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One of the biggest mysteries
in the grand pantheon of the Manhattan culinary history is the untimely
and swift collapse of the Ranch
1 chain of restaurants. You'd think the company was perfectly
positioned, what with the public's unebbing appetite for "healthy"
fast food and protein in general. But now that chain had been relegated
to sharing oddball spaces with Syrian delis and Puerto Rican bodegas.
In one of Ranch 1's old spaces comes Chicken Bar. And the similarities
are eerie. I mean this place didn't even bother changing the signage,
color scheme, or the menu. My head almost exploded when I got my food,
and it looked, smelled and tasted exactly like Ranch 1. What the hell
is going on here? I mean the sauces were identical but packaged differently,
the bun of the chicken sandwich was the same, but didn't have sesame
seeds and the signature fries were the same exact great, skin-on potato
goodies, but less plentiful. I almost walked up to the front counter
and called the freaks out by tossing my order at them and yelling
and screaming, but decided getting arrested over a chicken sandwich
wasn't worth it. Some subsequent snooping on NYC food blogs has revealed
that some of the Ranch 1 franchises were released from their corporate
contracts and decided to soldier on as Chicken Bar, while others closed
outright. Now I'm no lawyer (although I did have a mediocre score
on the LSAT some years back), but it seems to me that there has to
be some sort of copyright infraction here. If I were a blind, or even
slightly myopic, person, there's no way I would be able to tell that
there was any difference in this restaurant's storied past and its
new incarnation. But, look, I ain't complaining, because as far as
I'm concerned, the more Ranch 1's the better.[MF]
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