For Cassandra Bovastro, 37, eating at Applebee's with her four children used to be a regular treat. But the rising cost of gas and food has forced the Chicago area ambulance driver to reduce her visits from a few times a month to once every three months. "Prices of everything are going up, but my wages sure aren't," says Bovastro. With higher living costs and another child on the way, a night out increasingly means dining off the dollar menu at McDonald's (MCD) instead
I have a friend that likes to go to Applebees every once in a while, I have been disappointed with that place overall. I used to really like the burgers at Ruby Tuesday, but those have seemed to go down hill lately. TGIF has a good idea with the right size right price items.
We have actually been eating at less chains lately, it seems like a better value for our money, and we like to support the local guys sometimes.
I agree completely!
Support your locally run and managed and owned, non-chain restaurants.
They are hard to find but if they are there, they are more important to your community than a chain that comes in with its' own managers and runs a formula menu.
Local people really cook and can really "adjust" to the local diners.
The chains are more like boil-in-bags places that offer much less personalization.
My humble opinion.:72:
We have a few Mexican places that are independent. Then there are some mom and pop places that just aren't my thing. Salads are a pile of iceberg lettuce with a few carrot shavings and a tomato on top. And all the food is either deep fried or covered in gravy ... or both! One place has deep fried dressing (or stuffing depending on where you are) and they top that with gravy. You are still eating that one 3 days later. BURP!
Don't really recall when I ate a food chain restaurant. We have them, but
we support local, and we have a lot them out here. Guess we are lucky.
On Saturday, wanted to go out to someplace special with daughter, sister, board members and speakers from the Conference. Made reservations at one of the top hotel restaurants for brunch.
Spendy? Yes, but SO worth it. Had the crabcakes, daughter had salmon, a few had the goat cheese and spinach omelet (which they raved about), one had homemade granola and another the hanger steak with eggs and homestyle potatoes. All of it incredibly delicious!
Every once in a while it is fun to splurge like that, but it can spoil you BIG time!!!
Our kids like it. Friday's and the Olive Garden places like that make it easy to eat with children. It's bad to go for spendy and have the kids not eat it.
I must admit Emeril's in Orlando catered to the kids as much as the more mature pallet and still had sophisticated plating. My daughter got a mound of mashed potatoes with chicken strips arranged beautifully on top. My son got the pizza, and well it looked like a pizza, but it was still very nice.
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