Druggies is 20% of the work force so I never said it wax the primary reason. Matt said it contributes and it does. It’s not a massive factor but it is a factor. Just like the kids and old people not caring is a factor. You fixated on it because you want to defend it. It is a part of the problem and is a problem everywhere. Matt brought it up and it’s true not matter how much you want to redirect from it.
Keep eating the slop bud and telling everyone they can’t help doling it out. I’m sure your full throared defense will help margins immediately as more stores close. Good job. They should hire you because you definitely would turn it around with your excuses.
You keep acting like acknowledging context is the same as "defending drug use." No one said substances aren't a factor. What's being challenged is your insistence on treating downstream labor symptoms as if they're the engine driving declines in food quality.
Your argument works like this - 20% of workers are impaired -> impaired people don't care -> therefore restaurants are bad now. But that's not an analysis, that's feels-based causality (liberals do this, btw).
If worker quality were the primary determinant of food quality, we'd expect chains with sober, well-trained workers to serve better food (they don't - it still tastes like shit, costs way too much, has suffered from shrinkflation, etc.), chains in stricter labor markets to outperform others, and establishments with in-house prep to consistently excel. But the data, industry history, and even the examples
you yourself cited all say the opposite - quality is tracking with supply chain decisions, not employee lifestyle choices.
Outback didn't decline because Chad on the grill hit a blunt. It declined when corporate leadership replaced in-house prep with centrally sourced product to protect margins. You keep circling back to drugs, old people, and lazy kids because those are
morally convenient culprits. They let you
feel like you've diagnosed something without having to understand how consolidation, logistics, and scaling incentives reshape entire industries. That's why Matt's video resonated with you, because it moralizes structural economics. That's precisely why he first starts with the "drugs" red herring and then throws in the "woke"/WOMEN! red herring toward the latter part of the video. It's easier to blame individuals than to understand systems. It's fascinating to watch how people supporting the "right" are just as easily captured by "moral outrage" as the left. Only instead of abortion, SNAP, etc. they capture you with illegal immigration, drugs, crime, etc.
As for the "keep eating the slop" line? I'm not defending the food, I'm explaining
why it's slop. Your stance amounts to - "The ship is sinking because the deckhand doesn't row hard enough!". Meanwhile, the hull was sold off to private equity and replaced with cardboard. You're not wrong that workers can be a
factor. You're wrong in thinking that factor is primary, causal, or fixable in isolation. You can fire every "druggie" tomorrow and nothing fundamentally changes until the inputs, incentives, and distribution networks do. That's not an excuse, that's the architecture of the industry.
Blaming workers
feels satisfying. Understanding supply chains actually
explains something.