Any restaurant names “Mom’s”
I wish I was kidding but I’m not. They were crawling around in my french fries, and a few more in the bag with it. I’m really, really not sure the reason for it, though I will say that the guy at the drive through window was the type I will best describe as “creepy”. So maybe he had something to do with it.
Whatever the cause, I don’t eat there anymore. They’re still open, its a jack in the box really close to my house, I pass it all the time.
Pizza Hut and Red Lobster I avoid because their food is Teh Suck.
White Castle I avoid because of an unfortunate drinking episode that has also caused me to avoid Screwdrivers for the rest of my natural life.
I loathe IHOP because of their price.
Bob Evans, Applebee’s, and Chili’s because their food is the worst of Generica.
After this thread, I’ve gotta say… all of the above.
I no longer eat at McDonald’s after the Big Macs began to give me serious chest pains. When I can eat a Burger King Double Stacker with no ill effects but a Big Mac gives me problems, I don’t want to know what the hell is in it.
I really don’t think of McD’s as serving real food any more. At best they provide entertainment for your taste buds. Sort of like how you chew gum for the texture and flavor but you’re not actually supposed to swallow it.
I don’t like Burger King. I haven’t been in 20 years. I do know that they are one of the easiest places to get hired if you don’t have “appropriate” paperwork. They tended to be dirty in the kitchen, too. (this from an ex in law who worked there as a teen). Taco Bell has one of the more strict managements.
I generally avoid Burger King because their hamburgers have this weird, artificial grill taste to them. I’m sure they must really be flame broiled at some point, but there’s still a funky unnaturalness to the grill flavor. McDonald’s $1 double cheeseburger or QP w/cheese for me, if I have to choose between McD’s, BK, and Wendy’s. Wendy’s used to be my favorite, or at least my childhood recollections of the Big Classic are very fond, but every time I’ve been there over the last three or four years, I’ve been very disappointed in their product.
Or any restaurant that has a “Help Wanted” sign in the window.
I just remembered . . . The last time I ate at a Red Lobster, the food arrived literally covered with salt, like someone had had an accident with a salt shaker. When I sent the food back, I suggested they install an emergency blood pressure machine for the diners.
McD’s is #1 on my list, and Burger King is right up there now too seeing as the local ones can’t get a veggie burger nuked correctly w/out making it underdone or so done I could use it for patching potholes.
There’s one good Chinese place and it’s near my house. The other six zillion of 'em make me so sick it’s not funny.
They opened one of those near here about a year ago. I ate there twice, and the food was bad enough that I didn’t go back. Everything seemed to be covered with butter or oil to disguise the fact that it was old and dried out. At one point, the staff took a bin back into the kitchen and re-emerged 5 minutes later with one that looked exactly the same. I think they were just taking food into the kitchen and bringing the same food back out to give the impression they were changing it. This is a fairly busy shopping plaza, so your food would have to be really awful for you to lack customers. Well, they closed at some point this summer (not sure exactly when), so apparently a lot of people agreed with me. Unless the closure was due to health food violations, which wouldn’t surprise me either.
For me, it’s KFC. I’ve never been a huge KFC fan, but the last few times I went, my chicken pieces were small, soggy, and dried out. Last time I got their chicken fried steak, and the girl told they’d give me a fresh one rather than the last piece sitting out. The manager came out, bitched at her, and told her to give me the old one, which looked horrible from 10 feet away. I said forget it, give me my money back, and haven’t been back since.
For me, it’s:
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Taco Bell. Not because of any hygiene issues or horrific experiences–they’re just not anywhere near as good as they used to be. Their cheese tastes like plastic and the beans taste like dishwater.
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Jack in the Box. Same. Just boring food with nothing to recommend it. Their burgers aren’t as good as McDonald’s, Burger King, or Wendy’s (none of which are fantastic, mind you–just better than JitB).
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A local chain around here with various names (Pizza a’ Go Go, Pizza My Heart, Pizza my Love–I’m not sure they’re all the same chain but they all taste the same). Everybody raves about this stuff. The place consistently wins “Best Pizza” awards around here. I cannot see why. The pizza is utterly horrible. I didn’t think it was possible to ruin pizza (I love pizza) but these guys proved it is.
For years I wouldn’t eat at KFC because I got sick once after eating there. Ditto Subway. But they were isolated incidents and I like both, so I compromised by just not going back to the particular restaurant that I’d eaten at prior to getting sick.
McDonald’s. I like the way the food smells, actually, and I can never walk past one without being tempted to go inside. I haven’t done that in years, though, because to me, everything tastes the same–it has a particular grease flavor that just makes me queasy.
There’s a Chinese restaurant in a nearby town that has great food. It was the only Chinese place we’d eat at, until we got food poisoning from the pork. Now I wish we could go back, but my husband gets hysterical when I mention it. We still haven’t found a replacement.
Les Halles, Anthony Bourdain’s restaurant. I don’t think Bourdain was chef at the time, but I went there once with my husband and ordered my favorite French dish–Cassoulet–and it was FROZEN in the middle. I was given serious attitude when we returned it too. Never been back, never been interested in going.
There’s a place about a mile or so from our house that I went to check out with my husband a few years ago. Willie Bird’s Restaurant. It’s supposed to be some kind of Sonoma County institution or something, but we both thought it was just plain disgusting.
The place is falling apart, with a 70s feel to it. Actually, I remember feeling the moment we stepped inside the place as if we’d just stepped into some backwoods restaurant in the middle of nowhere America and it was 1974.
It’s in a seedy location - the local prostitute pick up spot. It’s dirty, the bar the day we went in had a couple of shady looking regulars about to fall out of their bar stools, the service was lacking, and the food was mediocre at best. It smelled like boiling cabbage, cheap booze, and vomit. Everything inside the place just seemed…dirty…sticky…just gross.
I read on this board a few months ago that it was on Food Network or something, and I can’t imagine why. I know for a fact neither my husband nor I will ever step foot in the place again.
Wow. I don’t have any stories to compare with most of y’alls. I won’t do most fast food (because I don’t like them), but I do have a weakness for Taco Bell and Long John Silver’s.
I did have a problem with a particular KFC, but the issue there was that they couldn’t seem to get the order right and then acted as if it were my fault (despite having the receipt which showed that the order was entered into their system properly). There were plenty of better chicken places around (though none as convenient) that were happy to have my business.
Long John Silver’s is on my avoid list. The problem is I LOVE their chicken tenders, hush puppies and side of crunchies, basically deep fried flour. YUM YUM!! Tastes great going in…causes all sorts of problems coming out. So I avoid it for my own good.
The last few times I have eaten Papa John’s it has not sat well with me, so I’m avoiding them as well.
Lastly, I adore Chili’s baby back baby back baby back ribs…but they do not treat me well. I think they must put too much MSG on them or something as I was violently ill last time I ate them. So I avoid that dish, but not the restaurant, they have a few good items that I tolerate.
Olive Garden, Denny’s (esp. at breakfast), Cheesecake Factory, P.F. Changs (although their food is pretty). All of these because I can’t fathom waiting for an hour in line when there are thousands of other good restaurants that can seat me right now.
Carl’s Junior, on principal, because of their repugnant commercials.
KFC, because, well you don’t really want to know.
Houlihan’s - I went there in 1999 with a friend, got Caesar shrimp pasta or something like that and, a few hours later, found myself horking into the toilet. Then my temperature rose so high I had 7 febrile seizures in a row. After that, I still couldn’t even keep down water. I don’t remember much between the first round of barfing and three or four days later when I was finally lucid for the first time. My roommate came and picked me up at my then-boyfriend’s place (we’re now married) and drove me home, stopping a few times along the way to dump the bucket she’d brought along for me to get sick into. I lost about 30 pounds that week and fit into a size 2 for the first and last time in my life.
McDonald’s (and most other fast food burger joints) - Every single time I eat at a McD’s, I get really violent gastrointestinal problems, ranging from cramps, barfing, and everything in between. It’s just not worth it. Then I feel full for about three days afterward.
I also try to avoid take-out or delivery pizza - the major chains like Dominoes and Papa John’s leave me feeling ill for about a day or two after.
I have to link to this vacation thread I did a couple years ago. The story is a true vacation and the waitress is real. Vacation in “Jack Bupkus You’ll Regret Staying” I don’t know the name of the place or I’d give it. It really was worse than the thread indicates. I’m just glad we all survived. I was never so glad in my life to get to a McDonald’s for crappy food, because that burger was like Fillet Mignon in the middle of nowhere. The entire area was bad to terrible food and service.
Yes, we do. Really, we do.