Chain Restaurants

Joel Watson from Hijinks Ensue had a rant today about his unholy hatred of Applebee’s. It got me thinking about how my opinion about chain restaurants has evolved over the years. When I was first able to make restaurant choices, I refused to eat anywhere that wasn’t a big chain restaurant that I had eaten at before.

I’m a pretty picky eater (which hasn’t changed much) and the idea of trying new things at an unknown place was not something I would consider. I loved places like Outback, Applebees, Olive Garden, Chili’s, Friday’s. No matter where you went, the food was the same and you knew what you were getting. It was comfortable.

When I went to college, I slowly started to go to a few local places. I was reluctant at first, but over the years I discovered, that the smaller places almost always had a better atmosphere than the big chains. And the food was usually better.

Gainesville had a great selection of either local or small chains (a few locations but all in the general area) restaurants that I came to really enjoy. The first I found was the Copper Monkey which was right off campus. They had good sandwiches. Joe’s Place had great hamburgers and a nice salad bar that my wife and I loved to go too. Some of the best pizza I’ve ever had was from Satchel‘s, which I didn’t discover until my last year there, but was within walking distance of my house.

Satchel’s had a great atmosphere. The people were always friendly, and seemed to enjoy their job. It really was at odds with my suburban upper-middle class white background where everything was supposed to be shiny and new. It was very relaxed and groovy. So much so, that they had an old VW bus sitting in front of the restaurant that was the most popular table. That was even considering the sticky hotness of Florida.

We went back to Gainesville a few years ago for a wedding. We gave ourselves an extra day there just so we could go back to some of these restaurants and to take some time to walk around campus. That’s one downside of local places, they stay behind when you move. But we have discovered a few places here in Houston. El Dorado and Barcena‘s are nice tex-mex restaurants. Pomodoro’s has some great italian.

Yet despite my new found appreciation for local restaurants, I’ll still eat at the big chains. I enjoy BJ’s Brewhouse and Texas Roadhouse. I also am still boring with the food I’ll eat. I’m happy to try a new place, but will still usually get the same narrow range of foods. Call me predictable like that.