Originally Posted by
Bloomsbury
When traveling by car in the US, the whole franchise/chain restaurant thing does drive me nuts sometimes. I used to just think I could head into a town and I'd find a diner (love them) or at least a reasonable restaurant or bar. However, often there's nothing in the town anymore, it's all just avenues of franchises on the outskirts near the highway.
Now I tend to look on Yelp or sometimes even on my GPS and just type in 'diner' or something. Sometimes I've gone well out of my way to find somewhere decent. It's becoming less of a problem now though as Yelp and similar websites get more and more content.
Local diners and restaurants are not hard to find imo.. just that when we do end up finding one, we are not familiar with menu, prices, food selection, and quality..
That is why franchises jump out and catches the eye.. uh.. Denny's.. I can get a grand slam, or Red Lobster, Olive Garden.. menu is familiar..
Joes' Diner.. hardly any vehicles out front.. gee, I dunno..