Heston Blumenthal had this same theory.

He set about creating a menu for what sounds like the English Applebees equivalent (Little Chef -a place for reheated and microwaved slop), applied some decent standards and asked the chain to hold to those standards.
At the establishment he worked with, profits soared yet the menu prices were unaffected. Plan is to roll out these 'decent standards' across the country.

Since so many TV ideas make it to the US, perhaps someone can convince the French Laundry team to work their alchemy on an American chain...
http://www.channel4.com/food/on-tv/h...-chef_p_1.html

I�m not sure liquid smoke is really a �chemical�. It�s made from burning wood then condensed in water. It makes for a good non-sodium addition of flavor, but I�ll admit it�s no real substitute for meats grilled or smoked with real hickory or mesquite chunks.

As for a way of preparing baby back ribs, that process is not too different from how I do it (I make my sauce made from scratch, though). Marinade them overnight, bake in the kitchen oven for about an hour, then about 10 minutes on the grill to crisp the outside slightly. Mmmmmm!

+1

Most people don't realize that LARGE percentage of restaurants (chains and not) will precook/parcook many of the ingredients of the dishes ahead of time, and then when the order is called, fire it on the stove/grill/oven then plate the dish. A pure steak from a steakhouse might be an exception, but those bearnaise sauces, potatoes, and sides are made (ideally) earlier in the day before service.

Precooking/parcooking should not be looked upon as negative feature of a restaurant.

But freshly cooked slop and parcooked slop is still slop

Recently I went to a evening viewing and funeral the next day in West VA. I looked on the internet for a restaurant that would be open after 9 PM and have something palatable. I felt lucky to find an Applebees.

Well I am lazy then and tend to eat garbage because if I am stuck in Winder GA or Weirton WV Applebees is about the only choice other than fast food. Its not the greatest but it is usually consistent and I will say I've lived to talk about it.

for the original poster who has neverbeen there the restaurant is like Chilis.
I have to agree with people it's not a 100dollar steak house but it's a nice place to go for an inexpensive meal, a family type restaurant.

for the people who travel since your compay is paying your bill we all understand that you would go to a restaurant like Joes across from the Marriott in the city of Chicago. But imagiane going out to a restaurant like Mortons every night even when your not traveling?

I actualy like applebees better than fudruckers, tacobell, wendys, subway.
like what somebody metioned it's not the best restaurant it's not the worst.

I would say the cheesecake factory and california pizza kitcen are very good chain restaurants, I don't know if the grande lux cafe are a chain( it's owned by the cheese cake factory) but it's a great restaurant they have 1 at Garden state plaza.
like what somebody metioned it's like Bennigans, Fridays, chillis and we forgot to metion Houillihans.

I agree.

[QUOTE=Seated in First;11559412]Like most chain restaurants they're for the lazy who can't be bothered to spend two minutes on the internet looking up a decent local place with real food. Chain restaurants tend to serve garbage that's engineered to taste OK-ish having been prepared somewhere miles off site.

Fast food places have something of a purpose, they fill me up if I'm short on time but with chain restaurants I really fail to see the point. The local establishments rarely cost more than the Applebee's and Chili's of this world

you want to bet. I can name at least 10 restaurants that are way way more expensive than Applebees. can you afford to go to a local decent place every Friday night?

Do you like Houilihans or the cheesecake factory or california pizza kitchen?

Yes. And fortunately, I don't think my city has a single restaurant of the Chili's, Applebees, Houlihans, or other middle-America dreck variety. There is a place that looks like it was an International House of Pancakes a few decades ago (long before they were called IHOP). I don't even think there's a Denny's. The next town has a Sizzler and the one after has a Macaroni Grill. But my little hamlet, home of some of the best food in the USA (at all price points), has been spared. ^

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

Yea. There are at least 18 restaurants within about 5-8 minutes from my house. All are much better than Applebees et al in my opinion. They range in cost from about $50 per person to $5 per person. Im not counting fast food chains. There are probably others but these are the ones I remember going to. It really is about demanding more, not about cost. My wife and I had a great dinner at one of them tonight. It was $23 plus tip. At a local restaurant, not a chain.

[QUOTE=Money card;17014224]
So what if you can name more expensive restaurants. That doesnt mean there arent more that are less expensive or the same. That is a totally irrelevant argument. Sure Le Bernardin is more expensive than Applebees. But Grays Papaya is a lot cheaper, maybe $3 or $4.

I agree with this!
You've never been near where I live. It's a solid 15-20 minute drive to get to any sort of restaurant that is not:

• a pizza place
• a convenience store

Of the local places I've visited near where I live, I've not been impressed with most of them. The food quality and service quality varies rather greatly each visit, with the exception of our local sports bar.

I much prefer Ruby Tuesday over Applebees/Chilli's.