How come Italian fast food isn't more popular...

The best thing about the meatball obsession place is that it really is just a window, and you can even ask for a cup of just sauce for $2 if you want to make pasta at home and it's much better than jarred

looks like you need to lay off the noodles, forget about lasagna

They're called hot pockets

Burgers and fries are a pain in the ass to make on a whim and not worth the effort unless you're hosting a barbecue or making a specialty burger.

Sure. You know a fast food joint that sells hot pockets?

Being outdone by the influx of Chipotles and other fast food and fast casual restaurants and the growth of other foreign cuisines like Thai, Vietnamese, and Korean. Even the Chinese might be feeling the pinch.

Fries, maybe, but burgers are piss easy.

> Italian food is so ridiculously simple to make at home it doesn't actually make sense to go somewhere and get a cheap version of.

But I have a well paying job and lots of hobbies outside of the kitchen, I am not an Italian gril. I want to pay $10 for good italian food from a window on my way to doing something more stimulating than kneading pasta dough

>Can't finish a reading a post but have time to shit post

You're not that busy

Prep for the toppings suck unless you're making atleast 4 servings.

And you can make Italian an arduous endeavor, too. At their base they're equally simple

Most mom & pop pizza places in the Northeast serve a variety of "Italian" dishes. If they've been around for a while there's a good chance they started as a red sauce Italian place that became primarily about the pizza. Granted it's pricier than fast food, but it's Italian-American food that you can get takeout.

Every single 711 in the country. They will even heat them up for you in a minute in their industrial microwaves that looks like safes.

Because second or third generation Italians don't want to inherit the family business anymore like their mom and dad's deli or grocery store.

Also, Italian food kinda sucks when it becomes cold. It's meant to be eaten hot so it is not ideal for fast food.

And let's not get started on sauces. People can manage to keep their clothes and mouths clean when eating a hamburger but good luck trying that with Italian food due to the sauces. You'll need to wipe your mouth clean after every several bites in public or in your car,

Because you can just buy like a 12 serving frozen lasagna for 10 or 15 bucks at the grocery store, cook it, section it up, and have it whenever you want?

>frozen lasagna.
Disgusting

Fast food Italian couldn't serve anything else while remaining economically viable.

>fast food better than frozen food, ever
At least please be over 60 and only tried the very first frozen food ever packaged. Otherwise blow your brains out.

this is the nearest thing we have to fast food in italy

a) uh dude pizza
b) uh dude grinders
c) because italian fast casual in general was extremely popular and widespread throughout the country in the midcentury, there wasn't the opening that things like tacos or even burgers or fried chicken had for chains to set up without competition. think how americanized chinese spread, but even earlier and more common. so while it was very popular, and still is, it didn't have the noticeable rapid growth, in-your-face advertising, or aggressive location in shopping plazas and malls, which hurt mindshare and eventually business as downtowns emptied out.

There's Piada

Here in Italy you can, kinda. Most bakery and supermarkets have a zone that sells already cooked stuff, so if you want a lasagna, pasta, chicken and sometimes even fish, salads and things like that you can go there and just buy it. It's nothing too strange, a lot of people that don't have time, or they just don't feel like cooking, go there.

Domino's sells pasta bowls. The prices are in line with the meals at McDonalds etc.

>How come Italian fast food isn't more popular? I get so tired of burgers and tendies and hotdogs and Taco Bell and all their knock offs. Is the demand really that low that I can't get lasagna handed to me through a window in every city? What gives? I know Fazoli's is a thing but they are so rare and I've never been to one. If they were around here I'd go all the time
I've never been to an Italian restaurant with a menu, that didn't serve lasagna. Where is it that you are trying to do takeout? Are you not in the US? Lasagna is always premade, and therefore quite fast, and then a square is cut to order, put in an individual metal or ceramic dish, covered in more cheese, and tucked in a fiery hot oven, like a pizza oven, to warm up like 5 minutes and melt and brown that cheese on top.
If you want something other than pizza delivery, go pick up an order at any local Italian restaurant in town. You'll probably get double the amount you'd do at a chain and get two meals out of it. A chicken parm or eggplant parm sub might also be the biggest value on the menu, likely double the portions of a dinner. Things I get when doing takeout for a crowd other than pizza is: garlic knots, a antipasti or caprese salad, stromboli or calzone, or else a couple pasta dishes to split. I might grab some italian cookies to go if offered near the register, or I might pick up some sorbet or italian ice at the grocery while I'm out. If I'm doing takeout just for myself, it's the sub, single dinner likely. I don't find most restaurants make lasagna as good as I do, so it's something else more fussy, that is likely to be done well, like some gorgonzola sauced gnocchi, stuffed ravioli, or the spinach and ricotta calzone, which is so satisfying not to share :P

>How come Italian fast food isn't more popular? I get so tired of burgers and tendies and hotdogs and Taco Bell and all their knock offs
>Subs are the top of your list for delicious fast food
>Living in flyoverville

This makes no sense at all. Every pizza joint has calzones, pasta, sandwiches, and salads. Fancier ones might have a whole Italian restaurants menu all of which can easily be gotten to you in about 15 minutes or less for take out. Every Italian joint by me has really fast good take out. I normally call ahead and get a calzone and a chicken parm and it's ready in like 20 minutes. They have plenty of faster dishes as well and a shit ton of subs. It sounds like you live in a flyover that only has olive garden or some shit.

So go to Fazoli's.

Burgers are my to go option when I'm feeling lazy. Buy some minced meat, add whatever you want to it, and while it's cooking toast the buns and cut the lettuce, tomatoes, onions, etc. It takes 30 min at the most.

It’s not a viable market. Even huge fast food chains survive on a paper thin margin, with most money going to corporate. There’s not enough pasta loving weirdos like you to make the risk worthy. It’s been implemented in some places, but the fact that they haven’t become widespread shows that there’s not enough money in it for them to even think about expanding.

I’m sure if they had them near you, you’d go a couple times a week, get sick of the novelty, find something to bitch about, and then quit going altogether. Then you’d come here and complain when the place finally gets shut down and replaced by a jack-in-the-box.

>Tired of burgers
What are you fucking gay?

Texmex and Northern mexican Food falls for that, central and southern food uses a lot of ingredients

>paying someone to throw sauce on pasta for me while the dish becomes soggy
No thanks.

There are a few pasta to go places around the touristy places in Italy which are pretty decent