A key point that would have actually had me make a list.
These aren’t exactly hard and fast boycotts, but the only way I will eat at a Red Lobster or Olive Garden is if I’m on the road in a strange town, it’s late, no other places are open and the only option is going hungry. I don’t know how Red Lobster can spoil so many different kinds of seafood but they manage. The Olive Garden takes mediocre to new heights.
Also on the to-avoid list is Buca di Beppo, which is apparently dedicated to the proposition of serving huge assemblages of people who are so busy shouting, laughing and spilling sauce on themselves that they have no time to notice the food is ordinary. Also the local outlet felt it necessary to try to dragoon us into a tour of the kitchen the first and only time we went there. This doesn’t tend to reassure me, as I’m sure there’s a special signal given to the kitchen staff to stop sneezing and spitting into the food when the tour is about to start, as well as to the rodents to seek cover.
Last night I thought briefly about giving White Castle another try. Maybe the burgers have beef content these days and are no longer thin and gray.
Me neither,just bad food.
Bob Evans,also bad food.
Arbys: I had a bad experience at an Arbys, once. (Well, technically, it was 50 miles away on the freeway from the Arbys. That was enough)
Taco Bell: I don’t care for Mexican food (or whatever Nth-generation duplicate of it you want to call Taco Bell)…plus, my family got food there relatively often (emphasis on “relatively”—probably still much less than most families) when I was younger, because everyone else liked it, and it was cheaper. I only ever had the tacos, and soda. And I had to scrape the cheese out of the tacos.
I’ll be happy not to have to eat there again, thank you.
Bob Evans bad food? Since when?? They have hotcakes to die for, usually a few good salads (the current chickent cranberry walnut one is quite good), and they have absolutely the best yeast rolls ever made. They do a good marinated steak and eggs, and often they have tasty dinners.
If you’ve had bad Bob Evans food, you should complain to corporate. They do not tolerate bad food.
For me, on principle, I won’t eat in Hooters. The whole concept of the chain is something that makes me mad. The only time I’ve been in one (resulting from the insistence of my golf buddies on our annual trip to Mississippi that we settle the day’s bets there), the food was ok, and yes, it’s nice to have a 20-something pretend like you are someone she’s interested in while dressed in hot shorts, but how stupid is that? I might as well go to a strip joint and watch naked women who pretend like they think I’m sexy. :rolleyes:
Spangles, the burger/fast food chain. The food is OK, but it was a very bad service experience that the restaurant got huffy about.
Another vote for Chik-Fil-A. They just opened up around the corner from me and at first I was cool with them being closed on Sunday, being a Christian joint, whatever. I went there when it opened, but some friends went later on and said they got some literature in their bag, and then a dude came by to talk to them about Christianity and marriage or something - while they were eating!
I can’t hang with that, so no chikn for me.
Applebee’s, I had a veggie burger there once and they deep fried it. Then all the burger places because there is nothing there I want or eat.
HIlarious, and I agree on both Hooters and Bob Evans.
If you cannot find a breakfast-oriented meal at The Bob that you can like, then you are breakfastlly challenged and require a psychologist.
An actual boycott? None. Name a restaurant; I’m pretty sure there’s something they’ve done that I disagree with. And unless it’s an organized boycott, it does absolutely no good. The owners are usually happy that you aren’t there.
I get not attending restaurants because you don’t like (though i can usually find something I like), but I do think it is silly to avoid a franchise because of what one particular restaurant did. The restaurants in my hometown are all good. In other places, I avoid the ones that have made people sick, and that’s it.
And to actually answer the OP: I kinda avoid Taco Bell because I am liable to eat so much there that I will get sick later. I’ve been to Chinese restaurants whose food is more filling.
I have only eaten at Hooters once, to please my ex. The chicken wings were good, and the way-too-skinny waitresses wearing nylons with their shorts didn’t offend me as much as I thought it would (except for the fact of Nylons. With. Shorts. But I digress.) The thing that got to me was seeing, among the T-shirts for sale, a child-size one that read “Future Hooters Girl.” I dunno about you guys, but I hardly think Hooters girl is a job for my daughter to aspire to. So I haven’t gone back.
I did: “Even if it isn’t a principled boycott-just a general dislike” from my OP (I don’t generally get too hung up on semantics). Knock yourself out.
I have ate there only once.The food was over-priced and not good. A lousy wait staff to boot.Maybe I caught them on a bad day.(Was about 5 years ago)
Could be the branch I ate at…coulda been a new server…coulda been a lot of things…but it was probably the worst dining experience I’ve ever encountered.
I eat at Chik Fil-A from time to time, and if they didn’t close on Sundays, I would have had no idea they were owned by an evangelical Christian. I’ve never seen or received any religious propaganda, ever.
I thought I was the only one who called it Dead Lobster!
Olive Garden just pulled their ads from Letterman, as they didn’t like his jokes about Palin’s daughter. Granted, I never watch Letterman, nor eat at Olive Garden - so it is kind of hard to boycott some place I never go to anyway.
Carl’s Jr. on the West Coast…I heard ages ago the original owners were a bunch of right-wing fanatics who donated money to the Republican Party and anti-Gay organizations. Went there once before I found that out and haven’t gone back since. (Of course, it made it easier not to go back considering I didn’t really like it the one time I had gone there.)
Ah yes, Blake’s Lotaburger. I’m a native New Mexican living in exile in Texas while I pursue my doctorate. I’ll always consider NM home, especially the northern part, although I was only born there; I was raised in southeast NM, which is a rhinestone in the bible belt. I’m not surprised that the owner of Blake’s would support Prop 8. Isn’t he from Roswell?
ETA: If I would have read your link, I would have noted it was Albuquerque. A bit surprising to me.
I don’t generally choose to eat at chain restaurants - the exception being a local pub that has a few locations around town. The only one I actively won’t eat at is McDonalds. I’ve never had it, and I see no reason to start now.
Plus, the McLibel thing pissed me off.
First, if you don’t like any of the food at, say, Long John Silver’s, you are NOT boycotting them! You’re just choosing not to eat there. You’re protecting your own taste buds, NOT trying to make a staement on behalf of a cause.
Second, politics is a pretty silly reason for deciding where you have lunch. Me, I’m a conservative Catholic, which means I admire Domino’s founder Tom Monaghan for his support of some of my favorite causes… but his pizza SUCKS, which means I wouldn’t eat it under any circumstances.
Denny’s can’t seem to stop getting sued for occasionally treating black people like crap. It’s too bad. I like their food.
I’m told that Tom Monaghan sold most of his interest in Domimo’s. However, the folks at NOW say the corporation still donates to pro-life orgs, so I don’t buy their food.
Here in town, three local joints do better pizza than any chain, so maybe my boycott of Domino’s doesn’t matter.
Is Cracker Barrel still refusing to hire lesbians? I don’t think anybody’s boycott matters to Cracker Barrel. They’re always packed.
Food chains aren’t always as monolithic as they seem. Corporations pass them around like Monopoly deeds, and sometimes a chain’s restaurants are split among two or three companies.