Chain Restaurants Extremely Popular - Why?

[blizz01]

agree.

[RiversideLoki]

I like the holes-in-the-wall, the mom-and-pops, the taco stands, the billion different little sushi and seafood places this town has to offer because they're simply better and offer better selection than any chain.

'nuff said!  It seems to me that there are certainly a proportionate number of "QUALITY" independent restaurants around - the good ones do survive (most of the time).  I'd be willing to bet that I could go an entire month - breakfast, lunch, & dinner - and not hit the same spot twice.  Could you do that with the chains?

I could...chains aren't entirely evil.

I do agree that chains aren't evil. But I like good food. And if I have to pay a little more for a really good meal at a smaller place, I will. Because I like fresh food. Sysco food is Sysco food. Too much salt, too many preservatives, and just generally tastes like junk to me. When you go to a chain you're usually getting just that.

But if I'm in a hurry, I'm sure gonna eat there. Because if there's no line waiting out the door, you get that generally bad food rather fast, and it does fill you up and it is cheap. I'm a huge fan of Tijuana flats, even though it's chain. They offer good food and it's fast and generally not frozen.

But 13 Gypsies is awesome, and so is Metro diner, and all of the other little places in Riverside. And I make it a point to go to Beachside Seafood when I get out there. Because I love being yelled at by the staff and eating on the deck.

[copperfiend]

Tijuana flats is decent. Roy's is a chain and has pretty good food also.

[ChriswUfGator]

13 Gypsies...

Yeah 13G is the $h!t...

Can't believe I forgot to add that to my list originally.

[mtraininjax]

Chain food is cheap because the processed food is fed with cheap corn which is fertilized to death. Check out the amount of corn that is consumed by the food industry, its sick how much is used to feed cows, chickens, hogs, you name it. Because the food for the food industry is cheap, they can produce mass manipulated food for cheap.

Why so many 99 cent value meals? All processed food.

[RiversideLoki]

Chain food is cheap because the processed food is fed with cheap corn which is fertilized to death. Check out the amount of corn that is consumed by the food industry, its sick how much is used to feed cows, chickens, hogs, you name it. Because the food for the food industry is cheap, they can produce mass manipulated food for cheap.

Why so many 99 cent value meals? All processed food.

Q.F.T. It's cheap because it's made cheap.

[AntigoneStarr]

Chain succeed by the fact they have the ability to buy in bulk, all the time, because they put their name on something and put it everywhere and MUST be consistent across every outlet. Somewhere like the Wine Cellar or the mansion at Epping Forest has to special order in some really awesome ingredients, but they can't buy most of that in bulk. I mean, really, truffles in bulk is still going to be insanely pricey.

Now, as far as Italian food chains, Chinese food chains, Japanese steakhouse chains, et cetera - most don't even offer authentic cuisine. I have a huge pet peeve for Italian places in America. Especially in regards to pizza in general. Some of it tastes alright, it's certainly edible, but you'll never catch me near a Pizza Hut or a Papa John's unless someone's drugged me. I'd much rather grab some pizza by the weight, not by the pie and how many toppings.

Granted sometimes, I do dig the American-Chinese take-away.

And for hamburgers and standard pub fare... I'm not too into fried foods. (Unless it's really good fish and chips). Most drive me up the walls. And the whole bacon plus cheese plus mayo plus high fat % ground beef just makes me a little sick inside. I'd rather have some bacon, eggs whites, and raisin toast as a sandwich any day.

Most of the Greek food here has been fairly decent... I will say that. And I don't know of any real national chains for it, other than Hovan which is like Mediterranean snack food to me.

Independently owned restaurants generally do cost more than chain restaurants (unless we're comparing Five Points Coffee and Spice's dinners that include steak ($8) to Outback or some other steakhouse restaurant ($12+ I'd imagine, I've never even been to one...)

And as far as independently owned restaurants, best ever, has to be the Jewish Mother in Virginia Beach, VA. Shame there's nothing really like that here...

[civil42806]

Chain food is cheap because the processed food is fed with cheap corn which is fertilized to death. Check out the amount of corn that is consumed by the food industry, its sick how much is used to feed cows, chickens, hogs, you name it. Because the food for the food industry is cheap, they can produce mass manipulated food for cheap.

Why so many 99 cent value meals? All processed food.

Q.F.T. It's cheap because it's made cheap.

Well DUH!

[mtraininjax]

Q.F.T. It's cheap because it's made cheap.

Our labor is not cheap, more expensive than overseas for sure. The food is processed together so cheap that it offsets for the labor to heat it up, wrap it in packaging, and serve it.

[Dog Walker]

I don't think Hovan's is a chain, unless two restaurants is a chain.  Try their lamb sometime.  It's awesome!

[mtraininjax]

Hovan's is a franchise chain. They have them in Atlanta.

[Dog Walker]

Ah!  I just knew of the two here in Duval.  The owner of the one in 5 Points doesn't act like he's part of a franchise chain.  At least for dinner he does his own menu and wines.  His wines are unusual, from Greece and Lebanon. Hummos and falafel are first rate, too.

[mtraininjax]

They have about 10 stores around the SE.

http://www.hovan.com/

[thekillingwax]

I haven't been in a while but does the one in Riverside still switch to a kind of traditional sit-down place at night?

[stjr]

This post will probably offend like 900% of Jacksonville. But to put it bluntly, people are sheep. Not only are they sheep, they're fat, lazy sheep at that. They see the commercials on TV for the endless soup and salad, the chicken crispers, the burgers "bigger than your head", and they flock to chain restaurants because we're an overweight, ignorant city that wants to have everything the same, everything now.

Chain restaurants are just a fact of suburbia and sprawl. ....

People in this town are also afraid of new cuisine or their just plain afraid of it being bad that ONE TIME. And if (God forbid) they do try some place new more than once and it's bad the second time, they never go back and poo-poo it to all of their soccer mom/golf buddy friends. They want the fore mentioned greasy ass whatever to be the consistently and exactly same every time. It's their comfort food. It's what they like to spend their money on....

This is close to a thought I have.  Our local cuisine reflects the City's personality as a whole:  lacking creativity, vision, thoughtfulness, effort, sophistication, risk-taking, edginess, adventure, investment, character.  We like simple, easy, dumbed down, conservative, same-ol' (except for historic buildings), devoid of character, bland, on-the-cheap, instantly-gratifying approaches.