When stationed at Rhein Main Air (late 1970s)....the chow hall went and did an usual thing....they operated for a number of months a midnight chow operation (opening from midnight to 1 AM).
Offerings? Well...just fried chicken. You'd walk in and they had box lunch.....with a roll, fried chicken, and a bag of chips. For a drink? You'd get a can of Coke.
About six weeks into this....a number of folks who weren't working at night (this was totally designed for night-shift people)....were testing the box and found it to be a great evening dinner.
So this odd development started....where people in the barracks stayed up to midnight (mostly watching AFN-TV) and then walking to the chow hall at midnight.
I'd guess in the beginning, it was around thirty-odd people, and maybe by the 4th month....there might have been near eighty people doing this.
Calorie consumption going way up? Oh yeah.....these were folks already visiting the chow hall for breakfast, lunch and dinner. There were folks, at least twice a week, who were consuming 4,500 calories a day.
This was so successful.....that it was draining cash flow from the chow hall. So they had to make up another rule.....you had to be in uniform to get the box. This created the next trend....where folks dressed up in fatigues at midnight to get the box lunch. Eventually, they even went to a card-system.....to identify night-shift people and prevent over-use.
If they'd gone to something like roast beef, or just ham/cheese sandwiches? I think most wouldn't have made the effort, but for some reason.....they had some guy who knew how to make 4-star fried chicken.
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