My old boss took us to Claim Jumper's once, so much worse than most of the other choice for two main reasons:
1. Way, way, way more expensive than yr standard Applebees/Chilis shit but almost exactly the same2. Ridiculous portion sizes even compared to other American chains
― you gone float up with it (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 2 March 2010 23:22 (fourteen years ago) link
Grossest is likely Denny's.
― forksclovetofu, Tuesday, 2 March 2010 23:22 (fourteen years ago) link
Never had a remotely edible piece of food served to me at Denny's in my life. One time a slice of pie I got had a layer of dust on it 2mm thick.
― queen frostine (Eric H.), Tuesday, 2 March 2010 23:22 (fourteen years ago) link
Actually sort of liked Macaroni Grille at one time, tbh.
― queen frostine (Eric H.), Tuesday, 2 March 2010 23:23 (fourteen years ago) link
Olive Garden is really pretty awful.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 2 March 2010 23:23 (fourteen years ago) link
I actually sort of like Cracker Barrel.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 2 March 2010 23:25 (fourteen years ago) link
i am grossed out by the name of cheesecake factory, should be a poll option
― harbl, Tuesday, 2 March 2010 23:26 (fourteen years ago) link
Ate at Macaroni Grill for years with the fam in the 90s before I was aware it was even a chain. We viewed it as a treat, a REAL restaurant.
― hope this helps (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, 2 March 2010 23:28 (fourteen years ago) link
i am shocked, SHOCKED by all yalls disrespect for denny's. grand slam breakfasts are hell of great, really, don't forget it.
TGI Fridays has made me sick every time i've eaten there
― rahni, Tuesday, 2 March 2010 23:28 (fourteen years ago) link
Yeah, dude. Friday's can go hang, but Denny's is alright. The Grand Slam is a thing of economic wonder.
― Clerk all KNOWIN (B.L.A.M.), Tuesday, 2 March 2010 23:30 (fourteen years ago) link
As far as I understand Claim Jumpers, it's like your standard chain restaurant but w/food of portions so ridic you need a little cookie that says "Eat Me" on it so you can magically grow to be as big as your food.
― How to Make an American Quit (Abbott), Tuesday, 2 March 2010 23:30 (fourteen years ago) link
iirc it also has a prospector/old west theme?
― How to Make an American Quit (Abbott), Tuesday, 2 March 2010 23:31 (fourteen years ago) link
Totally. It is a fatteh heaven.
In its defense, the one in Monrovia has RIDICULOUS football sunday appetizer specials. And cheap, big beers.
― Clerk all KNOWIN (B.L.A.M.), Tuesday, 2 March 2010 23:32 (fourteen years ago) link
It is so cartoonish in my mind that I am certain if I ever end up there, I'll end up feeling a bit disappointed.
― How to Make an American Quit (Abbott), Tuesday, 2 March 2010 23:34 (fourteen years ago) link
these are all the same restaurant
― mark roflr (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 2 March 2010 23:40 (fourteen years ago) link
i like those breadsticks from olive garden, I could eat hundreds of them.
― akm, Tuesday, 2 March 2010 23:41 (fourteen years ago) link
TGIF has made me the sickest over the years without question, lol college town. I wasn't having anything unusual and it didn't take as long to show up as real food poisoning would (ie the time it takes bacterial colonies to grow), but on several occasions it made me horribly ill a few hours after.
― The other side of genetic power today (Laurel), Tuesday, 2 March 2010 23:44 (fourteen years ago) link
Cracker Barrel has pretty good food and belongs no where near this list.
I've vote Applebee's.
― Jeff, Tuesday, 2 March 2010 23:46 (fourteen years ago) link
i think i've only been to chilli's and it was pretty goddamned bad - which is saying something, since i am generally a fan of terrible fastfood.
― just1n3, Tuesday, 2 March 2010 23:46 (fourteen years ago) link
Chili's sucks.
― ned ragú (suzy), Tuesday, 2 March 2010 23:47 (fourteen years ago) link
The only one of these I've ever actually found gross is t.g.i. fridays, so that.
― crazy ass between (askance johnson), Tuesday, 2 March 2010 23:48 (fourteen years ago) link
I thought Olive Garden was OK, but we were slightly tipsy and had an absolute gem of a waiter.
My brother likes Applebees best, so that's probably going to make me vote for them, because he's always wrong about food.
The only chain food that made me sick in my enormous US chain restaurant experience of four weeks in Florida mostly not eating in chain restaurants was breakfast at Ponderosa Steakhouse. Seriously, yow, not good.
― ailsa, Tuesday, 2 March 2010 23:50 (fourteen years ago) link
The only time I've become actually SICK, not just feeling gross from eating this shit, was when our whole family stopped at a Bob Evan's while driving back home after a vacation. The entire family spent two days puking after eating there, it was the worst experience ever.
― you gone float up with it (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 2 March 2010 23:51 (fourteen years ago) link
i went to some place called macaroni grill in el cerrito but i don't think it was called romano's? anyway, it was delicious and i liked that they put all their calorie info on the menu, so you could see that the cheesy past you were ordering was about 1500 cals in one serving.
― just1n3, Tuesday, 2 March 2010 23:52 (fourteen years ago) link
I would like to order one cheesy past plz
― mark roflr (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 2 March 2010 23:53 (fourteen years ago) link
lol whoops
― just1n3, Tuesday, 2 March 2010 23:54 (fourteen years ago) link
I haven't been to any of these in +5 years, but I always enjoyed outback and olive garden and to a lesser extent chili's and applebees.
― crazy ass between (askance johnson), Tuesday, 2 March 2010 23:54 (fourteen years ago) link
it actually made me order something ~reasonably~ low fat, and skip dessert
Ooh, Bob Evans, we went in one of them. I can't remember anything about it though. I think I might actually have passed up the opportunity to eat, having just googled their menu. BOBurritos looks like the grossest thing invented by man.
― ailsa, Tuesday, 2 March 2010 23:55 (fourteen years ago) link
the Romano's in Macaroni Grill is hard to see on the sign/menu iirc
― hope this helps (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, 2 March 2010 23:58 (fourteen years ago) link
This Bob Evans incident was in like 1992 btw, still can't drive past one without hints of nausea.
― you gone float up with it (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, 3 March 2010 00:00 (fourteen years ago) link
Golden Corral anyone? grossest "restaurant" of all time by a long distance imo. its more like a trough, really. i think they might only exist in the south.
― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Wednesday, 3 March 2010 00:03 (fourteen years ago) link
nope they def exist in the north!
― harbl, Wednesday, 3 March 2010 00:04 (fourteen years ago) link
ok i just checked: it was indeed a romano's i went to
― just1n3, Wednesday, 3 March 2010 00:05 (fourteen years ago) link
these places have all gotten worse over the years, correct? because I ate at denny's when I was a kid (ie: the 70's) and it was fine, and I don't think that the change is just because my tastes have gotten so refined by living in the Gourmet Ghetto in Berkeley, because I will still eat crap if given half a chance.
― akm, Wednesday, 3 March 2010 00:09 (fourteen years ago) link
I hear that, akm -- Bob Evans is an institution in the Midwest, we used to consider it good basic road-trip food. My mother knew she could feed us all there, approximately what it would cost, that we wouldn't turn our noses up at the menu, that the waitstaff would accommodate kids at 4 different levels of rowdiness/carsickness/crankiness, and so on.
Whaa happen?
― The other side of genetic power today (Laurel), Wednesday, 3 March 2010 00:16 (fourteen years ago) link
Just looking at this Claim Jumper appetizer plate is making my stomach hurt:
http://www.poisonappleshirts.com/ohsofat/061609claimcombo.jpg
― Darin, Wednesday, 3 March 2010 00:17 (fourteen years ago) link
Also I am not gonna lie, a Cracker Barrel was the last restaurant I ate in before I spent 4 or 5 days hauling my ass along the Appalachian Trail in a rain/snow mix, only to find out that the person who loaned me her camping stove had accidentally given me the EMPTY fuel cannisters instead of the full ones, and I DREAMED OF CRACKER BARREL FOR DAYS AND DAYS.
― The other side of genetic power today (Laurel), Wednesday, 3 March 2010 00:18 (fourteen years ago) link
T.G.I. Friday's
^this place is so, so bad
i'll eat denny's breakfast (wouldn't fuck w/ their real food in a million years tho)
chili's & macaroni grill are both genuinely good and i dine at both regularly
― HOOM gang (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, 3 March 2010 00:18 (fourteen years ago) link
Cracker Barrel makes some pretty awesome biscuits, IIRC.
― Darin, Wednesday, 3 March 2010 00:20 (fourteen years ago) link
christ, that looks like several bowel movements.
xxxp
― Hervé Grillechaise (WmC), Wednesday, 3 March 2010 00:20 (fourteen years ago) link
outback is also generally very good
― HOOM gang (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, 3 March 2010 00:20 (fourteen years ago) link
i'll have a battered turd plate, please
― harbl, Wednesday, 3 March 2010 00:20 (fourteen years ago) link
Two words in defense of Denny's non-breakfast food:
Patty Melt.
― Clerk all KNOWIN (B.L.A.M.), Wednesday, 3 March 2010 00:21 (fourteen years ago) link
The Cracker Barrel in Tupelo, MS is pretty bad, tbh. I voted TGIF.
― Hervé Grillechaise (WmC), Wednesday, 3 March 2010 00:22 (fourteen years ago) link
― harbl, Tuesday, March 2, 2010 6:20 PM (32 seconds ago) Bookmark
which of our 8 different ranch sauces would you like with that, ma'am?
― HOOM gang (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, 3 March 2010 00:22 (fourteen years ago) link
aside from dennys (maybe) there is something a lot of these places have in common. they are really not all that cheap! i mean, if you have a local halfway decent mid-priced italian restaurant near you anywhere and you go to olive garden instead then you should kinda be ashamed of yourself. and same goes with all the rest. eat local! sort of.
if you are in a big hurry or only have five bucks on you then i can see the point of going to mcdonalds and the like, but these places actually make you wait for food and its usually not great and no real bargain.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 3 March 2010 00:23 (fourteen years ago) link
I would happily dine at at least half of these right now, given the state of my budget/grocery supply until Friday. I could kill a steak platter + anything else from Outback Steakhouse, any given pasta entree from Olive Garden...fuck, even Red Lobster I'm sure I could come up with something and it's possible I've never even been to one.
Ditto. None of these places are world beaters, obv, but when you consider where and what I normally eat, well...
― Cunga, Wednesday, 3 March 2010 00:24 (fourteen years ago) link
PS, if anybody in Northern Calif (but outside the Bay Area) wants a decent steak, there's a smallish chain called Cattlemens, 8 locations, that I thought was really good when I lived in Redding.
― Hervé Grillechaise (WmC), Wednesday, 3 March 2010 00:25 (fourteen years ago) link
ctrl+f, nabkin, no matches found
― you can beat my box any time (PappaWheelie V), Wednesday, 3 March 2010 00:27 (fourteen years ago) link
I've never been to this restaurant -- do people actually clean their plate or is the point that you take half home in a doggie bag? I mean, I am a big eater at times but I don't think I would want to, maybe even physically couldn't, put down 4200 calories at a sitting.
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Wednesday, 14 April 2010 14:46 (fourteen years ago) link
holy shit
― millions now zinging will never lol (WmC), Wednesday, 14 April 2010 14:47 (fourteen years ago) link
4,301 Calories
can I just what is this I don't even
― etrian odysseus (cozen), Wednesday, 14 April 2010 14:51 (fourteen years ago) link
I'll bet the items on the children's menu at this place are actual children.
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Wednesday, 14 April 2010 15:14 (fourteen years ago) link
Not toddlers, I'm talking fifth-graders.
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Wednesday, 14 April 2010 15:15 (fourteen years ago) link
don't even think my li'l bro wd be 4301 cals
― etrian odysseus (cozen), Wednesday, 14 April 2010 15:17 (fourteen years ago) link
the baked potato (side dish) has more sodium than the meatloaf and mashed potato dinner
o_O
― Maurice, the Kraken (brownie), Wednesday, 14 April 2010 15:27 (fourteen years ago) link
One of those rolled-in-coarse-salt baked potatoes, then.
― millions now zinging will never lol (WmC), Wednesday, 14 April 2010 15:56 (fourteen years ago) link
The place is huge, but it’s invariably packed, and you can see why. The typical entrée is under fifteen dollars. The décor is fancy, in an accessible, Disney-cruise-ship sort of way: faux Egyptian columns, earth-tone murals, vaulted ceilings. The waiters are efficient and friendly. They wear all white (crisp white oxford shirt, pants, apron, sneakers) and try to make you feel as if it were a special night out. As for the food—can I say this without losing forever my chance of getting a reservation at Per Se?—it was delicious.
The chain serves more than eighty million people per year. I pictured semi-frozen bags of beet salad shipped from Mexico, buckets of precooked pasta and production-line hummus, fish from a box. And yet nothing smacked of mass production. My beets were crisp and fresh, the hummus creamy, the salmon like butter in my mouth. No doubt everything we ordered was sweeter, fattier, and bigger than it had to be. But the Cheesecake Factory knows its customers. The whole table was happy (with the possible exception of Ethan, aged sixteen, who picked the onions out of his Hawaiian pizza).
I wondered how they pulled it off. I asked one of the Cheesecake Factory line cooks how much of the food was premade. He told me that everything’s pretty much made from scratch—except the cheesecake, which actually is from a cheesecake factory, in Calabasas, California.
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/08/13/120813fa_fact_gawande#ixzz22sJRPuVm
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 7 August 2012 15:35 (eleven years ago) link
Cheesecake Factory is ironically a factory of everything BUT cheesecake.
― Will Chave (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 7 August 2012 16:34 (eleven years ago) link
Was that written by Marilyn Hagerty?
― o. nate, Tuesday, 7 August 2012 20:10 (eleven years ago) link
lol
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 7 August 2012 20:18 (eleven years ago) link
http://resources1.news.com.au/images/2012/10/25/1226503/093989-denny-039-s.jpg
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 24 March 2014 17:22 (ten years ago) link
Denny's has been doing that for a few years now, still makes me lol
Moons Over My Smaugy
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 24 March 2014 17:31 (ten years ago) link
This is old and I think was probably posted in a Marilyn Hagerty thread, but it deserves to be memorialized herein:
http://www.theawl.com/2012/03/our-week-with-marilyn
― james franco tur(oll)ing test (Hurting 2), Monday, 24 March 2014 17:39 (ten years ago) link
one egg to bind them
― brownie, Monday, 24 March 2014 18:12 (ten years ago) link
nice
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 24 March 2014 18:23 (ten years ago) link
Chili's has food that tastes like the crap you'd shovel in your mouth while playing Twisted Metal back in 1996
― def jeftones (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 25 January 2023 15:44 (one year ago) link
what were you doing in a Chili's
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 25 January 2023 15:49 (one year ago) link
slowly drifting away
― def jeftones (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 25 January 2023 15:53 (one year ago) link
ROSCOE DINER RESTAURANTWhere People Eat Like Kings
― andrew m., Wednesday, 25 January 2023 16:01 (one year ago) link
Accommodations to over 300 People
So this means the place can seat 10,000, right?
― pplains, Wednesday, 25 January 2023 16:05 (one year ago) link
arena style banquet seating
― def jeftones (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 25 January 2023 16:05 (one year ago) link
Need to read a Hagerty review of Chili's.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 25 January 2023 16:06 (one year ago) link
"diner restaurant" reminds of a a funny place i've stayed (twice!) in memphis: The Gen X Inn Hotel
― andrew m., Wednesday, 25 January 2023 16:09 (one year ago) link
are their flannel robes in the closet
― def jeftones (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 25 January 2023 16:10 (one year ago) link
Build your own Hobbit Slam
― is it milli vanilli or just a facsimile (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 25 January 2023 16:11 (one year ago) link
iirc Applebees has better bars
― not too strange just bad audio (brimstead), Wednesday, 25 January 2023 16:16 (one year ago) link
you know, I can actually back you up on that one.
― pplains, Wednesday, 25 January 2023 17:53 (one year ago) link
(But not babyback you up.)
― pplains, Wednesday, 25 January 2023 17:54 (one year ago) link
I once read a fascinating long form article about the granddaddy of all of these, TGI Friday’s. At least for the first couple decades they cooked their food in house, while their competitors like Applebees or whatever just Microwaved literally everything.
― Alicia Silver Stone (Boring, Maryland), Wednesday, 25 January 2023 18:49 (one year ago) link
history of TGIF pretty interesting. memphis had the first one outside of the og in nyc. was considered the hotspot. maybe big star gigged there? they certainly drank there.
― andrew m., Wednesday, 25 January 2023 20:32 (one year ago) link
Applebees had those $2 Long Island Iced Teas for a while, you could get incredibly wasted for ten bucks
― frogbs, Wednesday, 25 January 2023 20:34 (one year ago) link