Ever eat in a local restaurant and thought it was a chain?

Cafe Society
1

A while ago, I stopped in a new restaurant not too far from me named “Hola!”. It seemed like a Chipotle clone, and it had all the trappings of a chain; professional signage and graphics, distinctive trade dress including consistent use of certain typefaces and colors, and so on. Nothing looked “mom & pa”; no carry-out menus using Times New Roman or Comic Sans that were printed from a copying machine, no furnishings or hardware that looked like those seen at every other locally-owned restaurant. Turns out the place really is a local single-outlet restaurant after all.

Ever eat at a restaurant that you thought was a chain, but it turned out to be a local with just one or two locations?

2

As I mentioned in the other thread, there’s a local restaurant, Taco Pronto, that went out of its way to make it look like it was a chain. It had the same plasticized look of a McDonald’s and when I ate there in the early 80s, I thought it was a chain.

The owner figured that students at the college from across the street would be more likely to visit if it looked like it was a chain.