your business sucks
This is the exact problem and hardly anyone is talking about it. These sorts of restaurants had real simple recipes and food back when they started. You didn’t need the same kind of supply chain then that you need now, and when you throw the franchise services fees and royalties, what you end up with is exactly this.
Contrasting this, there’s this hamburger wagon near where I live. It’s literally a wagon, serving slider style burgers and the dude refuses to give you anything but pickles, onion, salt, and pepper. He’s got a few drinks, some chip options, and that’s it. He has zero condiments or other toppings and serves nothing else. And you know what? He makes a fucking killing. Rain or shine, this wagon has a line of 10-15 people come lunch time and has plenty more come throughout the day. Only hires two people to work it.
I’m sure he’s raised them before, but he hasn’t raised his prices once since I’ve been going there. 1.50 for a single or 3.00 for a double. Even crazier is the fact that it’s been there for over 100 years. Never turned it into a storefront, never tried to make it a franchise, never added to the menu really. Just always did what it did best, and its still insanely popular.
Food for thought I guess.
Driving someone to chicago and dropping them off isn’t trafficking, but there is most definitely a slew of child-labor happening in this country, and the majority of the children involved are migrants who illegally crossed the border. There’s a lot of coverage about this if you look for it. I imagine that Texas might be involved in some part of that process if they’re the ones handling these people.
Edit: https://www.npr.org/2023/05/04/1173697113/immigrant-child-labor-crisis