My “no-local-restaurants” rule about Interstate road trips came about after my third or fourth terrible meal at a just-off-the-interstate local restaurant. It’s a situation where I can’t rely on recommendations or even on reading the menus, so I prefer to trust the chain. Do you go for local restaurants on such road trips?
I have another related restaurant rule, I call it Core Competency, and it’s totally improved my eating-out experiences. I came up with it after going to a new burrito restaurant, thinking, “Wow, that green curry burrito sounds fascinating!” and trying it, and it was predictably nasty. Well, duh: a burrito restaurant’s core competency is gonna be burritos, not curry. Later I went back and got a black bean burrito, and it was just fine.
So the rule is this: be adventurous with your choice of restaurants, but when you’ve chosen one, be cautious with your food choices there. Choose something that’s in their core competency. A pizza joint that makes awesome pizza will have mediocre burgers, no matter how exciting their burgers sound; the sushi at a Chinese restaurant will suck; and whatever you do, don’t get the green curry burrito.
Personally, I mix. Breakfast and lunch, I try to stay safe. Not necessarily chains, but it’s really hard for diners to screw up bacon and eggs, or (as you mention) a hamburger joint to screw up a hamburger.
Dinner, now. Once I’m in my hotel, I’ve got the literature for whatever the hotel is trying to push, sometimes there’s a local tourism magazine, and once I’ve got my laptop hooked up, there’s the Internet. I’ve been known to spend an hour exploring dinner options. That’s when I get brave.
(Now, if I’m not feeling well or am extremely tired, it could (and has) come down to, “Oh, good. There’s a Wendy’s here.”)
Indeed. I only ever get to eat there when I’m on vacation as there are no Canadian locations, but I’ve eaten several good meals there. I had their Surf & Turf burger twice last week, it was delicious. I remember trying one of their steaks and it was also memorably excellent.
Yeah, totally–when I’m at my destination, I’ll do a chain restaurant only for the sake of extreme convenience (e.g., there’s a Denny’s attached to the hotel, and I’m in a hurry for breakfast; or I’m with someone else and they really want to go to the Steak&Shake). Exploring a city is a lot of fun.
But I’m talking about the actual travel, where, say, I’m driving to Atlanta, and around 7 pm I’m in east Bumfuck South Carolina, and I’m hungry, and my choices are McDonald’s, Waffle House, Applebee’s, or Oriental Garden. The only one of those choices that’s totally off the table is the last one: as an unknown quantity that’s situated next to an interstate, I’m not up for the risk of total nast.
I think we’re different. By 7 pm, I’ve been in my hotel for two or three hours, and am already at dinner.
This may need an IMHO thread! On road trips, I drive from 6 or 7 am to 4 or 5 pm, and that’s it. Whatever town I’m in when I stop is the town I explore. (The actual travel itself is (for me) most of the fun of travelling.)
Just wanted to chime in and say that I’ve eaten at Applebees once. I had the worst bacon cheeseburger I’ve ever had (definitely a thawed, pre-pressed patty). I will not frequent a restaurant that can screw up something as sacred (and durn hard to screw up) as a bacon cheeseburger.
Well, you develop a knack for picking decent restaurants. That said, just-off-the-interstate joints are generally no better than a good chain, for whatever reason. However, I still get a kick out of observing the local decor, the types of characters these joints attract, and all sorts of non-food related things. For a road trip, though I generally do a little research about where and when I want to stop. Like I said, it’s a hobby of mine, and, just ask my girlfriend, whenever we do a road trip, lord knows I have a veritable compendium of possible restaurants I want to check out along the way. The only time I’ll stop by a chain on a road trip is if it’s late nite, nothing else is open, and I just want to settle down in front of a bar for some beer & apps. I’m actually more likely to eat at a chain if I’m in town, rather than out.
OK, I did it. Last night I stopped by the local Applebee’s that was so unforgivably horrific the first time I went there. And I got one of the same sides – fries. While still not gourmet, it was at least edible. I’m sticking with my theory that when they first opened, they didn’t quite know what they were doing.
But the soft drinks were still really watered down.
What kind of texture would you want spinach dip and cheese sticks to have?
I imagine most melted cheese and spinach dip would be denture friendly.
OTOH, my last visit to Applebees was a disaster. We had to drive for an hour to get there because the 2 local ones had been shut down. We decided to make a day of it and go shopping after lunch. The food was okay but the server dumped my son’s drink in his lap, then just stood there watching me try to sop it up with our 3 napkins.
I tend to go to my local Applebees to drink on the cheap ($2 drafts, $3 long islands that used to also be $2) during the post-9pm happy hour. I know the bartenders (friends of my brother) and they always have the baseball game on. Applebees has never had more than 1 menu item at a time I liked, they always get rid of the most palatable item to me in their frequent menu overhauls. Their spinach dip isn’t good per se but it’s edible. They used to sell these simple mini-chicken sandwiches (just the strips cut small I think) with bacon, cheese and ranch dressing. Pretty tasty little fuckers. And they were half price during happy hour. But now they are gone, and I am back to not ingesting food on the premises.
There’s New York. And then there’s Effingham, Illinois; Mount Vernon, Illinois; Whytheville, Virginia; Terre Haute, Indiana; Hays, Kansas … you get the idea. It’s going to be a quest of epic proportions to find food in such places that you can’t get elsewhere in the US. Sure, there’ll be some gems in these small towns, like the Owl Bar in San Antonio, New Mexico, or Lambert’s Cafe in Sikeston, Missouri, but those are restaurants that have a national or regional reputation as good road trip pit stops. Regional barbecue is an option, but contrary to popular belief not every burg south of the Mason-Dixon line is going to have a decent 'cue joint, and many barbecue restaurants are only open until they run out for that day; often before one pulls into town.
If you’re in an area where there’s really no noteworthy regional or local cuisine, and most independent restaurants are of the diner, family-style or Happy Lucky Panda Dragon Jade Gardens Chinese takeout/buffet variety, mid-end chains are going to look damn attractive.
Like I said, it’s not just the food but a bit of the local color, too. I love truck-stop diners, and I like looking at what weird regional dishes different areas of the country have or what different names they have for familiar items. You may think the food isn’t different than anywhere in the US, but that’s not what I’ve found to be true. The one place I will pick a TGIF or the like over a local offering is a Chinese buffet. Those are, in my experience, generally the worst of the bunch. , I’m not saying the food at non-chains is always better (it’s not), but the entire experience is more interesting to me. And that’s my priority when eating out. I understand for many, if not most, people have a more functional relationship with food.