‘El Dorado Freddy’s’ an entertaining book of poetry about Kansas fast-food restaurants
Fast food restaurants are a fact of life, especially in Kansas.
You might not like it — and you might be against big corporations and processed fried food — but that doesn’t change the fact that most people dine at fast food restaurants, at least occasionally.
What’s a person to do but just accept it?
Danny Caine had an idea. The poet and book store owner from Lawrence has not only accepted fast food chains as a reality of life, but he’s also written a book of often hilarious poetry about them called “El Dorado Freddy’s: Chain Restaurants in Poems & Photographs.” Caine and Tara Wray, the photographer he partnered with to produce the about-to-be-released book, will be at Wichita’s Watermark Books, 4701 E. Douglas, on Thursday, March 5, for a reading and signing. The event starts at 6 p.m.
Caine, who owns the popular Raven Book Store in downtown Lawrence, is also a poet who has published several other collections, including last year’s “Continental Breakfast,” poetic reflections on the life cycles of commercial buildings, from shiny new retail centers to abandoned shopping malls.
“El Dorado Freddy’s” is a collection of poems about Caine’s visits to fast food restaurants places like Lawrence, Topeka and the Wichita area. The poems also serve as restaurant reviews, and most also include details about his dining companion — his baby son, 21-month-old Jack, who was a newborn when Caine made many of the restaurant visits he writes about. In that way, he said, the book is also a sort of journal of Caine’s first months as a father.
“My rule was I could not just go to a restaurant because I wanted to write about it,” Caine said during a phone interview from Lawrence. “It had to be some place I ended up naturally.”
The book contains 33 poems about restaurants Wichita is familiar with, including Panera, Olive Garden, Arby’s, Chick-fil-A, Cici’s Pizza, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Wendy’s, On the Border and Krispy Kreme.
A few of the poems were inspired by visits to restaurants in and around the Wichita area, including the poem referenced in the book’s title. “Freddy’s” was based on a visit to the El Dorado restaurant at 1809 W. Central.
In a footnote at the end of each poem, Caine notes who he was with, what they ordered and why they were there. In this case, he was with his baby and wife, Kara, and they ended up at the El Dorado Freddy’s because they didn’t think the sleeping baby would make it all the way to Wichita.
They ate in the car in the parking lot after ordering two original double combos, one root beer, one Diet Dr. Pepper and “lots and lots of jalapeno fry sauce.”
A sample from the poem:
“The steakburgers are perfect.
Mustard pickle onion cheese.
Freddy’s knows not to f--- with
tomatoes. Salt, crunch, wolf
it down in the front seat praying
you stay asleep. Jesus Christ
this jalapeno fry sauce is liquid
gold. I want to eat it like soup
with little fry croutons. I want
to declare that Freddy’s should be
more famous but I’m afraid to make
noise beyond happy burger sounds.”
Caine’s Wichita entries also includes a poem about the Spangles at 612 S. Broadway (“...don’t call it kitsch, call it make American neon again. Elvis again. Marilyn again.”) The NuWay on West Douglas and the Dog-N-Shake on South Seneca also have poems.
The concept started when Caine wrote a poem about a trip to the Lawrence Popeye’s and published it online, he said. “Out of the blue,” he got an email from Wray, who said she’d seen the poem and wondered if he wanted to collaborate on a bigger project.
Caine, who said much of his work is inspired by photography, agreed, and Wray came to Kansas from her home in Vermont in August 2018, traveling the state taking a series of moody restaurant photographs that also appear in the book.
The photos, which are in color, include a closeup of a Nu-Way burger resting on a greasy wrapper. It’s cut in half with one bite missing and is titled “Loose Meat.” A three-part series of photos, titled “Freddy #1,” “Freddy #2” “and Freddy #3,” are closeups of a cutout of Freddy’s Frozen Custard namesake Freddy Simon. One is focused on the cutout’s head, one on his torso and one on his pants. There’s also a closeup of a plastic cup filled with Freddy’s fry sauce.
If the collection of poetry has a point of view, Caine said, it’s that fast food chains are an inescapable part of life, and he’s always been fascinated by how people exist in a world dominated by big corporations.
“Millions of people eat at these places — otherwise, they wouldn’t be there,” he said. “...Condescend to them at your peril because people work here and people eat here, and we should start to ask question about what that means.”
This story was originally published February 27, 2020 at 2:40 PM.
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