I'm an Inventer Too
7/16/07 - 2nd Day - After Breakfast. Our good friend Herrick Kimball has a great blog post over on The Deliberate Agrarian blog where he describes how he invented the granola bar. Excellent story, and I laughed because people have always given me a hard time for my inventions. Many of you may know the stories, but I have had some pretty good inventions that got picked off by someone else. Mine aren't quite as provable and certified as his, but they are true just the same. Here's one:
The Denny's Orange Juice Carafe
I invented the orange juice carafe, the type now ubiquitous around the world at every 24 hr. breakfast place in the world. Many, many years ago, while I was still working in the world and when I still loved basketball, I went to the Southwest Conference Championship tournament in Dallas. That tells you this was quite awhile ago, since Texas Tech was still in the SWC and that conference went away in '96. Anyway, my folks were staying at the Denny's on Stemmons Freeway down towards Reunion Arena and every morning of the tourney we would meet for breakfast at Denny's next to La Quinta. Every morning I would order orange juice, and every morning they would bring me this little 4 oz. shot glass of OJ. It was ridiculous, but that's the way they used to do it at almost every restaurant back then - you'd get this tiny midget glass of OJ like they were afraid you were going to OD on OJ. Anyway, after 3 or 4 days of suffering through the tiny orange juice delivery, I finally confronted the waitress. Very calmly I said, "I want a LARGE orange juice". She looked at me like I had asked for a glass of diamonds and said, "Oh, this is the largest glass we have for orange juice".
"Hmmm..." I said, "surely you have more orange juice?"
"Oh yes."
"And surely you have large glasses?"
"Yes, but this is our largest orange juice glass."
"But I want more orange juice."
She looked at me like I didn't just want a glass of diamonds, but now I was asking for the whole diamond mine.
"I don't know what to do to help you, sir."
"Here's what I want you to do. Go back there in the back and find me a large container... a jug or vase or something. Fill it with orange juice. You can measure it out with this little shot glass you brought me and charge me for however much I drink. But I want you to come back with a bunch of orange juice, got it?"
She stumbled around in confusion and finally slipped away. I really didn't want a vase of orange juice. I expected her to come back with a large glass of orange juice, like the glasses they use for tea or coke. I mean, is this rocket surgery?
She comes back a few minutes later with a beautiful carafe of orange juice, the kind of bottle in which they used to deliver milk back when they delivered it to your porch. I was beaming. I said, "Excellent work. This is a beautiful thing. When you get the opportunity, send your manager over so I can thank him."
She looked at me like I had just landed in a space ship, nodded and slipped away again. Later, her manager came to the table and I explained to him that there really was no proper explanation why the whole world seemed to believe that orange juice must be served in 4 oz. glasses. "Why not give people the option to order more OJ and then charge them for it if they want it? Doesn't that make sense?" He nodded at me, clearly deep in thought. What I didn't know is that Denny's has an internal program to reward beautiful ideas like that.
Many months later, I was traveling and I went into a Denny's and I saw the beautiful carafe there, already on the table, with a full-color printed cardboard ad inserted into it advertising the great benefit of being able to order a full carafe of orange juice for the table! Years later when I was traveling on speaking tours, I would see the handy orange juice carafe in Denny's style restaurants all over the country. What an innovation. And I didn't make a dime from it.
So, whenever you go somewhere to eat breakfast, and you see the handy orange juice carafe - give me a think, and raise a cold glass to ol' Bunker.
Your servant in Christ Jesus,
Michael Bunker
The Denny's Orange Juice Carafe
I invented the orange juice carafe, the type now ubiquitous around the world at every 24 hr. breakfast place in the world. Many, many years ago, while I was still working in the world and when I still loved basketball, I went to the Southwest Conference Championship tournament in Dallas. That tells you this was quite awhile ago, since Texas Tech was still in the SWC and that conference went away in '96. Anyway, my folks were staying at the Denny's on Stemmons Freeway down towards Reunion Arena and every morning of the tourney we would meet for breakfast at Denny's next to La Quinta. Every morning I would order orange juice, and every morning they would bring me this little 4 oz. shot glass of OJ. It was ridiculous, but that's the way they used to do it at almost every restaurant back then - you'd get this tiny midget glass of OJ like they were afraid you were going to OD on OJ. Anyway, after 3 or 4 days of suffering through the tiny orange juice delivery, I finally confronted the waitress. Very calmly I said, "I want a LARGE orange juice". She looked at me like I had asked for a glass of diamonds and said, "Oh, this is the largest glass we have for orange juice".
"Hmmm..." I said, "surely you have more orange juice?"
"Oh yes."
"And surely you have large glasses?"
"Yes, but this is our largest orange juice glass."
"But I want more orange juice."
She looked at me like I didn't just want a glass of diamonds, but now I was asking for the whole diamond mine.
"I don't know what to do to help you, sir."
"Here's what I want you to do. Go back there in the back and find me a large container... a jug or vase or something. Fill it with orange juice. You can measure it out with this little shot glass you brought me and charge me for however much I drink. But I want you to come back with a bunch of orange juice, got it?"
She stumbled around in confusion and finally slipped away. I really didn't want a vase of orange juice. I expected her to come back with a large glass of orange juice, like the glasses they use for tea or coke. I mean, is this rocket surgery?
She comes back a few minutes later with a beautiful carafe of orange juice, the kind of bottle in which they used to deliver milk back when they delivered it to your porch. I was beaming. I said, "Excellent work. This is a beautiful thing. When you get the opportunity, send your manager over so I can thank him."
She looked at me like I had just landed in a space ship, nodded and slipped away again. Later, her manager came to the table and I explained to him that there really was no proper explanation why the whole world seemed to believe that orange juice must be served in 4 oz. glasses. "Why not give people the option to order more OJ and then charge them for it if they want it? Doesn't that make sense?" He nodded at me, clearly deep in thought. What I didn't know is that Denny's has an internal program to reward beautiful ideas like that.
Many months later, I was traveling and I went into a Denny's and I saw the beautiful carafe there, already on the table, with a full-color printed cardboard ad inserted into it advertising the great benefit of being able to order a full carafe of orange juice for the table! Years later when I was traveling on speaking tours, I would see the handy orange juice carafe in Denny's style restaurants all over the country. What an innovation. And I didn't make a dime from it.
So, whenever you go somewhere to eat breakfast, and you see the handy orange juice carafe - give me a think, and raise a cold glass to ol' Bunker.
Your servant in Christ Jesus,
Michael Bunker
posted by Michael Bunker at 7/16/2007 08:22:00 AM
2 Comments:
I'm pretty sure I invented the sheep/goat bra back in the early '90's, when I had a suffolk ewe with tiplets that had some serious udder suspension prolems, but I can't prove it. :)
Wow.
I always wondered who invented the The Denny's Orange Juice Carafe. :-)
As for the sheep/goat bra, I never knew such a thing existed.
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