Is Fear About the 2016 Election Keeping People from Eating at Wendy's?

This is only exacerbated by an election cycle that, to quote the red-bearded Finnish man I met in a Manhattan Wendy's while researching this article, "seems like it's going to hell." Partisans on both sides have legitimate worries about what the future will bring if their candidate is not elected. Hillary's With Hers worry that Trump's unique brand of reality-TV fascism and anti-immigrant policies will tank the economy, human rights, and the entire world. On the other side, Trump's parade of patio lusters worry that the Clinton administration will continue Obama's strategy of only helping poor minorities and ISIS.

We know Americans are nervous. We also know that they love fast food. Could it be possible they are more nervous than they love fast food? That's the theory of Wendy's CEO Todd Penegor, who isn't Dave Thomas (he died in 2002)—in an earnings call this week, Penegor blamed the company's recent dip in profits on the presidential election. "When a consumer is a little uncertain around their future and really trying to figure out what this election cycle really means to them, they're not as apt to spend as freely as they might have even just a couple of quarters ago," he said. In his own earnings call this July, McDonald's CEO Stephen Easterbrook offered a similar excuse for slow growth. "When people are uncertain, caution starts to prevail and they start to hold back on spend."

In other words, to the elites on Wall Street, Americans have seen a plastic fork in the road and decided not to take it; the election is responsible for knocking the Wend out of their sales. But what about the Average Joe? How do regular fast-food eaters feel about this theory?

To find out, I traveled to the Wendy's on Broadway & Houston in Lower Manhattan, to test it on the busy lunchtime crowd.

What I found was a perfect sampling of the America I know and love, a lingering vestige of the "old New York" everyone misses. Office workers sat next to construction crews; teens chatted with shelter residents as they bargained over Adderall and loosies. I watched a European tween in wetted jorts walk to the bathroom carrying an Urban Outfitters bag and emerge in a clean skirt. Sneakerheads sat below the giant CNN screen—to hammer home its CEO's point, this Wendy's has TVs broadcasting CNN—as talking heads discussed the latest rapist not to go to prison. A customer half-heartedly chanted, to no one, "Healthcare for the homeless in Baltimore" as he left. The restaurant was clean—even its bathroom was respectable. The staff was comfortably noninterventionist, asking me no questions as I lurked around interviewing patrons and taking pictures of the LED fireplace.

Diners were understandably hesitant when I approached them, but I found them fairly open to talking about how the election has affected their Wendy's habits. A man named Omar told me that uncertainty about 2016 has not changed his diet at all. "The last thing I'm thinking about when I'm thinking about Wendy's is the presidential election, and the last thing I'm thinking about when I'm thinking about the presidential election is Wendy's."

Julie, a Hillary supporter in her 20s who was enjoying a regular cheeseburger, fries, and Sprite, looked at me as if I had told a joke when I asked her if the election has made her eat at Wendy's less. "No, it's delicious and cheap," she said. Perhaps things are different in the heartland, but in downtown NYC, this seemed to be the consensus.

Of course, this sampling is way too small to really prove anything, but the idea that people aren't going to Wendy's because of the election struck everyone I spoke to as a bit absurd. Maybe, as the BBC reported, cheaper grocery store prices are the real culprit. More likely is that there are many different factors at play and even restaurant goers aren't really sure why they haven't been to Wendy's in awhile. "We don't really know what's wrong, but it'll be fine," isn't an explanation that would cut it with shareholders, but it seems close to the truth. After all, even the people who declined to speak to me seemed like they were enjoying their lunch too much to talk.

Before I left the restaurant, I bought a small vanilla Frosty. It was easily the most fulfilling $2.06-after-tax I've spent in months. It was smooth and milky and not at all warm or waxy in the way that fast food milkshakes often are. Feeling generous after a delicious and cheap treat, I gave my change to a homeless man on the way out. Crossing the street, I looked back, and I was disappointed to see that his cardboard sign said, "Orientals (Asian people) have NO compassion for true Americans."