Whether they ate there or not, chain restaurants were largely a part of everyone’s upbringing. Chain restaurants were all many of us had access to, so they became our only source of knowledge. While there were many more eateries to pick from, big cities also have restaurant franchises. A wonderful restaurant experience is just as much about the people we dine with as it is about the food on the menu or who prepared it. Uno’s and Chuy’s have mostly taken the place of Mr. Gatti’s and Monterey House, which have essentially become extinct dinosaurs. It may be time to give credit where credit is due because the chain restaurant, whatever it may be, serves a purpose.
People favor chain restaurants for a variety of reasons. They are reliable. You know you may open the menu in Texas, California, or New York and select the same dishes, and they will arrive at your table looking and tasting exactly as they did the previous time you ordered them. Going to a new restaurant can be difficult, so if you only eat out occasionally (once or twice a month), it might not be worth the risk. Why take the chance that a dish identical to the Five Cheese Ziti al Forno at Olive Garden won’t appeal to your taste buds in the same way if you already know you’ll enjoy it?
Also, chain restaurants are typically less expensive than independently owned eateries with a limited menu and head chef-created daily specials. Most clients are quite careful with their dining money, and nobody wants to be dissatisfied after spending a significant amount of their income on one meal. The New York strip at Gage and Tollner is excellent, but many of us live off of Longhorn Steakhouse budgets, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Some people might believe that higher-priced cuisine is of higher quality, but in the appropriate setting, a Salisbury steak can be just as mouthwatering as a bone-in ribeye.
My brother prepared a fantastic lunch of homemade lasagna for me during a recent trip back to Texas. I came to understand that we all enjoy the familiar foods when my mother said that it was “just as wonderful as something that came from Olive Garden.” Some folks have the same experience eating at Chili’s as they do eating at Daniel or The French Laundry. No one’s affinity for a certain restaurant should be denigrated. Whatever the reason, some of us actually quite like the chain restaurant’s well-worn groove. Eateries are fulfilling their purpose of providing people with both food and love. Chain eateries ought to be treated with some respect.