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Thoughts on chain restaurants.

I live about 50 miles north east of Los Angeles. Eating out has been a SIGNIFICANT change over the last few years.

When we go out to eat it's usually me, my wife, and my mother in law.

We used to be able to hit Subway or a sandwich (Jersey Mikes) place for $7/person and get out for under $25. Now? $45 at best. Even McDonalds has significantly gone up in price ($15 per person).

What really sucks is, we had a wonderful little Peruvian hole in the wall place that was mom/pop restaurant. That place and a lot of the other good places shut down during covid. The chains - the quality went from somewhat edible to horrible - a lot of them shut down too.

iHop used to be like $10-15 a person - we decided to go recently and barely got out for under $80.

I've had more food poisoning from restaurants this and last year than all the years I've gone out combined. Food quality has taken a massive dive. Cost has almost 2-3xed.


Now there's only a very few places I can stand to go (old mom/pop places that survived covid) - Cask n Cleaver that is really really good - staff has been the same for a long time and food quality is amazing. Same for a local breakfast joint.

It's also funny because the tip options default to 20-25% now...
 
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PauloSera said:
I've long ago concluded that these kitchens that are mass exporting steaks have zero standards at the pass, and their feeling is: if its over/under, send it anyway. Only a certain percentage of the ones they send will come back, and only if they come back will they make another one. But they are never going to throw away an over/under cooked steak before attempting to pass it off on the customer.
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Well the problem with one of the times it happened to me is I sent it back and it was still raw when it came back, lol. They comp'd it though
 
PauloSera said:
Except fast food places today are not cheap anymore, they've become obscenely overpriced, the quality has fallen even lower, and the total lack of care for customer means you're lucky to actually get what you ordered.
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Yea if you go to the right non fast foods, you can get a better deal and all the other stuff better too.
 
BigMcGuire said:
I live about 50 miles north east of Los Angeles. Eating out has been a SIGNIFICANT change over the last few years.

When we go out to eat it's usually me, my wife, and my mother in law.

We used to be able to hit Subway or a sandwich (Jersey Mikes) place for $7/person and get out for under $25. Now? $45 at best. Even McDonalds has significantly gone up in price ($15 per person).

What really sucks is, we had a wonderful little Peruvian hole in the wall place that was mom/pop restaurant. That place and a lot of the other good places shut down during covid. The chains - the quality went from somewhat edible to horrible - a lot of them shut down too.

iHop used to be like $10-15 a person - we decided to go recently and barely got out for under $80.

I've had more food poisoning from restaurants this and last year than all the years I've gone out combined. Food quality has taken a massive dive. Cost has almost 2-3xed.


Now there's only a very few places I can stand to go (old mom/pop places that survived covid) - Cask n Cleaver that is really really good - staff has been the same for a long time and food quality is amazing. Same for a local breakfast joint.

It's also funny because the tip options default to 20-25% now...
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No way I'm tipping over 15-18% unless the service is stellar. The tip is already higher because prices went up

And the only way we get FF anymore is going and using deals in the app. They perpetually have the Two free fries with 20p nuggets deal. With drinks, it's a little over ten for my wife and I to share. Forget using delivery anymore. The markups by the restaurants are ridiculous even with Dashpass or the equivalent. I think it's BS for restaurant to pass on so much of their share to the customer. They get something out of it too. Same for App Store. The devs get benefits, so they shouldn't pass the whole surcharge to the users
 
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mnsportsgeek said:
All the Chipotle’s around me have taken a severe downturn since the pandemic. Chipotle used to be wonderful. Now the entire experience is kind of a dumpster fire. Either they’re closed, out of ingredients, something is overcooked, the guacamole is over salted. Just a disappointment.
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Yes even now still, it's a crapshoot whether someone is open at all. Even if they are open, I'm beyond sick of not being able to eat in. So if we do go out, we go non fast where you can sit.
 
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Popeye's by me is same situation as the mentioned Chipotle. Dining rooms are locked, have to use drive-thru. Drive-thru takes about 30-40 minutes. When you get to the ordering speaker, might find out they don't have what you want with no way of exiting the line. And if you do order, more likely than not will mess up the order, improperly prepare the food.

The local outlets are owned by an out-of-state franchisee, appears they really don't care: making enough off the suckers that are willing to put up with the shoddy service to justify keeping them open in such a neglectful state.
 
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compwiz1202 said:
Yes even now still, it's a crapshoot whether someone is open at all. Even if they are open, I'm beyond sick of not being able to eat in. So if we do go out, we go non fast where you can sit.
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NoBoMac said:
Popeye's by me is same situation as the mentioned Chipotle. Dining rooms are locked, have to use drive-thru. Drive-thru takes about 30-40 minutes. When you get to the ordering speaker, might find out they don't have what you want with no way of exiting the line. And if you do order, more likely than not will mess up the order, improperly prepare the food.

The local outlets are owned by an out-of-state franchisee, appears they really don't care: making enough off the suckers that are willing to put up with the shoddy service to justify keeping them open in such a neglectful state.
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I haven't encountered a 'closed' restaurant dining room in close to a year... all of the Chipotle restaurants in my area are open, as are most every restaurant in town... the biggest issue for me is finding empty tables because the restaurants cannot hire sufficient wait staff... HELP WANTED signs everywhere go unanswered...
 
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Chain restaurants have a few advantages over "independent" restaurants.

Consistency, availability and they will always accept payment cards. And, that's pretty much it, their prices are also reaching a point where it's not even economically wise anymore.

Sometimes I do crave McDonald's or Burger King though, and I give in to those cravings without even putting up a fight.
 
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My wife booked us in to TGI Fridays in Cardiff St David’s the other week and I can honestly say it’s one of the worst meals I’ve ever eaten out. The kids meals were missing ingredients and my meal was truly dreadful. I ordered a Philli Steak sandwich and it was a small garlic bruschetta, tough steak strips and plastic burger cheese in a sauce that resembled mayonnaise with dried herbs sprinkled into it. The bill came to £73 and it’ll be the last time I ever set foot in that chain. Overpriced rank food.
 
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mnsportsgeek said:
All the Chipotle’s around me have taken a severe downturn since the pandemic. Chipotle used to be wonderful.
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Chipotle lost me several years ago when they didn't have queso. Their excuse was the process put chemicals in it and they don't serve chemicals. So I asked the guy when they planned on taking out the coke machine. I got a blank look.

In any case, I prefer Moe's.
 
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I'm not eating at Panda Express again. The staff may care at any one of their locations, but the life has gone out of it, any of their locations I go to. The food is OK, but I think they'd like you to order from the app and get it at the drive thru.
I visit places when I'm in the field to brain dump to my notes app periodically, and they're getting harder and harder to find. Sooner or later, most chains are going to be take out only with no lobby, as a consequence of COVID. Already, I'm seeing a preference for my clients to take their computer to me, instead of me visiting their house to fix their systems.
 
fanboy-ish said:
Chain restaurants have a few advantages over "independent" restaurants.

Consistency, availability and they will always accept payment cards. And, that's pretty much it, their prices are also reaching a point where it's not even economically wise anymore.

Sometimes I do crave McDonald's or Burger King though, and I give in to those cravings without even putting up a fight.
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Even that seems to have taken a dive lately. We pretty much only eat at a few spots near us. The rest of them we haven't gone back to since everything started to open back up.

With the exception of a few spots, most of the service has gone downhill also.
 
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I think it is harder to classify certain restaurants as chain restaurants.

First, I wouldn't class fast food restaurants in the same category. Sure they are part of a chain, often even a franchised model, but ultimately a place for convenience and a fast food place. I don't think they've gotten better or worse, but there are often country and regional variations. Take McDonalds I find it often terrible in the UK, feel like they leave the food too long, chips/fries just not cooked right, staff often like they don't care. In general, it tastes much better in other European countries. But I still go there sometimes for a quick bite whilst on the move.

There are some chain restaurants and pubs who seem to have centrally prepared food, shipped out and it is exactly the same. Sometimes even optimised for a bank of microwaves. Sure I've made the mistake of eating there, generally once and then never again.

Then there are chain restaurants which also have centrally prepared menu but the food is actually fresh; the experience can vary immensely between the branches. And that just demonstrates hospitality is a peoples business.

And then there are the chain restaurants with the same name but huge local variations with local sourcing, but clearly a same owner. They can be very nice.

In general, sure everything got pricier, I've not noticed a particular quality drop. The UK restaurant business is as bad and expensive as it has always been 😂🤣 so nothing new there.
 
My experience here in Canada is that everything has gotten worse in terms of quality/portions = cheaper for the restaurant to produce, but more expensive to the customer. Boston Pizza and Tim Horton's are two of the worst here.
 
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curdy said:
My experience here in Canada is that everything has gotten worse in terms of quality/portions = cheaper for the restaurant to produce, but more expensive to the customer. Boston Pizza and Tim Horton's are two of the worst here.
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This mirrors my experience here in the Southeastern US and on the road as well. Higher restaurant costs for rent, food stocks, and labor mitigated by higher prices and smaller quantities of lower-quality food, a triple hit to the consumer. Anyone remember when the “standard” can of tuna was 7.5oz/210gm? Most today are 5.5oz/160gm and some 4.5/130. And prices have gone up per can since the 7.5oz/210gm size.
 
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That just reminds me how a bottle of pop (soda) used to be 591ml at $2 max and now the bottles are 500ml or less and cost over $3. Just one example, but the tuna example is true as well. I think they called this shrinkflation - portions get smaller but price goes up.
 
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curdy said:
That just reminds me how a bottle of pop (soda) used to be 591ml at $2 max and now the bottles are 500ml or less and cost over $3. Just one example, but the tuna example is true as well. I think they called this shrinkflation - portions get smaller but price goes up.
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The thing that bugs me is when they do the all at the same time. Especially quality. Never makes any sense. I don't care how cheap or how much I get. If it is nasty now, you get $0 forever
 
I realise that many who post here are based in the USA, so my comments may not be of interest to many.
However fwiw, here in France frequentation in restaurants has boomed since relaxation of Covid regulations. It's no secret that the French love to eat and eat-to-love, and recently this is still proving to be the case.
Yesterday we went to one of our favourite, smallish restaurants and had a first-class 3 course meal for 18euros taxes included (just over US$19). With an excellent glass of red wine it came to 22euros a head (just short of US$24). And one rarely gives a tip here unless the service excels in some special way. Yesterday the service was ok, but not exceptional - unlike the food!
LG (life is good). :)
 
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