White Castle vs. Krystal

[Music] White Castle and Crystal are Regional hamburger chains that are suspiciously similar I will be highlighting the similarities throughout the video but I would have to say that the biggest single difference between them is where these restaurants are located considering There is almost no Geographic overlap essentially if you're from the northern part of the country you likely know all about White Castle if you're from the south you know about Crystal and if you're from the West Coast or anywhere else in the world for that matter most of this is probably going to be new to you see as far as I know there's been sort of an unspoken agreement between them saying that they won't expand into each other's territory I think it's just easier that way each of them is a cult following in their own region so it would be difficult for either one of them to cross over and pull away those loyal customers for today I want to show some of the similarities and differences between these two companies by comparing them in what I would consider to be five key categories starting off with with the menu because this has to be the most obvious similarity White Castle was started as an original concept over a century ago it was so original that White Castle is widely considered to be the first ever fast food restaurant I have already made a video that details their success and Innovation over the years but White Castle was built around the Revolutionary idea of selling these 5 cents Square hamburgers and coffee from a tiny cost efficient building it was so successful that other people started opening their own hamburger chains that were I'll just say very heavily influenced by White Castle the most successful and long- Lasting of these would be Crystal yeah Legend has it that a man named roie Davenport went to a White Castle noticed how well they were doing and stuck around to study the aspects that made it attractive to people in 1932 during the Great Depression when White Castle had already surpassed 100 locations throughout the Midwest roie opened his own version of it in Chattanooga Tennessee he and his partner invested $5,000 to construct a 250 squ Ft white building that sold of course 5 Cent hamburgers and coffee their first ever customer famously ordered Six Crystal hamburgers and a cup of coffee for 35 even today these restaurants serve a very similar hamburger cooked with onions and served with Pickles I doubt that there are many people out there that have had the opportunity to compare both of them but the biggest difference is that Crystal puts mustard on it clearly Crystal has followed White Castle's lead when it comes to the sliders and really that has been the for most new menu Innovations over the years notably the chicken sandwich a popular menu item for both of them that was introduced by White Castle in 1987 more than a decade before Crystal introduced their version called the crystal chick in fact White Castle had already been working with another chain called Church's Chicken to open co-branded locations during that time and even serve some of their menu items at select locations though going all the way back to the 1960s Crystal did start a small chain of separately branded fried chicken restaurants so both have had a much deeper involvement with fried chicken than you would imagine overall I'm just trying to convey that these two have shockingly similar menus and that is mostly because the White Castle menu has heavily influenced the crystal menu the next comparison that I want to make is the cleanliness of the two restaurants which I realize might not seem like an important comparison but you are going to have to trust me on this one in fact I know it doesn't sound like it but both of these chains were practically named after their cleanliness you know there's got to be a story there well in 1921 White Castle was unique in opening a hamburger stand because people didn't like hamburgers I know they're so popular today but a 100 years ago they were seen as more of a novelty like something you would eat at a carnival and on top of that there was a popular book released only 15 years earlier exposing the unsanitary conditions at meat processing plants nobody cared much about hamburgers anyway and now that they were potentially dangerous to consume people were certain to stay away so when White Castle opened they had to overcome that perception they had to go the extra mile to convince everyone that their hamburgers were clean and safe one of the main ways they did that was by making everything white it's a color that conveys cleanliness because when something is white you can see that it's clean they made the buildings white the interior was filled with white porcelain their uniforms were white and of course they called it White Castle when Crystal was taking shape 11 years later roie Davenport's wife came across a crystal ball lawn ornament she noticed how clear and clean it looked and figured that Crystal would be a good name to convey that concept they changed the spelling of it a little bit to make it stand out and went on to use the crystal ball theme at many of their restaurants over the years that is how they were both literally named as a way to convey their cleanliness and even developed themes and styles around it that made people feel much safer about eating there so I have to point out that yet again Crystal was taking heavy influence from something that had already been established estblished by White Castle a comparison that you might not expect but I found to be interesting is their operation of other businesses for White Castle in the 1930s they made this machine to manufacture those white paper hats that the employees would wear as part of their all-white uniform well that machine turned out to be so efficient at making them that they started selling millions of those hats to other fast food restaurants and created their own subsidiary for it they also had a subsidiary for manufacturing the buildings themselves along with kitchen equipment it's funny to think that everything they were doing was so specialized and unique at the time that they had to create their own businesses to make the stuff that they needed for it for Crystal you're not going to expect this but they used to operate an aircraft maintenance business they bought a small one in the 1970s just to maintain their corporate planes but expanded upon it in the 1990s to a point where 3% of all their sales was coming from aircraft maintenance they ultimately sold it in the early 2000s so they could place more of their attention on the restaurant resturants another Endeavor of theirs I think is worth mentioning would be a separate chain called Po Folks it was a southern chain of family restaurants named after a Country Song by Bill Anderson who had later become their spokesperson Crystal Bodo folks in the 1980s expanded it to over 100 locations before spinning it off into its own company that then filed for bankruptcy I'll admit that all of this isn't exactly a direct comparison between the two chains but it shows some interesting directions that the companies behind the chains have explored over the years maybe the most fun comparison that can be made is their marketing efforts not surprisingly White Castle has been a Pioneer in this area in many different ways being the first fast food restaurant ever to advertise in the newspaper before Crystal even existed and airing commercials on television as early as 1960 their slogan used to be buy them by the sack because they had these tiny locations without much seating room so they were trying to get people to take their food to go in 1993 their newly hired Ad Agency introduced the now famous slogan what you crave that is led to the creation of their signature Crave Case containing 30 sliders Crystal has also found Success Through commercials and similar branding you could buy their hamburgers by the sack full in the 1970s they ran a commercial featuring Samuel L Jackson before he was famous in the 1980s they became known for their commercials featuring Sid the cowboy and his horse named Sheila all traditional forms of advertising that have made their impact but I would argue that for B chains their cult following has led to many non-traditional forms that have amounted to an even greater impact act looking back at White Castle in 1977 there was a popular movie release called Saturday Night Fever it was set in New York and a scene in that movie takes place inside of a White Castle in 1986 the Beasty Boys a rap group from New York released their Diamond selling album Licensed to Ill that mentions White Castle multiple times and of course in 2004 Harold and Kumar went to White Castle a restaurant that was chosen for the plot because of its comparatively small but dedicated following for Crystal it's a very popular southern thing so it's gotten publicity from Southern celebrities most notably Elvis Pressley was known to be a big fan of Crystal famously in 1954 Elvis was put on the radio for the first time by DJ Daddo Dewey Phillips and after the broadcast they ordered 100 sliders from Crystal and handed them out to all the fans who showed up in the 1960s country singer Crystal gaale took inspiration from the fast food chain when she chose that as her stage name in the 1980s a bunch of Crystal sliders were delivered to President Ronald Reagan on Air Force 1 in 2022 Atlanta rapper 2 Chains was named their head of Creative Marketing by the way the First new menu item they released since then was called the side chick oh my goodness so a lot of attention brought to both Brands because of their Regional popularity and celebrities from those areas that have grown up eating their food my final comparison is what I believe to be a major difference between them their tolerance for risk White Castle has to be one of the safest most careful risk adverse restaurants that you will ever see they have been owned and operated by the Ingram family since the beginning over 100 years ago one of the two Founders was Billy Ingram and today Lisa Ingram is the fourth generation of the family to serve as their president they have always carried minimal debt with very little franchising only a few small attempts outside of the US but within the country every location is always been owned and operated by the company itself now Crystal actually did follow a very similar path for a long time remaining private and avoiding franchising in fact in the 1970s instead of franchising Crystal they tried expanding by opening a bunch of Wendy's franchises but starting in the 1990s there have been some aggressive attempts to expand crystal in 1990 they started selling crystal franchises for the first time ever as a way to grow their reach and get the brand out there without having to spend much money to do it it started off with drive-through locations only labeled as Crystal Qui but the opportunities quickly opened up to to the traditional restaurants as well in 1992 they had a public stock offering raising $24 million to open new restaurants and grow their franchising program today something like 40% of all crystals are franchised they have had multiple changes in ownership since then but I have to say I don't know if this aggressive riskier approach has really paid off for them in 1995 they filed for bankruptcy stemming from likely a leveraged byout led by roie devonport theii that occurred in the 1980s and cost associated with mult multiple class action lawsuits from Crystal employees claiming that they were denied overtime pay then in early 2020 they filed for bankruptcy again so much more that could be explored there but every few years Crystal releases big plans to double in size or open hundreds of new locations but it never happens in the big picture despite the differing tolerances for risk White Castle and Crystal have both been hovering around 300 to 400 locations and that makes me think that it might just be the perfect size for them let me know in the comments have you ever been to White Castle or Crystal what do you think of them and if you are one of the select people who have had the honor of trying them both how do they compare clearly Crystal has had a lot of influence from White Castle but after so many decades at this point they have evolved to create their own identity today we have two remarkably similar restaurants that do have some key differences so any thoughts you have about White Castle or Crystal or anything else I talked about in this video leave them in the comments I'd like to hear what you have to say thank you for [Music] watching

Channel: Company Man

Views: 390,199

Keywords: White Castle, Krystal, Burger, Slider, Fast Food, Business, Hamburger, Company, Versus

Id: mf8H2DpFcW8

Length: 11min 41sec (701 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 18 2023