My parents live in suburban Dayton, Ohio and for the most part, it is just chain restaurant after chain restaurant there. It gets to a point that when I'm visiting, I sometimes have difficultly telling which is which as some of the chains are regional.

I think it's a combination of everything people have said here. Familiarity, fear, consistency, price, etc. Getting back to this suburb, I know that one of the reasons why my parents invariably end up at a chain restaurant when dining out is because there simply is not really anything else available. All of the non-chain restaurants I can think of in their area are either "ethnic" (Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Vietnamese etc.) or, ironically, expensive places that are for special occasions. Outside of PF Chang's, no US chain has been able to do "ethnic" sit down food profitably, which is why a lot of those foods, even in the suburban Midwest, remain non-chain restaurants. The expensive, special occasion places are usually restaurants that have been in the area for decades and have become locally renowned.

I just think that's it's really, really difficult to establish a non-chain restaurant in some parts of the US. Sure, someone might try it once but when chain restaurants can sell at lower prices, people will usually go back to the chain restaurants after trying the new, local place once or twice.

Last comment, before anyone makes any jabs, is that my parents aren't foodies or anything, nor are they uncultured slobs who don't know any better. We certainly eat well when I have been overseas with them and they know their stuff but it's just that when in the suburban Midwest, I don't think they find it's worth their while to drive across town, spend more money than they would and find that the food wasn't that much better than Chili's/TGIF/whatever.