Are suburban chain restaurants really that bad?

5-05-2008 @12:18AM olaamigoquepasa said... Red Robin is pretty good. It's mostly just a burger place from what I can tell, but they do their thing well. The fries are great and the buns are too.

That said, where I work, in the 'Tech Center' in Denver, you can walk to Red Robin, Subway, Chipotle, Einstein Bagels (whose food is second rate and whose coffee is excellent), McDonald's, Taco Bell, Baja Fresh, and a new place called Garbonzo's. Basically, everything you can walk to is a chain. If you want some local food, you kind of have to hunt it down.

This isn't so good if you want variety. But I guess the economics of franchising and scale drive out that factor.
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5-05-2008 @12:24AM Elle said... Conan O'Brien said it best... "Olive Garden: Just Ok for the price...". Couldn't agree more. As a native of NYC, sorry, but there are far too many awesome places, both top dollar and cheapo hole in the wall types, for me to spend a dime in those chain places. For the reasonable amount of money you spend in those places, you can usually get better food elsewhere. Who cares about having a massive pile on your plate when it's a pile of tasteless, greasy nonsense? Not to mention most of these places have awful brews... but that's a whole other issue.
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5-05-2008 @12:28AM Mathi said... My husband and I loved the second-closest Applebees to us. About 2 years after we started going there I think our favorite cook left, because it went back to mediocre like the closer one. One Waffle House I went to with friends (late at night) was terrible and earned the nickname "Awful House". The one I went to last was really awesome with a grey-haired lady on the griddle who really knew what she was doing.

In my opinion it is less about the chains, and more about the people on the grill/griddle who count. Some of those people care about their food, some go through the motions, and some should be fired.
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5-05-2008 @12:37AM Jessica said... I'm not so wild about chain restaurants, but the quesadilla burger at Applebees CANNOT be missed. DEELISH!
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5-05-2008 @12:42AM Lear said... I think the reason why most the suburban chains get such a bad rap is they trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

Big portions instead of quality food, high turnover in staff, and kitch to get you in the door.

For example the cooks often have heavy hands with the salt (it's supposed to be a seasoning... not the dominant flavor)and the parent company will provide artificial corn syrup-laced sauces for people who don't know what real teriyaki tastes like.

Add to that, the high turnover in both wait staff and kitchen staff means a highly variable dining experience. You never know if the food is going to be good, indifferent, or awful anytime you walk in the door.

Whereas, if I go to my local favorite Moroccan restaurant I know the same guy is slaving over the grill (the owner in this case) who has been there the last five times. He's got a vested interest in making sure I am happy and the food is both good and consistent every time I walk in the door.

With a chain, the employees are just another cog, and besides their own personal work ethic they don't have reason to care if I'm satisfied or not.
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5-05-2008 @9:05AM Gobo said... As a former Midwesterner, I've eaten at 'country' chain restaurants my whole life, for better or worse...

Waffle House has some of the best waffles and hash browns you'll find, but depending on the location can be godawful or tons of fun. But oh man, I'd love an order of hasbbrowns 'scattered, smothered, covered, and diced' right now.

I've never had a halfway decent experience at a Cracker Barrel. They're always packed, but the eggs are rubbery, the pancakes are as tasty as Frisbees, and their gravy's tasteless goop. I just don't get it.
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5-05-2008 @10:24AM Kearns said... My wife and I quite like PF Chang's. You can't always be near authentic Chinese places and PF Chang's is "Asian enough" for our palette.

The only other national chains I can think of that we frequent are all fast food places: Chipotle, Qdoba, Panera, and my tremendously guilty pleasure: Taco Bell... (Of course if I lived in California I could ditch that for real Taquerias...)
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5-05-2008 @1:08PM Liam said... I live in Rhode Island and the fact that we even have Olive Gardens in this area baffles me. Providence has a fantastic "little italy" with a huge number of tremendous Italian restaurants from the mom and pop family fare variety to some higher end more adventurous options. There is no shortage of tremendous Italian food.

My main problem with chain fare is that it all tastes pre-made and either re-heated or fried. Do any of these places actually cook anything? It always tastes like a better prepared TV dinner to me with that underlying taste of preservatives. There are a couple chains that arent entirely awful (Chevy's isnt too bad for what it is, Chipotle, obviously something like In & Out) but for the most part its just all crap and its not even cheap. My kids love Denny's and we will occasionally indulge them - It is almost twice as expensive as any of the local diners with food nowhere near as good. The local restaurants are almost always less expensive than their chain counterparts.
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5-05-2008 @1:36PM bigkingken said... About 6 years ago I really used to like Applebee's. Now, do I hate it because I'm older and know how to cook, or because the quality has taken a nose dive? A little from column A, a little from column B...

Olive Garden is nothing special. Red Robin does, indeed, make some very tasty burgers, but again, nothing I couldn't make at home.

For my money, the absolute, hands down, best chain restaurant exists across the country (or at least from San Francisco to Cleveland) but are relatively few and far between. I'm speaking of the Original Pancake House, known as the Walker Brother's Original Pancake House if you live in Chicago.

I absolutely LOVE the apple pancakes. One, giant, custard-like dutch pancake filled with bubbling apple/cinnamon/sugar/syrup goo will make anyone smile.

And their omelettes can not be beat. Giant, fluffy, textured oven-baked omelettes. Mmmmmmm. I drive an hour twice a month just to eat at one.
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5-05-2008 @4:03PM Kristi said... It must be easier to be a foodie in cities like Boston, NYC, Chicago, and the like, because you have options. There are independent restaurants where I live in Missouri, mostly mom-and-pop kind of places. They tend to fall into one of two categories: basically edible and sanitary, or downright scary. Well, some of the higher-end hotels have nice, independent restaurants, but they're expensive. Very, very expensive. At least compared to the chain restaurants.

I have favorite foods at most of the chain restaurants, though there are some places I basically refuse to eat at (Denny's comes to mind...everything is soggy or greasy or both). You do have to have your expectations set, and every chain has certain things that they're known for. If you prefer exotic mainly vegarian fare, you're not going to like Outback or Texas Roadhouse. If you're a snob about authenticity of different cuisines, avoid PF Chang's and ChiChi's, etc.
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5-10-2008 @7:13AM Adriane said... I can chow down at a chain restaurant and be completely satisfied, but in general I don't usually call it "soul-satisfying" the way some privately owned restaurants are.
Simply because a place is individual [not a chain] doesn't make the place automatically stuffy, pretentious and overpriced...I think that is the common misconception on the other end of the debate.

All that said, I have to agree with two former points: Not your Average Joe's is delicious, glad someone mentioned it
and
Why in gods name if you live in a city and have a billion options for freshly made food from real ingredients would you opt for the applebees burger that is not only AWFUL for you, but also was probably frozen, prepacked and contains god knows what for ingredients? That just doesn't make any sense to me...
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