Despite the condescending tone about Applebee’s, I find their steak specials to be a delight. In past years they have had a Wednesday only steak dinner for $9.99 that included a salad that does not come with the usual steak and two sides offering.
Right now they have steak on their Two For $22 menu and it also includes a very nice salad (or other appetizer) for each diner. I just had my third one yesterday. I prefer sirloin steaks anyway so I am not looking for ribeyes, T-bones, etc.
Dennis
Why does a place called “Wienerschnitzel” sell hot dogs and not schnitzel?? That’s like if Pizza Hut only sold hamburgers, or Chick-Fila was exclusively a seafood joint.
It would also be *Das Wienerschnitzel *. But see “Wiener”.
When Kitchen Confidential was written, high-end restaurants would always have daily specials that would either be on a small additional menu or told to you tableside. Most “good” restaurants don’t even really do that anymore. Quality places have mostly moved to having shorter, rotating menus instead of a larger fixed menu with a few “chef’s specials.” When there ARE specials, it’s often a few seasonal items, not a daily thing.
The only times I really see “daily specials” anymore are when I got to chains or old-school supper club type places, and it’s pretty much a crapshoot what will be good at any of those places.
I’ve only worked in regular restaurants that have chefs and it happens. Often there are regular specials like Monday is prime rib or something, but maybe tonight is mahi mahi or orange roughy. I dont know what % of restaurants are like that and not cookie-cutter chains, though.
In a way I would say that the rotating menu has made the “Chef’s Special” unnecessary as they can “rotate” the menu to suit and balance their pantry.
I see you are from Chicago… we recently went to Maple and Ash (highly recommended) and next time we go we are planing to get the “I don’t give a f@&k” which is the ultimate Chef’s Special. The whole table has to order it and you basically put your dinner experience into the chef’s care.
I think we have maybe strayed a bit from the OP of chain restaurants offering a deep discount though.
In the early 90’s, Burger King used to have $1 or $2 Whoppers and they were definitely smaller, Whopper Jr size? A regular price Whopper would fill me up, but I’d need 2-3 of the specially priced ones.
Specials are still pretty common, in my experience. In fact, the first thing I do when I visit a new restaurant is see if there are any daily specials. I tend to dine at mid-tier (though non-chain) restaurants, not high end, though, but most I visit do have some sort of special. I’m the person who often/usually orders off the specials menu.
I think the comment was more about at what percentage of restaurants are the specials determined by inventory? That I couldn’t say. Most places I go to offer specials based on the seasonality of items, from what I can tell, or perhaps the whim of the chef. That said, if there’s a prime rib night, the next night might have shepherd’s pie (as an example) as a special to use up the prime rib leftovers. I don’t see that quite as often, but I have no issue with that. A restaurant should be using as much of its inventory as possible, and if I were a chef and had some extra meat or other ingredients in the back that only had a few days of shelf life left, but were still good, I would absolutely run that as a special to avoid waste. As long as it’s not spoiled meat, there’s nothing wrong with that.
We eat at the same sort of places and I also often order from the specials menu. There are also two restaurants where I’ll ask the kitchen for guidance.
I also find specials. And not just at high-end places. The local Indian place and one of the Chinese places I go to have specials. The Indian place may just be doing it for variety, I dunno. The Chinese place is definitely selling specials of stuff they got in season or cheap. Like, they sell sauteed pea vines in season on the special menu, and once they had a special on crab because they happen to have gotten a deal on crabs – probably their supplier was trying to dump the crabs while they were still good, but they WERE still good when I ate them.