Originally Posted by
KNRG
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.
I'm aware Cheesecake Factory is a chain restaurant and it is no better than any of the others, possibly the most over-rated restaurant I've come across. I went once with a group of people for a birthday and the way people were talking about it beforehand was if it was the world's first restaurant to get four Michelin Stars!
Maybe I was a little cut and dry with my first post but I do think that if you spend a couple of minutes on the internet and don't mind jumping in a cab or car for 5mins you'd never need to see a TGI Chilipees in your life.
It's not elitist, or snobbery it is the fact the food is unhealthy and is often prepared offsite and just cooked at the restaurant. My point is that you go to a chain restaurant anywhere and it is exactly the same crap. If you ask your hotel concierge/front desk person/someone at your client site/a flight attendant on your inbound flight/someone on the street/WWW for a decent, local casual place far more often than not you'll find somewhere that'll surprise you. It has been a long time since someone said, 'well to be honest the best place here is Chilis!'. Sure the local joints aren't always winners but that's probably 1/20 where I feel I wouldn't go back.
My view is that with a little effort you can avoid the dull predictably of a forgettable chain restaurant night on night.