"chain restaurants" news and stories

Just about anywhere you go in the world, you can find a McDonald's. Burger King, Wendy's, KFC and Starbucks also blanket the country from coast to coast. It's once of the dubious mysteries of life that you can get the same thing to eat whether you're in Portland, Maine or Portland, OR. We take it for granted that these foods are always available. But all those chains had to start out someplace, with a single storefront and a little ambition.

The folks over at Walletpop have created a slideshow that documents the first location for many of your favorite food chains. Did you know that the first Dairy Queen was in Joliet, Ill? It opened in 1938 and by 1950 it had 1,446 locations nationwide. Bob Evans expanded a little more slowly, starting with a single location in 1948. Today they have 600 restaurants across 18 states. Want to know more about your favorite chain? Go see the slide show!

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Chili's, The Cheesecake Factory, Outback Steakhouse: they're as considered bland, middlebrow, as totally, tackily suburban as comb-overs and high-waisted mom jeans. Their menu items are ridiculed for their cheesy names (Bloomin' Onion, anyone?) and absurd calorie content (1,700 calories for a Chinese Chicken Salad!). For a certain stripe of self-considered sophisticate, a date suggesting dinner at Olive Garden would be a bigger deal breaker than a heroin habit.

But is the food at the mid-range franchise restaurants of America really bad?

The New York Times sent testers out into the suburban wilds (intrepid!) to find out, with very mixed results. T.G.I. Friday's goopy ribs disgusted even to a 12-year-old; Chili's buffalo wings were cloyingly sweet. The Cajun lime tilapia at Applebee's was nicely grilled and flavorful. Bertucci's had a surprisingly good list of microbrews.

I, for one, have always been a big fan of the fried mac n' cheese balls at the Cheesecake Factory (what's not to like?) and the "Shanghai street dumplings" at P.F. Chang's - hefty, golden buns filled with savory pork and scallions and topped with sesame seeds. I was sad when they took them off the menu in my neck of the woods.
What about you? Think mid-range chains are unfairly maligned? Have a favorite Chili's dish we should all go try?

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We're conditioned to believe that salads are typically the healthiest menu options. However, our friends over a AOL Body have put together a slide show that features ten of the most unhealthy salads around. Clocking in as some of the worst offenders are Dairy Queen's Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad (48 grams of fat), Chili's Southwest Cobb Salad (970 calories) and Cosi's Signature Salad (52 grams of fat). That last one really makes me sad, as that Cosi salad has always been one of my favorites. Thankfully, the folks at AOL Body also offer ways of making all the salads a bit more heart and diet friendly.

It has long been suggested that the oversized portions offered to diners at many restaurants are responsible for the expanding waistlines of Americans. Now, the health/lifestyle watchdog group Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is implying that "table-service chain restaurants," such as The Cheesecake Factory, T.G.I. Fridays and Ruby Tuesday, are cramming their dishes full of fattening, unhealthy ingredients on purpose, encouraging "extreme eating." Sometimes described as the "food police," CSPI cites the fact that these restaurants are not entirely forthcoming with the nutritional information on their foods, pointing out that Ruby Tuesday's Fresh Chicken & Broccoli Pasta entree has 2,060 calories and 128 grams of fat, while The Cheesecake Factory's Chris' Outrageous Chocolate Cake (layers of chocolate cake, brownies, coconut pecan filling and chocolate-chip coconut cheesecake) had 1,380 calories.

However misleading it may seem to call a dish "Fresh Chicken and Broccoli Pasta" and cram it with (mostly) cheese, it doesn't sound like there is any ill intent there, does it? The restaurants say that their menus change so frequently that it would be impractical to put together nutritional stats for individual dishes and change the menus all the time. They cite value-conscious consumers, who view large portion sizes as one of their highest priorities when eating out. Looking at both sides of this issue begs one question: which came first, huge portion sizes or the desire for them?

Another piece of legislation was overshadowed by the press surrounding the New York City's trans fat ban, though they were passed at the same time. The issue is that the city is now going to require some restaurants to list the calorie counts of some of their foods directly on their menus. The rule only applies to about 10% of restaurants in the city, restaurants with standardized menus that already make the information publicly available. In other words, it applies to chain restaurants that publish their calorie counts or put them on their websites. It does not apply to high-end restaurants or to the corner hamburger stand, places at which you have no way of knowing what you're getting in terms of calories, nor does it apply to chain restaurants that do not make their nutritional information known.

This clearly discourages companies from disclosing nutritional information. In fact, it penalizes companies that are making this information available already. If you want to eat healthier, you probably already know that skim milk has less fat and calories than whole milk and don't need an amended menu board to tell you so. In their attempt to police eating habits of the city's residents, the city may actually be making it more difficult for interested people to count calories, as companies retract their official calorie counts to avoid having to change all their menus (while their competitors don't) by early next year.