Michael Jarrell

Sunni: What do you see as necessary for you to do it right again, as you put it?

Michael: Doing it right will require a couple of things. Following my vision or dream, for one, and making sure that it remains reasonably fun and a labor of love rather than just work. If it becomes just another job, then something has gone awry and it's not right and it won't be worth doing.

Sunni: I would think that, with some of the places you've been, you've probably seen some fairly disgusting things, food or food-service wise. Have you ever bought into any of the food nannying governments have attempted to foist on people?

Michael: I have eaten some stuff that many Westerners would gag over, but nothing truly disgusting (other than a BBQ place last summer in North Carolina). Amazingly enough I have eaten off of Achmed's goat cart in the slums of Cairo and never become ill, but the only two times I have ever gotten food poisoning were from McDonald's restaurants. Go figure.

Sunni: Not a surprise at all to me; that dovetails with my experiences in Mexico and fast-food chains here.

Michael: I'd rather eat at the poorest taqueria in Juárez than a McDonald's. The food would be healthier and tastier! Personally, I've never bought into the majority of the government crap. Most of what I could say was good are things which professionals do anyway. Wash your hands, keep the place sanitary, avoid cross contamination, cool what needs to be cooled, etc. If you get a reputation for poisoning people you're out of business real quick. Most people aren't going to eat in a place with roaches on the walls or an overly noxious atmosphere. Take the smoking bans being implemented now. Restaurants are going out of business in locations where restaurants have high percentages of smokers as customers and these bans are enacted. One of the moving nanny-state drivers of this issue is worker safety. Well, as someone who's worked in restaurants let me tell you—cigarette smoke is the least dangerous thing there is in there. The most common chemicals used for cleaning contain dioxins and airborne acids are present around most dish tables. Not to mention all the hydrocarbons from cooking smoke. Government interference just makes it harder for anyone other than large chains to do business.

Sunni: Do you think that's a deliberate goal of government regulation—to minimize the number of harder-to-control independents—or an unintended consequence?

Michael: I honestly hope it's the latter. I cannot envision government being so competent that they could manage a conspiracy that vast. It likely just boils down to government greed more than anything else. They want to squeeze every last centime out of people who just want to do something for themselves.

Sunni: I think this is one of the areas where the pro-freedom position is very difficult for others to accept. Even before the culture of corporate corruption that we see today came into being, it seems that many people simply take a dim view of others—that a merchant will try to cheat someone rather than earn his profits honestly, and so forth. The thinking seems to be that because there are a few swindlers out there, all our interactions must be treated as potential swindles. Put that way, it's quite pathetic, but that's essentially what some government food regulations imply, don't they? How do those of us who don't think integrity is an old-fashioned idea counter that mindset?

Michael: Absolutely! It's not even implied, it's in your face. I don't know that there is any way to counter it other than by going ahead and just doing it and setting an example. I've often thought about running a gypsy kitchen on wheels and offering great food without the restraints of government permissions. I'm quite sure it goes on right now in some places and we never even hear of any problems. How many unlicensed hot dog stands do we see on a daily basis? Hmmm ... Michael's Outlaw Hot Dogs And Root Beer ... has a ring to it. [laughs]