has its own kind of rich flavor,

kinda magical tangy, somewhat spicy thing.

Bringing in a ringer for a limited run

is a common play in the fast food game.

- When you think about limited time menu options,

LTO's is what they're called in the fast food world,

you think of the McRib, which is the most delicious

and most polarizing LTO in the world.

- [Adam] The McRib made a big comeback last year.

After a decade off the menu,

it got its biggest release ever,

selling in more than 10,000 McDonald's locations.

Some LTO's are heavy on both creativity and calories,

like KFC's donut and fried chicken sandwich,

Wendy's Breakfast Baconator, or Taco Bell's Nacho Fries,

which costs just a dollar and sold 53 million times

in its first five weeks of release.

- Part of limited time offerings and the appeal of them

is that they have this short shelf life.

And so if they're on the menus full time,

there wouldn't be this excitement about it.

You would take it for granted, but there's always

this shouting of something new and something fun

and the gimmick of having something kind of appear

on a menu and then disappear.

(upbeat music)

- [Adam] And the difference between the Sloppy Joe

and the Smokey Joe is?

- [Haskell] So we've got that nice onion crisp

on top of that Smokey Joe.

And we've also got this nice smoked cheddar cheese

on top of that as well.

- Sounds delicious.

- We're going to take one scoop

of our Sloppy Joe for each sandwich.

- [Adam] One scoop on each?

- Yup, just right on the bottom bun, yup.

You're gonna do one more scoop on the other bun,

and you can just smell those flavors, Adam.

- [Adam] It smells delicious.

- just the bun top on top,

and that's how you make the Sloppy Joe.

That's the classic right there.

- Okay, right there. - [Haskell] Right.

And now we're gonna do our Smokey Joe.

- Smokey Joe.

- So you're gonna take one scoop of our crispy onion.

- [Adam] Put it right on top?

- [Haskell] Yup, and then you should have

that smoky cheddar cheese right on top,

and then bun on top of that.

And that is your classic Smokey Joe slider.

- Sloppy Joe and the Smokey Joe.

After putting in so much hard work,

I am going to divest of my mask.

That's awesome.

It's so good.

The same way I've been talking

about how the fast food experience brings back memories,

you immediately go back to these memories.

Sloppy Joe is one of those like beautiful memories

of childhood cafeterias.

Come on, admit it.

It looks like your childhood.

If you had Sloppy Joes,

and were fortunate enough to have good Sloppy Joes,

oh, it was just like this.

That was delicious, and that's the regular Sloppy Joe.

But they also have that Smokey Joe.

(upbeat music)

That's amazing.

What took you guys so long?

A hundred years. (Haskell laughs)

It'll be your new favorite.

Come in and have it, have it a lot so it's here often.

Please, please, do it for me.

This is delicious.

I could stand here and quietly enjoy

this smoky goodness all day.

But it's almost a little too quiet.

I have to say normally you'd have customers like hollering

at you from one side.

- [Haskell] Right?

- Like I'm picturing like a dinner rush or a Saturday.

- Yes, we're only doing a drive-through.

We're not even doing dine-in right now

because of what's going on with the pandemic.

- [Adam] That means all the customer action here

is at the drive-through window,

which is why it's my next stop.

(upbeat music)

- [Adam] You've been there.

You're running late.

You don't have time to cook,

but you've got to pick up something and fast.

That's when you reach for that lifesaver

of the American road, the drive-through.

And today, it's my turn to take your order.

This is Max.

He has been watching me like dropping buns

and trying to get it together

with a great amount of patients.

So Max, thank you so much,

but he's giving me one small crack on the drive-through,

which I appreciate.

Will you show me how we put orders in and stuff?

- All righty, so drive-through.

This is my favorite position.

- [Adam] When the car pulls up to the Intercom outside,

it triggers a motion sensor,

which alerts the person working at the window.

This is when the ordering starts and it does not stop.

You could be typing in one order.

You're talking to another client,

talking to another client, and so on and so forth.

- Yup, keep it going, keep it continuous.

So you can save the order, take another car,

save that order, take a third car, four, five.

Once a customer pulls up to the speaker, it'll go ding.

You'll pres this button right here, and you're activated on.

- What is the reply, that standard reply

that you're meant to give when someone pulls up.

- Our best reply is welcome to White Castle.

We appreciate your business.

How can I help you?

We appreciate your business.

How can I help you?

Got it.

All right, so I'm gonna try to not mess up these things.

- Gotta think very quickly. - [Adam] Heck yes.

- Gotta be quick on your feet.

- [Adam] Hopefully I am and faster than I can ask

would you like fries with that?

(intercom beeps)

Hello, welcome to the White Castle.

We appreciate your business.

May I take your order please?

The first system of drive up service here

might've started the very year White Castle was born.

- The Pig Stand was born in Texas in 1921,

and it claims to be the first drive in restaurant

in the United States.

And it was a barbecue place where you would drive up

with your car and you would be served by a car hop.

And that was the beginning of the model

that eventually would become drive-throughs.

- [Lauren] With the big push for freeways in the 1940s,

a lot of restaurants that weren't close

to freeways sorta died off.

And there was a need for families who were traveling

on freeways to be able to pull off and quickly grab a meal.

- [Adam] And by the end of the '40s,

a major innovation meant you didn't need to wait

for a car hop to take your order.

- What Jack in the Box did differently

was it had a microphone that went to the kitchen.

And so a driver would come up

and deliver their order through the microphone

and then drive up to the window and wait for the food.

- [Adam] But the modern drive-through experience

isn't a one-sided conversation.

- What In-N-Out did in 1948 was create a two way speaker.

So that was another innovation at the time that we now know

as something being very familiar

to drive-through experience.

- [Adam] Right now, I'm getting familiar

with this experience from the other side of the window.

But Max has some feedback.

You gotta remember, you're the first voice

they're hearing when they pull up to that speaker.

So you gotta sell this White Castle brand.

- [Adam] Challenge accepted.

There's some really good Sloppy Joes, actually,

that we have for a limited time.

By the way, the Smokey Joe in particular

happens to be really delicious.

- [Customer] Yeah?

- I'm just saying it's only here for a limited time

and I actually eat what we make here and it's delicious.

- [Customer] All right, lemme have two of the Sloppy Joes.

- [Adam] I'm a natural.

All right, any sides or any onion rings or French fries,

mozzarella sticks, something like that?

The fries are awesome.

The fries happen to be awesome.

It's all about timing though, legit.

It's all about timing and not putting too much salt.

I might make Employee of the Month,

but there's no time to rest on my laurels.

Hello, Welcome to White Castle.

We appreciate your business.

May I take your order, please?

There you go, there's your medium Sprite.

Can I get you any sauces?

Because the orders keep coming.

Hi, welcome to White Castle.

Can I take your order please?

And coming.

And two of stuff with cheese.

- Right now, you should be making a small cherry Coke.

- [Adam] Copy that.

- [Customer] Okay, I'm ready now.

- Absolutely, ready for you.

What may I get you?

Can I get you any sauces to go with that?

- [Customer] No, I'm good.

- All right, you're good.

Drive carefully, nasty weather out there.

- [Customer] All right, game on.

- Bye-bye, okay, bye. (laughs)

- Team, how's Adam been doing since he's been here, right?

Give him a round of applause.

(team cheers and claps)

- [Adam] I've worked up an appetite.

(laughs) THat was, it was oddly exhilarating.

(upbeat music)

And the Haskell is rewarding me with an exclusive treat.

- So Adam, we're gonna take it back to the beginning.

We're gonna take it back to 1921,

and we're gonna make our 1921 slider.

This was something that was on the menu back then,

but it's also something to commemorate

our hundredth birthday this year.

- Is it available to customers?

- Currently, we've got it in two locations,

Scottsdale and Chicago.

We're gonna make this specifically for you.

- This episode is only going to get better.

You will get very hungry.

Which of the following led to the nationwide introduction

of the McRib in 1982?

A national pork surplus,

a shortage of chickens,

or was it a sharp decline in Big Mac sales?

The answer after the break.

- [Adam] The answer is a shortage of chicken.

According to a McDonald's executive chef at the time,

when the Chicken McNugget was introduced in 1979,

it was so popular it led to a shrinking chicken supply.

Helping franchises make up for this led McDonald's

to create the McRib.

(light upbeat music)

Whether you're having McDonald's classic crispy golden fries

or a Whopper right off the Burger King grill,

it always tastes like it's supposed to.

The reliable consistency of fast food

is one of its hallmarks.

In fact, when Shake Shack attempted to switch

to fresh hand-cut fries, many people let them know

how much they preferred the classic crinkle cut.

But food also evolves.

And at White Castle, the latest change

is the introduction of the 1921 slider.

- Okay, in the 1921, we're back at our griddle station.

Right here, you can see, we have the nice beef here

along with our nice roasted onion there.

- [Adam] So the onions are already a little bit different

because instead of going raw onion

and steaming it right in the grill.

these have already seen a little bit of heat.

- [Haskell] Yes. - Got it.

The patty here doesn't have the same signature holes

as the regular White Castle slider,

meaning it has to be flipped.

It's actually less efficient to make this,

but what White Castle is losing in efficiency,

they're hoping to gain in flavor.

- Take that seasoning.

Now that seasoning's different

than the other seasoning we use.

- It is, this is the original.

- [Haskell] That's right.

- And this is the 1921 season.

No doubt, also secret blend?

- [Haskell] That's right. - Okay.

The spice blend and roasted onions are not the only things

different than the 1921 slider.

The meat for this specialty slider comes

from a local premium beef supplier,

but the original slider patties

with the five holes come from a little farther away.

(air whooshes)

(light piano music)

- [David] We are here at White Castle's

Zanesville meat processing plant,

or as we like to call it, the providers of sliders.

My name is David Rife.

I oversee all of the manufacturing operations

within in White Castle.

White Castle was started

by my great-grandfather, Billy Ingram.

Lot of Billy's friends called it

his crazy hamburger experiment.

- [Adam] And this is where that crazy experiment

has led the company today.

- At this facility here,

this is where we take beef trimmings, grind them,

turn them into those delicious White Castle slider patties

that you get to eat in our restaurants

and at our retail products.

- [Adam] Currently, the Zanesville meat facility

processes 650,000 sliders a day,

3.2 million sliders a week, and 13 million sliders a month.

(upbeat music)

- [David] The whole process begins on our loading dock.

We get shipments of frozen ground beef in five days a week.

Trucks come in, bringing us frozen ground beef.

We unload those trucks.

We put about a quarter million pounds

of meat a week through this freezer.

(machine humming and beeping)

- [Adam] All that meat gets thoroughly inspected

before it's ground down, mixed, then ground down again.

The slider meat is then pushed

through a special mold to take shape.

- That meat horn is what gives it

that wonderful square shape.

- Meat horn sounds like an edible musical instrument,

but it's actually a sculpting tool,

giving the patty its iconic look.

- This is where we get our two by two square patty

with the five holes in it.

If you look at these five rods right here

that's what creates the holes in our patty.

- [Adam] The meat horn doesn't just poke holes.

It also shapes the ground meat

into blocks that gets sent to a freezer.

- They're in there for 20 minutes,

get just a perfect crust so we we slice it,

we get a nice even slice on our hamburger patty.

Those slicers have the ability to slice up

to a thousand slices a minute.

- [Adam] The finished patties get stacked, packed,

and shipped out to White Castle restaurants

to the tune of 156 million sliders a year,

including a shipment that ended up right here.

- [Haskell] So now we take that slider press off.

Oh man, look at that.

- [Adam] The patty has a char and a crispness

that immediately sets it apart

from the standard White Castle slider.

- But we're gonna add our cheddar cheese.

- All right, the smoky cheddar.

- [Haskell] Yes, it is.

- Ooh, it's so good.

One of my favorite things on the menu.

Standing here watching smoked cheddar melt

on a burger is definitely me in my happy place.

- [Haskell] No, that's perfect right there, Adam.

We can take those off and slide 'em onto our buns here.

- Okay, you got it.

- [Adam] Throw a couple of pickles on

and then we wrap up these drool-worthy sliders.

All right, I am gonna show one of these to the camera

and then show the other one to the inside of my mouth.

(camera clicks)

- [Haskell] So Adam, what do you think?

- They were so good, I nearly ate my glove.

I was trying to put too much of it into my mouth.

It is, flavor-wise, the perfect hybrid

between a White Castle slider and a backyard burger.

It has the char, the crispiness, the smokiness,

even down to the onions and the cheese itself

that I would associate with a burger at a family barbecue,

but it has that unmistakable White Castle bun.

It's really kind of amazing to see both

of those flavors in one delicious package.

It might take longer to whip up 30 of these bad boys,

but man, is it worth the wait.

1921, it's both a year White Castle was established

and the number of these you'll want to eat.

My shift is over, my belly is full,

and we got an exclusive peak behind the curtain

at two of the fast food industry's titans.

In the world of burgers to the world of fried chicken,

from working the line at the legendary White Castle

to finding out why KFC is an international phenomenon,

you can't tell the story of American food

without also telling the story of the fast food chains

and restaurants that help build and define it.

So the next time you grab your burger, your fry,

remember, there's a lot of hard work,

ingenuity, and technology to keep it at a fair price,

and of course, fast.

(upbeat music)