Wow, elite snobbery at its best.

People do have to live in places besides LON, NYC, and LAX in order for the world to go around. And further, never judge any restaurant by its airport location - yuck.

There are plenty of places in the world where there really aren't small independent places to dine offering "normal" food or "normal" prices.

I had a friend who was fiercely anti-Walmart. Then he moved to a small town that was essentially built around a Walmart and a University and short of going "in to the city" over an hour and a half away there was no where else to buy anything and his tune quickly changed about Walmart. The same situation plays out with chain restaurants all the time.

I'm not a huge Applebees fan but i certainly don't dismiss it when on a road trip (sometimes people and their belongings need to travel!) nor when i want to do dinner/drinks with friends of various socio-economic status.

Btw, places like Cheesecake Factory and California Pizza Kitchen are chains too.