The Worst Chain Restaurant in America

[KCMax]

Chrizow's postgot me thinking - we talk about best restaurants a lot, but what are the truly vile places that somehow seem to continue in business beyond all comprehension?

I still disagree with his original point - that Red Lobster is the worst - because many things there are edible. Their lobster is edible - mostly because lobster is hard to mess up. The cheddar biscuits are okay. Various other shellfish dishes are okay. But my following list has the worst chains I have ever been to that frankly serve inedible food.

Dishonorable mention: Applebee's

Their dinners are gross microwaved crap. But the make up for it with a decent lunch special - sandwich and soup for something like $6 or so. But Chris Berman shills for them (what doesn't he hock?) But they're local - kinda. Of all the Applebee's/Chili's/Bennigan's/TGIFriday's schlocky genre, Applebee's is the worst.

5. Outback Steakhouse

Admittedly, I have only eaten here once, but it was something I'd like to forget. I'm not a huge steak guy, but I will enjoy one now and then and I like em bloody. Well I ate at one in Columbia on my way home to KC and it was just dreadful. I asked for a rare steak and they gave me a shoe they had warmed up in the oven. It also has some of the unhealthiest food you can order anywhere in America. They have also had John Madden and Chris Berman shill for them which should tell you something. And to top it off, they took a perfectly good Of Montreal song and ruined it.

4. Subway

I remember eating at the first one I ever saw, a few steps from the grocery store I worked at in high school. The bread was really hard, almost stale. My most recent time at Subway, the bread seems the same. Yet they are one of the most popular chain fast-food restaurants now. There are a ton of sandwich places, local and chain, that are FAR superior to Subway. Yet Subway has succeeded. Why? Its that damn Jared.

3. Olive Garden

There is a commercial they run where a family takes their relative straight from Italy to Olive Garden. A friend of mine of Italian descent once said that if his family did that, the relative would punch them in the face. Many of the dishes are obviously microwaved, and the dishes are just glopped in cream sauces. People rave about the breadsticks but I don't find them any better than the kind you can find in your frozen food section. And the weird thing is people think this place is like upscale - you will find people there on a "night on the town."

2. Noodles and Company

We have discussed this before but I just could not believe how bad their dishes were. I had kinda high hopes for this place as it seemed clean, the menu seemed fresh, semi-healthy aside from the empty carbs. Then we go the meal and.....nothing. Absolutely no taste. Well not exactly true, my pad thai tasted like syrup.

1. Perkins

Its no surprise to me that they're going bankrupt. Everytime I have been the service is god awful, not just from servers but from rude managers as well. The kitchen is always slow and the food is disgusting. I mentioned before my grandmother likes coming here for whatever reason and she always orders this tilapia dish that I want to slap out of her fork because it looks so gross. Everything is greasy, but not in a good way. I have no problem with greasy diners, even greasy diner chains - Denny's and IHOP are fairly decent for what they are. But Perkins is just gross. Yet, most times we go, it is quite busy. I do not understand.

What are your most hated chains?

[NDTeve]

Ruby Tuesday. A mile long menu where I can't find one thing I like.

[mudjack]

I wouldn't go to an Applebee's in Kansas City, but when I am in rural Missouri, Applebee's just might be the best restaurant around.

[chrizow]

Ruby Tuesday. A mile long menu where I can't find one thing I like.

my brother, whose opinion i trust, says that their "prime" burger or whatever is legitimately one of the better burgers around.  i have not been to a RT's in about 10 years though.

[brewcrew1000]

1. Applebee's - Food is always so salty or feels really fattening, even the soups and salads feel unhealthy

2. Long John Silvers - The two times i went into this place, all of my clothing smelled like grease, not sure how anyone can eat this junk

3. Cheesecake Factory - Food is not that great, menu is like reading a novel and the food is way to large and kind of overpriced

4. Buffalo Wild Wings - I use to like this place, but the wings have been shrinking, and the prices on wing day have gone from 25 cents to i believe 50 cents or something now.

5. Olive Garden - Food is not very good, only thing worthwhile is the salad, but the dishes just taste blah

[mean]

Honorable mention: Waffle House, where you can get your hash browns prepared in any of thousands of possible ways, and none of them are good.

5. Red Robin. Gourmet burgers my ass. I 100% respect that they're very into accommodating food allergies and celiac disease, but unfortunately, their food sucks.

4. Outback Steak House. Their steaks taste like they've been injected with some sort of synthesized meat flavor, and are often poorly trimmed. I do have a soft spot for a nicely prepared bloomin' onion, however. Really, any time you can fry onion and bring it to me with some horseradishy dipping sauce, I'm good.

3. Olive Garden. Not only is their food bad, their commercials are unwatchable glurge.

2. Bob Evans. I have one word for Bob Evans: SAAAAAAAALT.

1. Applebee's. Even the employees call it Crapplebee's.

[Ez Street]

5. Olive Garden - Food is not very good, only thing worthwhile is the salad,

Not sure why folks have such an orgasm about their f-ing salad. It's crap. Crap with halfway decent dressing. I think it's a result of marketing. They say the shit is good on the commercial, so it must be....it's Olive Garden!

Sadly, Olive Garden is up-scale in Topeka. Night out on the town material. I prefer Romano's Macaroni Grill or Carino's to Olive Garden.

1. Cracker Barrel - Inedible, bland, old people food. PASS.

2. Denny's - At least here in Topeka, I won't touch the place. It's always nasty, dirty, horrible. It's been "decent" in other towns.......just not here. BLEH.

3. Red Lobster - Hate seafood, hate that place. Simple conclusion for me.

4. Subway - Half-stale bread, boring subs. Pass.

5. Taco Bell - Looks the same coming back out as it did going in. Yuck.

[phxcat]

I think that Olive Garden manufactures fake business- they always have lines coming out of the door so that you think they are that good.  And the commercials make me not want to eat there.

Applebees is the worst of their genre. 

Famous Daves (where I have to go occasionally to try (and fail) to get a BBQ fix) is horrible- liquid smoke, really not good food.  I can go to bad BBQ places out here if the food is OK if you disabuse yourself of the notion that it is supposed to be BBQ, but Famous Daves is just bad.)

I think that subway is popular because it is the McDonalds of sub sandwiches, but for fast food, for the life of me I don't understand how Hardees is still open, and Jack in the Box has great commercials but, except for their fried foods (including 2 tacos for .99, though any more will make you puke) and shakes is barely edible.

[KCMax]

IIRC, Hardees was pretty close to going out of business when they revamped their menu and image to be something different than McDonalds - that is a place where you can get ridiculously sized portions of disgusting food for cheap. I guess it has worked.

[GRID]

TGI Friday's has to be the worst.

54th Street, which seems to almost copy Applebee's is one of the better chains IMO.

I wish they would expand east.  But I'm sure they are slowly losing their quality as they grow.

[NDTeve]

have to disagree on Cracker Barrel. Have found their breakfast to be pretty good.

[shaffe]

Whenver my wife and I crave Sysco food, we always head to Chili's. We even call it Nasty Chili's because it is so mediocre. But sometimes you just gotta have it.

[aknowledgeableperson]

Three places:

Rib Crib (food)
Buffalo Wild Wings (food)
Cheesecake Factory (prices and food)

[taxi]

Cheesecake Factory. The one time I ate there, I felt that I had suddenly woken up in the middle of a Hunter Thompson/Ralph Steadman pukatoria nightmare hallucination. I may have even inadvertently committed some violent acts in my desperate maniacal quest to escape at any expense and top speed.

[staubio]

I'm a fan of Subway. Any chain where I can get a heaping pile of vegetables in the middle of nowhere America, I'm game. And I find the bread to be decent too. I wouldn't pick it over a local joint, but it is a go-to in a pinch or a hurry.

Cheesecake Factory always pissed me off because of their advertising in the menus. That is a real insult to your customer, who is sitting down to pay you a premium for a assembly line meal, only to be subjected to advertising?

For me, there is more than food to consider. Cracker Barrel would have to be on my hated list for their kitschy decor and sketchy racist history.

I don't think I've ever eaten at Olive Garden. I win.

[KC0KEK]

Chrizow's postgot me thinking - we talk about best restaurants a lot, but what are the truly vile places that somehow seem to continue in business beyond all comprehension?

Equally puzzling are the non-chain restaurants that everyone purports to love but that actually aren't anything special.

[chrizow]

Equally puzzling are the non-chain restaurants that everyone purports to love but that actually aren't anything special.

perhaps, but there isn't a non-chain that serves thousands of people per day.  for me, that is the mind-boggling aspect of huge, shitty chains - they are not just shitty, but they entice enormous quantities of people to eat there.  this is far more interesting to me than independent local restaurants that many love but many others feel is overrated (westport flea market, gates, whatever). 

I'm a fan of Subway. Any chain where I can get a heaping pile of vegetables in the middle of nowhere America, I'm game. And I find the bread to be decent too. I wouldn't pick it over a local joint, but it is a go-to in a pinch or a hurry.

yeah, subway is not very good, but it can be clutch if you are starving in, say, garnett KS or something.  the ingredients and bread are mediocre at best, but at least one could make a convincing case that a subway sandwich consists of recognizable food - as compared to, say, the "ground beef" from taco bell which is like dog food.

[chrizow]

the last time i ate at applebees, i was still a vegetarian.  there literally was not a single vegetarian item on the menu, including salads.  i had to ask for a salad with no meat, and the server acted like i was completely insane.  i remember thinking it tasted okay though - not good, but not terrible like a mcdonalds salad (which tastes like hormones).  it was also huge.

bob evans is really bad - and i have no qualms about consuming a chain-breakfast in the right context (intoxicated, on a roadtrip, etc.).  i can deal with IHOP, denny's, country kitchen, etc., but bob evans is just a colossal failure in all ways.  

i am an unabashed lover of all pizza, including national chains like domino's, pizza hut, papa john's, little caesar's, etc.  i am actually not sure i've ever found a pizza that i didn't like - although some are obviously way better than others.

i haven't been to outback, TGI fridays, chili's, 54th st., etc. in at least 10 years.  i seem to recall thinking that 54th st. was particularly vile - i had some sort of stupid "combo" that had taquitos or some shit on it, and it sucked big time.  

KFC is not even food.  the mashed potatoes are like whipped sand.  i can put away some popeye's though, with their rice and beans.  

for burger chains, i think sonic is insanely inconsistent, even though i kind of want to like it.  i have never once had french fries from sonic that were not cold and soggy.  i do like their "ched-R-bites" or whatever.   the jalepeno burger is edible. 

[KC0KEK]

perhaps, but there isn't a non-chain that serves thousands of people per day.  for me, that is the mind-boggling aspect of huge, shitty chains - they are not just shitty, but they entice enormous quantities of people to eat there.  this is far more interesting to me than independent local restaurants that many love but many others feel is overrated (westport flea market, gates, whatever). 

So it's a matter of scale. I'm thinking of a couple of restaurants on Ninth Street in Columbia that alumni get all hard or wet over simply out of nostalgia. Every time they're in town, such as on a football Saturday, they pack those joints even though the food ain't all that and a bag of chips.

[grovester]

the last time i ate at applebees, i was still a vegetarian.  there literally was not a single vegetarian item on the menu, including salads.  i had to ask for a salad with no meat, and the server acted like i was completely insane.  i remember thinking it tasted okay though - not good, but not terrible like a mcdonalds salad (which tastes like hormones).  it was also huge.

bob evans is really bad - and i have no qualms about consuming a chain-breakfast in the right context (intoxicated, on a roadtrip, etc.).  i can deal with IHOP, denny's, country kitchen, etc., but bob evans is just a colossal failure in all ways.  

i am an unabashed lover of all pizza, including national chains like domino's, pizza hut, papa john's, little caesar's, etc.  i am actually not sure i've ever found a pizza that i didn't like - although some are obviously way better than others.

i haven't been to outback, TGI fridays, chili's, 54th st., etc. in at least 10 years.  i seem to recall thinking that 54th st. was particularly vile - i had some sort of stupid "combo" that had taquitos or some shit on it, and it sucked big time.  

KFC is not even food.  the mashed potatoes are like whipped sand.  i can put away some popeye's though, with their rice and beans.  

for burger chains, i think sonic is insanely inconsistent, even though i kind of want to like it.  i have never once had french fries from sonic that were not cold and soggy.  i do like their "ched-R-bites" or whatever.   the jalepeno burger is edible. 

damn dude, that post was like 100,00 calories