This area is loaded with mom and pop places. Just the borough I live in has about 10 or so. Some are restaurants only, others also offer alcohol. A couple of them are remarkably good. Most of them are entirely unmemorable. More than a few, also, are simply awful. They all stay in business, though, and all of them have customers at any given time.
So, if you came here to eat, and chose one of the mom and pops over one of the chains, you’d most likely get a mediocre meal that had nothing to recommend it over one of the chains. You’d also stand a pretty good chance of getting a meal worse than Applebee’s or TGI Fridays. Bottom line? Mom and pop places, because of a pervasive nostalgia for a past that never existed, tend to be greatly over-rated as places where you can get these fantastic meals like the chains will never have.
Yeah, the Cheesecake factory makes good (but overpriced) cheesecake, but their entrees are only OK and also overpriced. What I really hate about that place is their corporate policy of making people wait- even when there’s no need to- to give the impression of high demand. Yes, dudes- when you see and wait in that long line a TCCF, you are being used for advertising.
Is that really true? We have a Cheesecake Factory around here in the local mall. We rarely eat there because there’s always a very long wait. A pity because I sort of like their burgers. But the same mall has excellent Chinese complete with really good dim sum on weekends. I’m in NJ. Good local pizza is also generally always an option around here. I’ve never run into a national chain that can beat a local NJ slice.
One of my favorite food blogs once tried every cheesecake there with good results:
Yes, many years ago there was a article in a magazine for restaurateurs suggesting this. It was said it creates a illusion of demand. TCCF was interviewed and said it had worked very well for them.
I tested this one time at one CCF when the restaurant was almost empty. They still made us wait. I will not longer eat there. My time is too valuable to give it up for free to give then advertising.
That’s disgusting. It presumes that a customer’s time is of no value at all. I’ll never go to any CF ever again. We have lots of good choices around here so it’s not exactly a sacrifice.
http://blog.prosper.com/2008/03/10/creating-demand/
"Many people are often of the opinion that you should always look for the busiest restaurant in an area on the theory that people go there because it’s good. A less crowded restaurant must not be as good. If you follow this line of thinking, you may pat yourself on the back for identifying a great restaurant where people are waiting in lines to get in, but you may just be playing right into their hands. The Cheesecake Factory is a brilliant example of this. They do not advertise. They count on word of mouth to bring in new customers. One of the ways they encourage people to come in is by intentionally making the restaurant too small for expected crowds. If you drive by a Cheesecake Factory, it always looks crowded. Once you go in, the menu is crowded, too, making your head spin with the endless possibilities. Chocolate vanilla cheesecake and vanilla chocolate cheesecake? This place is out of control! People feel they need to go there. The evangelism of a Cheesecake Factory fan can be overwhelming."
I take it you’ve never had barbeque in western NC, where tomato-based sauce is king.
/hijack
When I go into a chain restaurant I know how the food is going to taste (often good), how much it will cost me and how long it is going to take. That said, I have a rule that I try to not use chains when I travel. In general the food is rarely better in the local places, just different, which isn’t a bad thing. Sometimes a local place will serve food that is exceptional and that is the point of trying such places. BBQ in North Carolina or Texas, for example, or freash local seafood. These things the chains can’t do that well. But, if you just want a hamburger and fries in a hurry, why not go to the experts (Burger King, IMO?)
Yes, to go over the styles:
Eastern NC style: sauce is vinegar, pepper flakes, and often black pepper and perhaps a bit of sugar to cut some of the sharpness. It is very thin, since it’s vinegar.
Western NC/Lexington style: Basically, take Eastern NC style and add a bunch of ketchup or tomato-based product to it. Still pretty thin by middle American barbecue sauce standards, but it has some viscosity to it, and the sweetness of the ketchup mellows it out a good bit.
South Carolina mustard style: Lots of mustard + vinegar + sugar + spices. Sometimes with a splash of ketchup or tomato sauce-type product.
Unfortunately they server fatty salty sweet stodge at the vast majority of mom and pop places as well. And a lot of the mom and pop places the stodge is not prepared as well as a chain restaurant. Some time it is better but a lot of time it is crap.
This is completely false.
This reminds me of an interesting thread I read a few years ago on eGullet. They talked about how a lot of restaurants are buying foods from Sysco, and how it can be a slippery slope to ordering chicken breasts, then ordering pre-cut chicken breasts, then ordering them pre-seasoned while you’re at it. So even if you’re not at a chain, you could end up getting the same kind of processed crap that the other places have.
Hole-in-the-wall mom-and-pop restaurants are fine if you’ve got a local who can make good recommendations. Otherwise, they’re a crapshoot. I’ve stopped at a lot of these places that are only in business because they’re the only restaurant in town. Some were pretty good, but for every good restaurant, there are at least two lousy ones. (I didn’t know you can fuck up grilled cheese, but it can be done.)
And it’s not just the food that makes a bad restaurant bad. I stopped at one on a road trip some years back that was the local teenage hangout. The food itself was OK, but the kids were loud and obnoxious and their behavior made it difficult to relax and enjoy my meal. And the staff did nothing to rein in the bad behavior. It was not a good experience.
Right on.
Of course, the real difference in the 2 styles is that Eastern is whole-hog, while Western is whole shoulder.
Preaching to the choir, I’m sure.
Apparently Thomas Keller (The Thomas Keller, of the French Laundry (frequently named the best restaurant in the US) and Bouchon) as of 2007 uses/used frozen fries - confirmed by a spokesperson, but they wouldn’t name the brand, rumored to be Sysco.
One of the best goddamned restaurants in the country, and you will pay for that quality, and they use(d) frozen fries. Christ.
No way in hell, unless they’re talking about what he feeds his kids at home.
Somebody is selling a load of BS to you.
ETa: maybe not. I’m reading more about it now. Apologies.
No doubt there are some horrible mom and pop places, but claiming that Chillis or Applebee’s is good food is preposterous. The only purpose those places serve is hot food while traveling. I am far from a food snob, but the food tastes processed and pre prepared.
A few small towns nearby have been able to prohibit chain restaurants, not that many have dared to try to open. The anti-chain activists say that no one who comes to our heavily tourist-oriented area would ever want to eat at one, and to prove their point, they don’t allow any to build.
The inevitable result is that the existing Mom & Pop restaurants, while some are very good, have limited hours, limited seasons, and are quite expensive, prohibitively so for a family on a budget vacation. Guess where those groups go? Not here. They spend their money at the Dells or Six Flags.
Not so.
Not everyone is fortunate enough to live in an area that has a good, reliable supply of fresh food, or the logistics to get it. What is available might come in very limited supply, be available only seasonally, or be very expensive to get because of the restaurant’s location. (There is a reason why restaurants that use locally-sourced foods tend to be more expensive than chains, at least where I live, and I live in the middle of a region that is not only a major agricultural region, but is well-known for its processed food manufacturers. Just because Utz-brand potato chips are made locally doesn’t mean you get them any cheaper than the guy in another state.)
And when you’re feeding a lot of people, as most restaurants do, you need a lot of food and you need it when you need it. You don’t have the luxury of waiting around on a smaller supplier. Companies like Sysco have the supply chain in place so they can fill orders very quickly and cost-effectively, which a smaller supplier may not be able to do.
It’s true that some restaurant owners/managers are lazy and don’t want to go through the effort to develop a menu based on fresh food. But this isn’t always the case.
That’s somewhat close to my rule when traveling. The only difference if that I will eat at a chain like Denny’s for lunch since I usually eat nothing more than soup or a small sandwich. If I’ve stopped somewhere for the night, I try to eat at a local independent restaurant. So far I’ve had some good meals and no real disasters. Of course, it’s important to consider where you are. A small town on the Pacific Coast will probably have at least a couple good seafood places but would be rather dicey for something like BBQ.