Cunningham's Fries

My boss is not on Louisville Hot Bytes, but he asked me to put this on for him. He went to Cunningham's a couple of weeks ago. While he is generally a health nut, he sometimes gets a craving for Cunningham's fried fish sandwich and hand cut fries.
He said that the fish sandwich was not up to its usual par, but he was most disappointed that they did not have the fresh cut fries. He asked the waiter about the different fries, and he was told that they now use frozen fries because it is cheaper.
That's a shame.

that is a shame, but to be honest I've never ordered the fries there. The fish sandwich is so huge that I've never thought about ordering a side of fries with it. It's like getting two sandwiches.

I agree that fresh cut fries or almost anything for that matter, is better than preprepared or frozen. I bet Cunninghams isn't going with the prepared fries just because they're cheaper however. Lots of restaurants , at least in this caliber, are getting away from as much knife usage as possible because of the safety factor. Restaurants are learning that when you're hiring cooks and not necessarily professionally trained chefs, that some culinary skills are lost along the way - like the proper way to use a kitchen knife. Injuries and insurence costs are making knifeless kitchens real attractive.

wouldn't the solution be to hire people who know how to use a knife or train employees to use a knife rather than getting rid of knives?

Yes obviously. I guess finding them isn't always that easy.

wouldn't the solution be to hire people who know how to use a knife or train employees to use a knife rather than getting rid of knives?

At the old Cunninghams, they didn't use knives to cut the fries. Had a wall mounted gadget that you stuck the potato in and pulled a handle, cutting the potatos and dropping the fries in 5 gallon buckets. On Friday I have seen 15 or more full 5 gallon buckets of fries with water.

No real chance of cutting yourself using this.