Why are chain restraunts depressing?

On the drive down through California on highway 101, I used to stop at the Bluebird Cafe in Hopland. Old fashion single owner type place. First time there, I thought it was heaven I found. Second and third times, I thought it less so. I still stopped on other trips, because I still liked the place, but I might just have coffee and dessert.
By now if I went back, the cook might have changed and it would be great again, like the first time. (It gets a lot of 4 and 5 star reviews)

ding ding, give the lady a ceegar, we have a winner

I rarely go to chain restaurants, as I know better restaurants in my area.

Having said that, when we traveled cross country and stopped somewhere in
a small town and didn't know a good from a bad food place, a chain restaurant
is a safe haven to eat. Everyone knows the menu, it's not gourmet but it's not
that bad either which means you won't get sick.

A few month ago I was in a small town somewhere and we decided to try a
small, cute and inviting Italian restaurant. The menu card outside looked good so we went in and had lunch. Well, by the time the food finally arrived, we were
starving and that's my excuse for continuing to eat the meal - it was just plain
awful and about an hour later I felt the impact of it. Not a pleasant thought
when you're on the road.

So next time, it will be a chain restaurant again when being on the road....

Laughs.
CJane and I met once, a year or so ago. She took me to a place she knew near my cousin's house. We ordered the same thing (well, maybe our wine glasses differed). Delicious! I would trust this woman's food choices...

I don't find chains depressing and who doesn't love the little hole in the wall or a mom and pop shop with great food they've discovered? What I dislike are the chains that offer you a book to order from and you know that the food is mostly frozen and reheated. The cheesecake cafe comes to mind.. There is no possible way they can specialize in everything.
There are some really good chains here that only have a few locations, not necessarily nation wide, but at least, like has been mentioned earlier, the chains for the most part are consistent.
I'd rather go to DeDutch than Ihop or Denny's for breakfast but that's just a personal choice. Plus I think white gravy is gross.

There was a small, local chain of pizza shops in central Ohio which had become the number one pizza chain in Ohio. So MacDonalds bought them out. The quality--which had made them number one--went to hell in literally a few weeks.

I don't doubt it. Remember when Mickey D's made pizza. Yeuck!

osso, I was at that restaurant just a couple of weeks ago - the food is still very good :-)

Not to pile on, PQ, but I nod to this, as I've noticed it before, that you have a certain discomfort with people as a mass, kind of a lack of curiosity together with some judgement going on... even the word prosaic rings to this. I double checked my understanding of the meaning, since you have used the word several times. You said something similar re people (I can't remember, but seemingly on the whole, at least re a group) when you went to Poland a while ago. Not to poke at you without empathy, as I remember being at least somewhat this way, back as the early nascent me.

more likely a preference that you dont approve of....you sound like an extrovert does when he/she calls out an introvert for being defective, as proven by the fact that so and so is not an extrovert like them. You either believe in diversity and different flavors or you don't.

PQ suffers from youth....give her a ******* break.....most of us did once as well. Her excess of pride is more of a problem but life will beat that out of her soon enough...

I've despised Ihop for years, but once went recently with pals here, and had a simple omelette. It was fine. (Don't ask me about their bacon, it is slivered with a microtome, it seems). If you go anyplace with the Dys, he will engage the waitstaff (and sometimes the people sitting near) robustly and humorously, and thus I quickly have liked the waitstaff at our Ihop. Ihop's benefit re us here is that it is close, which is pretty much it re benefit, in my view. The Denny's I mentioned was an 'eh!' for food, but close, not then at breakfast loud, had again, an edible omelet.

Anyway, most chains don't depress me, they are what they are. Even at times Hopperesque if you wish to get esoteric. Applebys did depress me, the once; Ihop as mentioned, in the past; and Olive Garden for the execrable faux ital food. I liked Burger King's fishburgers in our local mall...

Schniff, I hope to get back to that area one of these days.

I like PQ, and she knows it. We've talked for years. I did say I had empathy, if you read me carefully.

One thing to remember about chains is that most of them (maybe all, who
knows?) started out as individual restaurants. These restaurants were
good at something (a particular food item, service, a niche market,
big-breasted waitresses) and so were able to increase and multiply. Those
that stayed true to their roots are probably still pretty good at whatever
distinguished them.

I don't think this has all that much to do with Myer Briggs et al. I was a relatively quiet person with a lot of judgement roiling through my mind while I watched others in my teens through early twenties. I talk a lot on a2k but it is a comfort zone for that. My life got more interesting as my curiosity opened up and, pardon me, fear of others lessened, sense of self rightness lessened, as I read more and lived more. I'm not interested in changing PQ and her sense of self, I like her, as I said.

Just that a chain restaurant is a possible setting for one of those kind of books that explores who the people are in the room: those people, however ordinary, are really not prosaic.

Sometimes technically true but rarely is the situation quite thus. Most chains are planned as chains, only if after build out to 5 or 20 stores the concept and management is not working does the project get abandoned. We still talk about the old stories, say the Mrs Fields Cookie story, but that was started 30 years ago. Today the franchise restaurant story is a corporate America story.

What did use to depress me was driving California on I-5. Nada but chains chains chains every so often miles, with trucks going 90 mph plus in between.

Which is why I have waxed quixotic about highway 101. Small towns an offramp away - I've checked out a lot of those over the years, with pretty good results.

It took a little more time, but I'm daylight constrained in driving anyway, and I prefer to enjoy my trips.

I had the best pizza ever in Mendicino. I believe thats on the 101, yes? Baked in an outdoor oven, fresh herbs from their garden.. my mouth still waters.

It's on highway 1, which can be reached from highway 101..

http://www.aaccessmaps.com/show/map/us/ca/californianorth

For example?