Tomorrow night, the hit CBS series Undercover Boss takes on beloved regional Tex-Mex chain Taco Bueno, an Okie favorite if only for the Mexi-Dips and Chips. While we won’t know which store CEO Michael Roper went undercover as an employee at until showtime, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the one on N.W. 23rd and Penn, which remains as janky as ever. I mean, let’s be honest: what’s the point of having a salsa bar if you’re never gonna refill it?
Thinking about that salsa bar, however, got me to thinking about what other businesses could use the Undercover Boss treatment. What other fast food joints or local businesses that seem to have let the inmates run the asylum could do with a costumed visit from a disguised head honcho? And, more importantly, how would I fix them, if I were in charge? Here’s five places around town that could use a ship-up or shape-out from the Undercover Boss…
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Braum’s Ice Cream and Dairy Stores
I’m pretty sure the first thing the Undercover Boss would notice about this Braum’s is the same thing we all notice at Braum’s: all those nasty half-dried ketchup splatters. Forget the melting crushed ice overflowing from the spill tray, forget the napkins and straws strewn all about…it’s that congealing sticky ketchup dispenser that has more forcefully missed squirt-stains than the set of a Mason Moore flick, each brutal pump sending a warm stream of tomato paste all over the counter, the floor and, more than likely, your clothing. To make matters worse, no one even bothers to clean it for hours. Can Undercover CEO Drew Braum devote a whole episode to this?
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AMC Classic Northpark 7 (Northpark Mall)
Let’s be honest: even though it was recently purchased by AMC, the thoroughly depressing movie theater at Northpark Mall is a shadow of its former self, which is pretty bad considering it was a shadow of itself to begin with. To visit its current incarnation is like visiting your once proud and sturdy grandfather in a hospice, Judge Judy on in the background acting as the soundtrack to his final breaths, family gathered with forced smiles just in case this is the day they receive their long-awaited inheritances. For the few things worth noting—those $1 hot dogs, for example—there’s twice as many things at Northpark that don’t work—those $1 hot dogs selling out by the second show, for example—that need the guiding hand of a caring CEO to come in either fire up the paddles or humanely pull the plug.
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Love's Travel Stops & Country Stores
When traveling across this great country, chances are you’ll stop at one of Love’s 420 convenience stores in one of these great 40 states. And while, for the most part, they have clean restrooms and a pretty good fountain drink selection, they are getting left behind in the dust however thanks to more modern, more needs-anticipating outlets like QuikTrip and OnCue. For example, why pick up one of those nasty pre-packaged Deli Express Ham and Cheese sandwiches from a Love’s when you can get a fresh foot-long hot-dog taco roller off the grill at a fraction of the price at QT? And don’t even get me started on those breakfast pizzas! Is this something you can look into this while wearing a heavy fake mustache, executive chairman Tom Love? (On the plus side, kudos for keeping those comically large 128 oz. travel mugs!)
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Sonic Drive-In Restaurants
This is very simple: I would love to see Clifford Hudson, president and CEO of Sonic, listen to the years of tortured cries from his employees and customers by filming a commercial that features the public stockading of the two guys in those Sonic commercials—T. J. Jagodowski and Peter Grosz—wherein they are marched through the streets and angry passersby can throw rancid Supersonic Jr. cheeseburgers and fryer-hot 4-piece cheddar peppers in disgust at this pair of insufferable jerk-offs. As soon as they reach the city limits, buckets of Ocean Water syrup are dumped on them along with a few handfuls of “rainbow candy,” wherein they are left to roam the wilderness for the rest of their days.
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7-11 (at N.W. 23rd and Penn)
Like many episodes of Undercover Boss are wont to do, I want to end this piece on a positive note by saying bless the employees at the 7-11 at N.W. 23rd and Penn. How do they manage to always be so polite and friendly when there’s some dude relieving his bowels out by the ice machine? How do they manage to always ask how my day is when they just got a death threat from an angry junkie who tried to eat a can of Alpo over by the MovieQuik wall? How do they maintain that positive customer service experience whilst toiling in the middle of a scene from Escape from New York? Oklahoma franchise owner James Brown (not that one, sadly) should grant all of those employees some scholarships or Range Rovers or something comparable for doing God’s work.
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Let's work together. C'mon, c'mon, let's work together. Follow Louis on Twitter at @LouisFowler.
