That awkward moment when a police officer asks, “where are you all headed?” and you say “To Blaze…Pizza.” The pizza haven for the hungry, where you can create your own delicious concoction by choosing from an array of toppings all for one low price.

If Blaze Pizza has taught me anything, aside from thinking twice before speaking to a cop, it is that the way we treat fast food has changed and there is no going back. We have all learned about the assembly line at one point in our lives and how it revolutionized production. We also are well aware of the effects of the assembly line behind the scenes in the food industry in terms of food packaging and meat as well as crop production. In addition the assembly line is used within fast food chains themselves in the way workers are each put to a specific task to give you a finished product.

However, all this is predominantly done behind the scenes leaving customers to simply order and pick up, but now with this new wave of fast-food chains it is brought before our very eyes making the customer more inclusive in the assembly line and revolutionizing fast food industry.

Places like Panda Express and other “express” food franchises were the forerunners of this shift in fast food. Although they did not offer complete customization, there was a bit of choice for customers who could pick whether they wanted to pair kung pow chicken or beef and broccoli with their orange chicken and chow mein.

Then places like Subway arose where a menu of pre-selected ingredients created the base of your meal on top of which you could select and add the toppings you choose. This seems like a small leap since it may have been difficult to notice, nonetheless it was a leap that involved the customer in the creation of their meal even more.

Lastly, came the Mongolian barbecue joints, the Chipotles and the Blaze Pizzas, each at their own pace ultimately changing the way we treat fast food. At these places you are given a bowl or a piece of bread and full control of what goes on or in them. These are where your wildest fast food dreams can come true, where you can combine pork, chicken and beef in one noodle medley or keep it simple with a rice, beans and shredded beef burrito.

The most interesting part of this is that it seems that when full control is given to the customer there is less suspicion about the food. It would be unreasonable for me to think the beef is not real when I myself saw it cooking on the gigantic wok. It would be silly to think there were preservatives in the dough that I saw being pressed before my eyes into a pizza.

With this new assembly line there is more transparency in fast food creating less of a gap between the consumers and the producers. The reality of it is that the consumers are now the ones producing their food, choosing their toppings and meats, so why would we be suspicious of the ingredients we ourselves are choosing? Meanwhile, the producers are just the middlemen being paid for the labor of meal prep, dicing and chopping or cooking and stewing.   

It would not be surprising to see a burger factor open up pretty soon where we could choose our own grade of ground beef and watch it be made in front of our own eyes then pick any topping. It is all just a matter of time, but the revolution has begun and it is definitely changing the course of fast food. With this individualization and choice the customer is given absolute power over a meal that they do not need to cook and the appeal of that is significant in a world where we want things done fast and our own way.