Thinner… perhaps?
Don’t worry, I’m not going to hate on ol’ B-R. Heck, it was my first job. I scooped ice cream there for two years starting when I was 15. I still have the Popeye forearms to prove it.
Turns out though, Irvine Robbins, co-founder of Baskin-Robbins has died. He lived to be 90!
I’m not going to say BR has contributed to obesity or anything like that. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a treat like ice cream now and then. Everything in moderation, right? I will never say that I blame any of the fast-food restaurant chains. They all started out as mom and pop, single location food establishments. They just happened to be so successful that they were able to grow into the behemoth corporations that they are today. You can’t blame them for being very good at making money.
I remember thinking it was hilarious when the kids that came in with their parents would get their brightly colored ice cream all over their face and clothes. That’s why I would always show them the blue raspberry sherbet. They would pick it or the rainbow sherbet because they were the brightest and the most colorful. Some would get the pink bubble gum. I thought those gum pieces tasted like plastic.
Irvine Robbins always believed that his employees should eat as much ice cream as they wanted! I was only allowed two junior scoops per shift, but that was plenty. I would usually not get any. A lot of people would ask me if I got sick of ice cream because I worked there. Not at all! I can probably still down a whole half gallon if I could manage to turn off the ‘consequences switch’ in my brain. I haven’t done that in a few years though, and lucky for me, I can’t turn that switch off.
Looking back, I don’t really remember noticing a lot of fat people coming in to feed the need. Perhaps I didn’t think about fat people as I do now, so I just didn’t notice it. I’m curious if really heavy people would simply avoid going to an ice cream store, just for the fact that it’s too obvious. It’s too public. It’s probably the most likely place that they could go to receive glares and comments, so I understand.
Most of the Baskin-Robbins where I live have tiny tables and chairs, not to mention the tiny napkins they give you to slop up the ice cream that misses your feed hole. These things are not fat friendly at all and is most likely the reason you can’t recall many fat people coming through those BR doors. The grocery store has wide isles and plenty of ice cream choices (and corn dogs), and Dairy Queen’s drive through gets you in and out plus you can grab fries with your ice cream. You gotta have the salt and sweet combo. When my whale pod does go to a Baskin-Robbins we generally hit the ones that are in the mall. This allows us to sit on the benches as well as it allows for us to choose pizza, fries, or big cookies to go along side the triple scoop cone in a cup…not to mention using other establishments napkins.