[QUOTE=Diomedes]
My vote goes with Tim Horton’s. While they have decent coffee, and their donuts aren’t that bad, I’d love to see an entire nation start weeping simultaneously.
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I’d rather scoop my eyes out with a spoon than have to eat Tim Horton’s sandwiches for a week. If you can’t make it edible, DON’T MAKE IT! Their chicken salad sandwich is half a notch above cat vomit.
[QUOTE=dnooman]
If McDonalds “restaurants” fell off the face of the Earth, I would only notice the lack of commercials. IMO the only thing they have that’s worth saving id the Egg Mcmuffin. One can make one of those at home easily enough.
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Especially if you have one of these.
IMHO, all the chain pizza places should be nuked, as well as P.F. Changs.
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan]
Especially if you have one of these.
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I’ve always wanted one of those. If only it made hollandaise sauce too.
Pretty much every fast food restaurant that you could find in any town with a population of less than 20,000 needs to go. This gets rid of Mickey D’s, BK, Wendy’s, and the like, but keeps more esoteric fast food like White Castle, Chipotle, or Panera. I’d be sad to see Dairy Queen or Arby’s go, but I consider it collateral damage.
Domino’s Pizza is next on the chopping block. I’m not quite sure why people keep them in business, what with all the pizza options out there that are actually GOOD.
Applebee’s can stay, only because of the Weight Watchers menu.
I’d nuke Wolfgang Puck Express from orbit. I love how it touts itself as gourmet and then serves overpriced fast food crap.
Whenever I see one of these threads I have to ask… WHY do people eat at these chain restaurants? Why not go to a proper restaurant? Or have chains taken over the market in America so much that proper restaurants no longer exist except in a few chichi neighbourhoods?
Well, for one, when you’re on the road you know what you’re getting (probably, depending on the service.) There isn’t always time to research nonlocal restaurants and then you’d have to trust the reviewer.
So the locals that patronize chain restaurants are really subsidizing, in effect, a dependable experience for a traveller who is not in the mood to be adventurous at this moment.
I myself prefer some local restaurants, but the quality is only as good as a chain restaurant on average: some are better than any chain, some are much, much worse. The difference is the bad local places tend to go out of business.
[QUOTE=Colophon]
Whenever I see one of these threads I have to ask… WHY do people eat at these chain restaurants?
[/QUOTE]
Because their awfulness is over-exaggerated to a spectacular degree. Most of them are really just mediocre.
Olive Garden - Italian food for people who have never eaten real Italian food.
Fazzoli’s - Italian food for people that hate Italian food
[QUOTE=Diomedes]
My vote goes with Tim Horton’s. While they have decent coffee, and their donuts aren’t that bad, I’d love to see an entire nation start weeping simultaneously.
[/QUOTE]
Ha!
I drove on a street in Hamilton once, and on one of the intersections, one of the corners didn’t have a Tim Horton’s!
[QUOTE=Colophon]
Whenever I see one of these threads I have to ask… WHY do people eat at these chain restaurants? Why not go to a proper restaurant? Or have chains taken over the market in America so much that proper restaurants no longer exist except in a few chichi neighbourhoods?
[/QUOTE]
It’s partly that. As the metro Toronto area grows I’m noticing that many of the newly developed places really have nothing BUT chain restaurants; they anticipate the growth and plan out a whole bunch of Kelsey’ses, Montanas, East Side Marios, McDonald’ses, and Subways.
I live in a relatively established city, Burlington, Ontario, but the availability of restaurants that are (a) not chains and (b) moderately priced is limited. I live on the north end so there’s nothing north. If I go east, I can eat at chain restaurants. If I go south I drive downtown and then you get some independents but the good ones are pricey to super pricey; the Water Street Cooker is your best bet by far, but it’s not a cheap meal. West is towards Waterdown, which does have a great fish and chips place.
Not ALL chain restaurants are bad, and in many cases it varies depending on where you go. I had a meal at TGIF’s once that was positively delicious and the service has always been very good. East Side Mario’s is reliable and has good entrees; although the salads are very bad, everything else on the menu I’ve ever tried is good. Kelsey’s has some good food. Lone Star Cafe (NOT the Lone Star chain you have in the USA - a completely different chain based in Ottawa) has some excellent food and the service is good in all their locations except the one near Pearson Airport. While almost all buffet restaurants are terrible, Madarin is always very good. Milestones has some delicious food, although as chains go it’s pricey. Moxies has very good food, a huge variety of drinks, and outstanding brunch. (I think a lot of these are Canadian chains but I’m sure there are US equivalents.)
It’s like anything else; some businesses are better at whatthey do than others. For whatever reason, Boston Pizza sucks donkey balls and East Side Marios doesn’t.
Old Country Buffet
Any time I’ve been somehow dragged unwillingly into this place I end up standing there with an empty plate realizing there is absolutely nothing there that makes me want to eat it. And inside I start to quietly sob since I’ve already parted ways with my $10, can’t get it back, and now know that whatever I choose will be tasteless however will be filled with tons of fat, carbs, and sodium.
Part with your money and eat food that you don’t want that’s bad for you. I just feel like such a tool.
[QUOTE=Larry Borgia]
Johnny Rockets, a fake fifties diner. The burgers are worse than McDonalds, and about twice as expensive.
[/QUOTE]
You’d better never visit Eddie Rockets, it’s a Johnny Rockets rip-off, just about 3 times as expensive. 
[QUOTE=Diomedes]
I love the horsey sauce. I’d drink that stuff by the quart, if I didn’t have to pass occasional drug tests.
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If you look good in a schoolgirl uniform, you may have a steady career waiting for you in Japanese porn.
Either Applebee’s, Chili’s, Uno Chicago Grill or Olive Garden. I can never remember which is which.
[QUOTE=Paladud]
There is no legitimate reason for Fatburger to remain in business in SoCal. Their burgers are vastly inferior to In-N-Out’s in every respect and cost close to six bucks.
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I’ll gladly take your Fatburger here. When I go to SoCal, it’s really a toss-up for me which burger of the two is better. I think I slightly prefer Fatburger, but that may be because I never even heard of it before visiting LA. For vastly inferior in SoCal, I’d go with Carl’s Jr. That evil-looking star logo creeps me out and I don’t like the burgers.
Who on earth thought that “In-N-Out” would be an appetising name for a burger restaurant? When I eat a burger I would rather it remained “In”.
[QUOTE=dnooman]
I’d rather scoop my eyes out with a spoon than have to eat Tim Horton’s sandwiches for a week. If you can’t make it edible, DON’T MAKE IT! Their chicken salad sandwich is half a notch above cat vomit.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Diomedes]
My vote goes with Tim Horton’s. While they have decent coffee, and their donuts aren’t that bad, I’d love to see an entire nation start weeping simultaneously.
[/QUOTE]
Um… methinks I’m going to have to suggest to my manager that we install a couple concrete shelters 20 meters under our kitchen…
Actually, I never have sandwiches on duty (they aren’t free for employees, so there’s no point), but I recall liking the egg salad sandwich.
ETA: don’t drink coffee, have never had it either. But I’m fond of some of our donuts (which are free, of course) – the original plain and the honey dip are really boring, though. I recommend the lemon crinkle if you can get it, or a white macademia nut cookie, or a banana nut muffin. And hot smoothies are quite excellent without the flavour shot (you just get vanilla.)
I think they should all be allowed to live. The reason? All the sheep wearing their pagers for the two hour wait at the Cheesecake Factory are not clogging up my neighborhood restaurants. I can breeze right in and have an actually good meal.
Except for Marie Callendars. They are evil and a waste of space. I’ve never had a meal there where the food or service could aspire to reach mediocrity.
I name Hardee’s, but they can get a reprieve if they put the roast beef sandwich back on the menu. (Arby’s should not be the only roast-beef-sandwich option on the fast-food market.)
I would say nuke Jack-in-the-box and their ‘everything has burnt oil smell’. But their comercials are so hilarious that they get a reprieve.