i'm sitting in an applebee's right now, celine dion is playing on the music, just got a country fried
chicken and this is saudi arabia. everywhere i look i see american chains and restaurants. what is the
arabic translation of applebee's? in fact in all my travels there has never been
a country where i felt more like i was back in the united states but that's not what i'd expect
here in saudi arabia. rice or whatever they're eating at home, so they want to enjoy american food
and western food. today i'm experiencing america's exports here in the kingdom as the country opens
up its economy and hopes to attract tourists for the first time. first i explore a massive new mall
in jeddah and eat it in applebee's here in saudi. they all want to modernize and change. then i walk
through a grocery store and try to make sense of why america's consumer influence is so high here
like i see applebee's i see baskin robbins so many dunkin donuts that before maybe 10 years or five
years. so i'm about to walk inside this mall here it's called red sea mall. it's one of the biggest
malls here in jeddah and first impressions it reminds me of something i would see in
southern california. you've got the palm trees the parking looks pretty much the exact same.
see the brand? yeah. calvin klein everything doing that for the for company applebees? no no
as part of this video it's only appropriate for me to bring you into one of the most iconic american
chains that i could find here in saudi arabia it was a tough choice they have chili's, ihop, even a
cheesecake factory. but nothing is more american to me than your neighborhood grill applebee's
they even have a bar just like you would have at applebee's but of course there is no alcohol
it's more just like an espresso bar here. whitney houston is blasting on the speakers right now.
you've got arabic and then you got english so let's scan the menu and
see what they got . This is our menu sir we have lunch offer and we also have
a special main course. this is like a book it's really like a book by the wizard my
name is biboy i'm your server for today. thank you biboy
they have mojitos but it doesn't even need to say non-alcoholic
because there is no alcohol so it's just assumed that the mojitos are are non-alcoholic
it almost looks like they have you know replicated the menu from the us but for the most part i see
an exact menu i would see in america i hear celine dion i hear whitney houston i see a lot
of american icons like elvis but then i also see once in a while uh an homage to something local
something saudi in the applebee's in america it's really all about the neighborhood so
you see the high school football team you see the cheerleaders, everything is meant to like
make you feel like you're in your neighborhood like you see the high school the cheerleaders so
that's what they're trying to replicate here but it's a bit different. it's a saudi musical
instrumen. we'll do the chili cheese nachos. your lemonade
and chili cheese nachos for your appetizer. this is your main course country fried chicken
mix the bowl with side mashed potatoes
feels like i'm back in alabama! thank you so much sir enjoy the food
so that's cost 49 saudi rial which is $13. do you guys take american express
yes sir. they even take american express here
in most malls around the world by now i would have been told do not film. filming
is not allowed inside the mall. so the fact that no one has told me this and it's been about an hour
in saudi arabia is just shocking to me. everything i see here again is nearly identical to the US
especially this large selection of cereals. you guys really like your country
except there are two things you definitely won't find at this store
pork or alcohol. americana quality
the country has nearly a quarter of the world's oil reserves but now has to rethink its future
since the world is more and more turning to alternative energy. i remember being a teenager in
the US and watching a documentary about saudi and seeing that to enter a mall you either had to be
married and you could enter with your wife or you know you were with your family your parents or
something. a single male could not enter a mall by himself in saudi and now that's changed things are
a lot different. i even remember seeing a fast food restaurant maybe it was mcdonald's where they had
two different places for ordering so there was women and families and then there was men now you
don't see any of that at least here at the small and jeddah. some restaurants are doing that but for
the mall, no. it's allowed to everyone. when you grew up did you have like all of these fast food restaurants
like 20 years ago 25 years ago did you have like you have you had mcdonald's probably
you didn't probably have you know new york fries, pf changs, fridays
so was it exciting when it came when you were a kid. you would go and get excited. yeah because
this is entertainment for me. and because you didn't have movie theaters
now you do but growing up you didn't have movie theaters so food became a form of entertainment.
so i just found this movie theater. a few years ago this didn't exist it even looks like
it was an extension added to the mall. something new in life so something
nice to have it here. are these stores gonna close? it's up to you now it's up to you.
but in the past they had to close. will we hear the call to prayer in- inside
inside we'll hear the call to prayer but everyone can continue to shop and do everything
even though everywhere i look things are super americanized things are changing
instead of romanticizing american chains more saudi restaurant chains are coming onto the
scene there are so many other choices now that competition is a lot more fierce yeah and also
becoming an entrepreneur is relatively easy here right and customers are more proud to now support
national brands fahad tells me that pf chang's used to be packed you couldn't get a table here
but now when we visit the restaurant is nearly empty a local saudi can now succeed here as an
entrepreneur he can start his own restaurant he can do his own essentially pf chang
so it's not just that people are creating restaurants that are arabic food
but even you know western food or asian food but they're doing it with their own twist
and would you say saudis take pride in national brands or do they actually get more excited
about foreign and american brands they take good experience from the american and the
other people yeah and bring it to here so it's like pasta but it's it's a saudi brand
amazing this is saudi brand what is herpes saudi brand yeah the next trend is the move
toward healthier and more fresh foods according to studies four in 10 people in saudi arabia
are considered obese that ultimately cost the government billions of dollars in health care
costs and lost productivity i think all the people not cooking with the home at their houses because
the wife working and the husband walking and they had no time to cook just like america yeah
that's like america you say you said that's just like america it seems like in some ways you guys
are 10 to 20 years behind america right you know women in america used to stay at home and cook
and clean and then they joined the workforce and as a result of joining the workforce as you said
cooking in the home became less frequent that's why we ended up having like microwave dinners and
frozen pizzas which are still very common right and then we went really hard on takeaway and fast
food restaurants so now over the past 10 years we've got into this like 180 where it's all about
healthy food and salad chains and sandwich chains and you know organic bowls and quinoa and it seems
like that's slowly starting to happen yeah yeah yeah it's habit uh so you joined the gym yeah
do you have the trainer or you do on your own from my phone from my friend there's one final thing
that's on my mind it's clear this country loves american things and it's changing at an insanely
rapid rate it's now hosting music festivals bringing pitbull and formula one to the country
it's becoming just like many other countries but amidst all this change will it hold on to its
past they all want to modernize and change then we will lose our culture we lose our heritage
culture for the life culture for the knowledge there is a small area inside the mall that appears
to be sponsored by the ministry of culture almost like an attempt to remind saudis of their past
and not become completely lost in western values what is the point of this the point is
this of the monastery to produce their identity our culture
while i'm here the attendant is missing
you