Middle of the road, same-same chain restaurants tend to weather a down turn in customer spending power better than the finer dining establishments higher up the food chain.

While they lose the bottom end customer (the one who only has the money to take the family there once in a while), they inherit the higher end customer who can't afford the good life anymore. A bonus for the restaurants is that the higher end customer tends to have a much higher average spend as they'll order more expensive items, more sides etc.