Casual Dining Restaurants

Higher class?

Folks around these boards tell me the Olive Garden is pretty good.

Bouncing shrimp with butter spray.

My stomach just whooped my ass for even reading this thread.

I used to work at Applebee's back in the doo wah day. I'm pretty sure you shouldn't be eating there. Because it's Applebee's.

Applebee's is salted diarrhea.

So many responses. And you'll be hearing most of them shortly.

Here's a chain restaurant I can get behind:

Fogo de Chao.

I like Outback. Fuck you too.

I hear good things about Outback, though the service is said to be too friendly.

Fogo is a restaurant that gets behind you, actually.

I think Gutt and I kind of made the same joke....

I don't think Fogo de Chao counts as casual dining when it's $50 just to sit down.

I like the supreme irony of going to a gym, then going to eat at Applebee's.

I like to eat White Castle by candlelight. It just feels... higher class.

$45. Worth every dollar.

But can you call a chain restaurant - an all you can eat one, at that - "fine dining"? I wore jeans there, fuck it.

I know it's a chain, but it's still not casual dining.

But yeah, it's delicious.

It's "expensive", but people weren't dressed up, it has a self-serve salad bar. I dunno how to classify it, but I don't want to start a thread for whatever kind of place Fogo is.

In closing, please go to Fogo instead of Applebee's. You can wear your sneakers if you need to, the food is still really bad for you, and it's better tastin'. Go Fogo!

Like Gutt pointed out, Fogo is a pricemare. Go grab Thai food or cook at home more.

http://www.whitecastle.com/valentinesday/

dynamotv, can you account for this?

What is it, exactly, that inspires people to support these chains? I mean, I understand why they might hold some appeal in communities where there aren't any decent, mid-range, privately-owned restaurants. But so many of these places have popped up in this area that they're starting to take business away from comparably-priced, locally-owned restaurants with better food.

Why do you feel they merit any more attention than they already get? Is there some sort of psychological comfort in knowing that the food you're eating in an Applebee's near you is exactly the same food you'd be eating at an Applebee's on the other side of the country? Are you a picky eater that doesn't deal well with the same options not being available from restaurant to restaurant?

Disclaimer - I go to these places, too, on occasion, but they tend to be last-resort options. I just don't get why they're something to champion. IMO, they cater to the basest needs of Americans in that their prominence in a market tends to leave consumers with easy, but unadventurous options (is Bennigan's vs. Applebee's vs. Chili's really that big a fucking deal, especially if one of those moved in where a local Thai or Mexican place used to be?) and their huge portions (especially see the Italian chains, like Maggiano's) tend to reinforce the idea that we actually prefer piles of high-calorie, vaguely appealing food to smaller portions of outstanding food in a given meal.

See, that's another plus to me. Partly because of the cost, partly because it's easier to turn down unhealthy food if it's not on a dollar menu, I end up eating there maybe twice a year. Homeboy's hitting Applebee's on the way from (to?) the gym every week. I'll put my end-of-year dining bills against your basic Olive Garden perp any day.

I just wanted to point out that this is the single most boring post I have ever read on this site.

What's the big deal with where and what people like to eat? Some have more casual tastes than others. I'll eat at Applebees and I'll eat at fancier places. Food is food at the end of the day. Eat what you like.

Because some people have really lousy taste, and choose to make their lousy taste open for public ridicule.

I don't think anyone's arguing which is better. Just staying true to the thread, is all. The fact that it's an event when you go speaks to how casual it isn't. It goes beyond dress code. I'd put Wildfire in the same league. Great food, and I don't need to dress up to go, but I'm not sitting on the couch on a Wednesday night with the wife discussing what we're going to do for dinner and just throw on shoes and go to Wildfire.

Luckily, I live close to some upper-scale chicago burbs, so there's enough independent restaurants and higher quality chains that I don't have to worry about it. I will say, though, every couple of months I'll splurge on a blue cheese burger from Red Robin before a movie (it's right next to the theater I go to).

You have to be really special to refer to Applebees as your haunt.

Touche' But I don't think he was trying to push eating at crappy restaurants on anyone.

MANNY!

On Tuesday's we have a late night at work and we always go to Friday's afterwards. The service is friendly because we're regulars, although the food is nothing that fantastic. I do enjoy their four dollar appetizers. I also worked at Outback when I was in high school and it's still my favorite middle of the road restaurant. Thankfully there isn't a thing on the menu I don't enjoy, although I do miss the 50% discount.

And eating at Applebee's is akin to getting HIV.

I got ya. I've kind of phased out "casual dining" (so get the fuck out of the thread, yeah, yeah) in favor of eating at home more, to the point where I do like to have REALLY good dining experiences instead. And I'd rather pay $100 and daydream about that meal before and (days) after than spend $40 and say "well, I'm not hungry anymore" and get the shits an hour later.

But casual dining, okay. For Bob Clark and Flyarz:

Mixto on Pine
Wrap Shack on 18th
Good Dog Cafe on 15th
Cantina on Passyunk
Royal Tavern on Passyunk
Siam on Arch

For DaveB and Zooey:

Solley's in Milwaukee

For Devin and Slater and Stormin:

Toi on Sunset

Alas, I guess chains are the only places we can name and have everyone know what we're talking about.

Tell me more about this "Wildfire" you speak of.

In the "find something nice to say" dept., sometimes it's fun when those crappy chain restaurants give you a fucking pint glass of rum and coke or vodka and cranberry.

It's a steakhouse chain that's part of the 'Lettuce Entertain You' conglomerate. They use very high quality ingredients, and though I don't usually like anything on my steak, they have these 'signature crusts' that are pretty fucking great. Giant baked sweet potatoes, great soups and it's one of the few places in the Chicago burbs that I'll even bother with grilled fish.

Red Robin's burgers and steak fries a must before the girl and I see a flick. And it costs about as much as a large popcorn and 2 sodas.

I went from rolling my eyes at your first post to wanting to give you a medal for eating at a "steak buffet". Holy fuck.

"Luby's"?

They have steak buffets?

That sounds horrible.

The one by me has a deal where you get two meals and two movie tickets for $30. That's about what the wife and I will pay at a theater (after corn and sodas, of course).

I have to say that I like to eat at shitty bar's or hole in the wall places, and they tend to have some of my favorite comfort foods.

I do this a lot too, and about half the time it's rough on my stomach, but I still do it, and I avoid places like Applebees and Fridays because there is no personality there - any locally owned place has more to it than a formula driven mass marketed chain.

This is a good thing? What the fuck?

I think he means "for $12, you get a steak buffet and hot rolls at your table."

That's the most hilarious thing I've ever seen. You have to be a special kind of lady for a man to take you to White Castle for the Valentine's Day special. Perhaps a slightly higher priced hooker...

Whenever I think of places like Applebees, Bennigans, Fridays, etc., I always think of back in Sept. of '98 when my apartment was robbed (I lived in Forest Hills at the time). The cops came by, took a look around, took my statement, but didn't dust for prints till a little while later. A second cop comes by later on, and says, "I'm really sorry we weren't able to get here and dust earlier. We were dealing with a stabbing up at the Red Lobster on Queens Boulevard." I guess because Red Lobster is kind of in that same category of restaurant, I just automatically make the connection of, "Hmmm... wonder if they've ever had a murder there, or if you just feel like you're dying after you eat there?"

The dysentery is free.

Ahh, put your response under the quote. It's maddening I say!

Yeah, that's gotta tell you something about the chow.

In dyna's defense, that Blondie is pretty good.

Who eats more than one steak? I have never, not once, eaten a steak and thought,"Gee, I wish I could have another steak."