Shoney’s.
Some of the dirtiest restaurants I have ever been in have been Shoneys.
My guess is that the food had been sitting under the heat lamps for longer than an hour–that’ll screw most things up.
Well put. This is entirely the reason I’ve broken the habit of eating at chain restaurants the few times our family takes the opportunity to eat out. I’m tired of corporate mediocrity. I’m looking for something special and unique. I’ve found Yelp to be an invaluable tool for finding quality independent restaurants. Word-of-mouth is, by far, the best marketing for any restaurant.
Word. Disgusting.
Perkins wasn’t listed, but should have been. Awful food, awful service, but consistent, at least. Ryan’s is also not listed, but is right up there with Perkins in its buffet-style disdain for food. The place is a dirty sty with troughs of subpar slop lined up with wide aisles to accommodate its aging and unhealthy porcine customers.
I wanted to vote for Olive Garden. Granted, the reason I don’t go there was an experience many years ago in California witnessing a kitchen worker serve leftovers to rats out back in full view of the dining room. It has been known to me as “Rat Garden” ever since. But, when I want Italian, the last place I think of is Olive Garden.
McDonalds is right up there as for all of the reasons noted above.
But I have to say, if your customers want to know what it is they’re ingesting – whether they enjoy it or not – for whatever health reasons they have, and you actively refuse to provide that info… well, you don’t deserve my business, TGI Fridays. Fuck you, actually, and the Jack Daniels ribs you rode in on. I want to have the opportunity to know just how much sodium and fat the meal has so I can determine whether and how much to eat if I want to stay within reasonable dietary limits? But you won’t tell me. Probably because you’re embarrassed…and you should be.
Same goes to you Cheesecake Factory!
It seems so popular to be a food snob, on the SMDB and in the wider world.
I’m a big foodie, and I love seeking out new dishes to try. Every time I travel abroad, I make it a point to try to have a new food experience every meal.
That said, I find it odd that so many people compare the food at some of these chains to styrofoam or cardboard, or that they’ll only eat there if they’re starving. I for one am willing to admit that most chain restaurants’ burgers and fries are passable and even tasty. They’re just unhealthy as fuck. I mean, a McDonald’s Big N Tasty is probably better than most backyard BBQ burgers I’ve had, no offense to my neighbors. McD and Burger King fries are positively addictive, if they’re freshly made. Hell, almost any burger at any chain is better tasting than, say, steamed carrots.
There ARE tons of better tasting options out there, and even in the realm of burgers and fries, most decent bars can kick the crap out of Mickey D’s. But to deny the fact that the crap they serve at chains is often tasty… is silly.
The only reason that I don’t eat at chains much at all is because I don’t want to get fat and have a heart attack. OK, there are also much better food options if I want to eat out (I’m blessed with 3 good Thai restaurants within walking distance), but I’m never unhappy with the taste of, say, a Jack In The Box meal. I am unhappy with the unhealthiness of it, and the fact that I probably could have spent my unhealthiness points on something better, but the actual in-the-moment taste of fast food chains is usually quite all right. And if they weren’t at least passably tasty, hundreds of millions of people around the world wouldn’t be stuffing their faces with these heart-attack meals every week.
Am I the only one who has a feeling that if the truth were known, many who complain the loudest are actually eating at the very places that they decry much more often than they would ever care to admit?
You mean kind of how like the French vilify McDonalds as everything wrong with America and then turnaround and make it one of the company’s best markets.
I like Jim Gaffigan, too.
I find it quite believable that FordTaurus came up with 'Affle House independently of standup comedy routines. My brother and I have used this same joke since the 80’s. It’s rather obvious wordplay.
To my knowledge, it isn’t.
But back in the late seventies/early eighties, I attacked the sautéed sirloin tips with onions like they were basted with crack.
Full disclosure, just to prove that I’m no poseur:
[ul]I have eaten at each of the first seven restaurants listed in the poll, of course, but it’s been a long time since I’ve done so at any of them. I derive little-to-no enjoyment from eating there. That said, though, there are edible dining options at each one.
I eat at KFC slightly more often than I do the places mentioned in the previous paragraph, but only slightly more, since I prefer to get my fast food fried chicken at Lee’s Famous Recipe.
I don’t eat at McDonald’s for lunch/dinner all that often (though I do enjoy the occasional Big Mac), but I eat the fuck out of that place at breakfast time, with no shame whatsoever.
Burger King and Wendy’s both are tied for my favorite fast food burger that isn’t Five Guys. Plus, I truly love Wendy’s fries and chili.
I’ve eaten at P.F. Chang’s once, several years ago. While it wasn’t bad at all, it was certainly overpriced, and as such, I can get food of equal or greater quality for considerably cheaper at many local mom and pop Chinese places, so I choose not to go back to Chang’s.
Never been to Joe’s Crab Shack.
I ate at a Red Lobster once about fifteen years ago, and while I wasn’t repulsed or anything, I certainly wasn’t blown away either, and have had no real desire to return.
I eat at Long John’s quite often, and enjoy it immensely, despite the fact that it’s under the Yum! Brands umbrella.
I don’t eat at Rally’s as often as I used to, simply because the one closest to me closed down, and I fucking despise the asshole teens who work at the other location in town. Also, I find their burgers to be merely okay, but their fries are second only to those of Five Guys in my estimation.
I’d say about twice or thrice a year I get a hankering for a Big Boy, bowl of chili, and strawberry Coke from our local Frisch’s Big Boy, especially since (I think) it’s the only Big Boy franchise in the country that serves (goddamn delicious and addictive) tartar sauce on the Big Boy instead of thousand island dressing (and I always keep a jar of said sauce on hand in my fridge; it’s the best I’ve ever had).
Regarding Domino’s, Pizza Hut, and Papa John’s: sadly, in my town, these are about the only options for pizza delivery (well, okay, we do have two local chains that also deliver: Cassano’s, which is pretty danged tasty, but also fucking ridiculously expensive, especially considering one of their pizzas doesn’t come close to filling me up; and La Rosa’s, the less said about which the better). As such, when I a) want a pizza, and b) don’t want to either eat it in the restaurant or drive out and pick it up (which is 99% of the time), I frequent all three, well, pretty frequently. Are they my favorite? Of course not. Do they hit the spot when I’m hungry? Indubitably.
Never eaten at CiCi’s.
I do make a Run for the Border fairly often, and without complaint. The Mexican pizzas are especially tasty.
I can’t tell you the last time I set foot in a Golden Corral, as I only do buffets when on vacation (and even then only rarely so).
Never been to Del Taco.
I lurves me some Cracker Barrel, especially their country fried steak and their fried catfish. Oh, yes, and their griddled sour dough bread (that you have to ask for in lieu of biscuits or cornbread). Plus, there’s a disarming dearth of blacks and gays, but there’s an awful lot of Mexican busboys. (For the humor-deficient: that last was what is known as a “joke”.)
Never been to Jack in the Box.
I couldn’t tell you when the last time was that I ate at a Bob Evans, not because they’re bad, or anything, but because when I’m in the mood for that kind of cuisine, Cracker Barrel tends to be my first choice.
It’s been nearly twenty years since I set foot in a Denny’s. In fact, I’d be hard pressed to tell you where one was located anywhere around where I live.
Possibly the only time I’ve ever eaten at an IHOP is once when I was, say, five or six years old.
I think I made my thoughts on Steak and Shake pretty transparent earlier on in the thread.[/ul]
So, yeah, I’m not a total food snob.
Not really. Of the places I listed, I wouldn’t step foot in a Perkins or Ryan’s (once was enough!) ever again!
Cheesecake Factory is actually good, but I haven’t been there in at least a year. TGI Friday’s, although I love the JD steaks and have consistently gotten decent service and food there, I’m boycotting until they change their policy of not making nutritional data available on demand. It’s the principle of the thing, mostly, because I will *treat *myself to unhealthy food, but at least I’m doing it informed. I also don’t like being manipulated to assume a dish is healthy actually when it’s still over 500 calories, more than a third of my daily allowance, and filled with fat and sodium (“Right portion, Right price” my ass!) I haven’t eaten at TGIF in at least a year as well.
I haven’t been back to an Olive Garden for over 15 years. And I no longer eat at McDonalds although my husband still takes my daughter there, to my chagrin. Not only is it disgustingly unhealthy, but it’s only tasty if you think excessive grease, salt, and sweetener (coffee drinks: insert pukey smilie here) – presumably, to mask and/or facilitate the lack of freshness – is tasty, which I don’t. There are way better burgers to be had at even chain restaurants that don’t use the cheapest, fattiest frozen meat patties. Again, the only thing going for McD’s is consistency, as long as consistently poor quality doesn’t bother you. I prefer fresher, less processed ingredients, frankly. If that makes me a snob, so be it.
You mean “The Golden Trough”.
I got stuck with Pizza Hut a few times when I had to attend some meetings at work and they would bring us lunch. It was usually good stuff, but I swear that the pizza from P.H. was 90% crust.
I’ll stand up for Waffle House, though. They’re totally disgusting and filthy and ghetto, no doubt, but when I last drove cross-country from Washington to North Carolina, I stopped in a Waffle House in Virginia, and the waitress called me “sugar,” and I damn near cried: I was home. Waffle House is gross, but in a homey way.
Don’t any of you remember Stuckey’s? If McDonalds is the Final Solution of fast food genocide, the Olive Garden the Gulag Archipelago, and Cracker Barrel the Cultural Revolution, Stuckey’s is the Killing Fields. The horror, the horror!
Stranger
My late father rather famously (within the family) used to call Prime Sirloin “The Hog Trough”. It’s a very bad habit that both my brother and I still maintain.
I had just about completely forgotten about Stuckey’s. I think that Cracker Barrel probably was inspired by Stuckey’s, now that I ponder it for a bit.
Fine - last time I was in any of those restaurants was a Chicago-Boston-Chicago roadtrip in August 2009. Since I’m a vegetarian, eating in many of those places is tough, but Burger King has a veggie burger, and there were often BKs at the roadside “oasis” stops. They use a patty from Morningstar Farms. It was fine - nothing special, but better than I’ve come to expect from rest stop food in most places. I was delighted to see some kind of sandwich “wrap” stand at one place, had a yummy veg-friendly one there.
So how bad’s the coffee?
How good’s the pie?
If you call me honey, honey I’m gonna cry.
A whole lotta sugar,
A little pinch of salt,
Well you cut my bitter with your sweet talk!
John Hiatt, “How Bad’s the Coffee?”
He must have been in Athens, TN, in 1993 also.