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On the whole issue of upscale chains, Tom Lee comments:
I can understand why they have a bad reputation — and it isn't just snobbery. The difference is really just about which restaurant in the chain you visit. If you find one with a good manager, chances are you'll get decent service and decent food. If you go to one that isn't as well run — the Chili's I last visited comes to mind (it was located in some airport) — every bite will make you acutely aware of how little care went into your meal between the walk-in and your plate.The power of the brand means that a bad restaurant that belongs to a franchise can stay in business much longer than a bad restaurant that belongs to a person could; which means that if you find a bad one it'll probably seem particularly bad. I think it's that phenomenon — our automatic capacity for mindless brand loyalty — that makes the chains seem unappealing rather than any designed aspect of the dining experiences on offer.That's an important point, and a worthwhile one. A related argument is that these restaurants really aren't very cheap. A dinner at the Cheesecake Factory or PF Chang's isn't very economical. But due to economies of scale and market leverage, the companies behind these chains snap up a tremendous amount of good restaurant real estate and push out scrappier, potentially superior, competitors -- which means shunting better restaurants to more trying locations and increasing the likelihood that they fail. But then, that's life as an independent business, and it's true in everything from music stores to book shops to coffee places. The rich get richer. I'd like to say that that's why the chains have bad reputations, but I don't think that's true, and I don't think it's because some of these spots are, as Tom points out, poorly run. Just as eating at PF Chang's or The Olive Garden is aspirational for some folks, hating those restaurants is aspirational for others. Our identities are deeply interwoven into our dining choices, and the hipsters ostentatiously traveling across town to try jellyfish in a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant and then telling all their friends about the discovery are saying something about themselves just as surely as the young family dressing up for a night out at The Cheesecake Factory. Whatever you think of the objective merits of the cuisine, both groups are enjoying their dinner, and enjoying their ability to be the people having that dinner.
