When I visited the US I was confused why there were so many dogshit restaurant chains and how they managed to stay open. Surely nobody is eating at these places.
I think that the average American’s standard of what constitutes good food is pretty low by Asian or even continental European standards.
Not that the US doesn’t have some standout cuisines and dishes, but the food the average American consumes is all corn syrup and chemicals to me.
My sister spent a year abroad in the US and my little brother asked her to buy him some American candy. (We’re European)
When she got back, she had a selection of 6 different US candy brands for him. He tried all of them and, as a 10-year-old, deemed them inedible cause they were way too sweet and sugary.
The dogshit restaurants we have are a mixture of two actual good things that, like everything else in the US, was bled out of existence. The diner experience, and the inherent transient nature of American society. Being able to travel cross country has always been a relatively easy thing to do until recently, and eating while traveling is a no brainer. The food aspect used to be handled by large numbers of diners that had good quality food (relatively obviously) but has been replaced in large part by chain restaurants. Coincide this with the difficulty and expense of moving and you got a bunch of places that are almos comically bad.
The food aspect used to be handled by large numbers of diners that had good quality food (relatively obviously) but has been replaced in large part by chain restaurants.
This might be a bit rosy of a view of diners – I’m sure plenty were mediocre or bad. Not exactly the same, but my dad told me about traveling before and after cheap chain hotels sprung up everywhere, and said a real benefit of chains was that even if the quality wasn’t spectacular, you knew more or less what you were getting, which is itself valuable.
That’s probably true to some extent, I do be lovin a diner. But I would still argue that chain quality has gone down overall to the point that I genuinely believe Applebees straight up microwaves their food. Diners are and have always been a gamble, but I still stand behind the idea that the chain restaurant is essentially the diner concept mass produced across the United States in place of those diners.
Being able to travel cross country has always been a relatively easy thing to do until recently
Always?
There are large chunks of the US where these restaurants are the only restaurants. So if you want to eat out, you’re eating at a dogshit restaurant chain.
Also they have large parking lots and are located on major commute corridors, which feels welcoming to the average suburbanite, who thinks they’re a car.
Aw hell yeah, now we gays can have mid food feeling safe.
US eateries and food outlets all have the most bizarro names.
Like, IHOP. I thought that was a clothes shop for the longest time.
If applebees ever went woke it would start a “zombie” like apocalypse where chuds would start biting regular people because they dont know where to eat but the plague wouldn’t spread.
