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The answer is so simple. If you don't like chain restaurants, don't eat there. If you don't like things in the South, the same road that brought you here will take you back.
What if, like me, you like the South and don't like chains but will eat at them out of necessity at times? Your "concise" reply simply doesn't cover anything anyone's talking about here.
Chick Fil A is pretty good but meals are like $7-10. That seems to be the case at most fast food places these days-which IMO defeats their entire point and purpose. You can get much better prepared and higher quality food for that much money.
This pizza map is to show which pizza chains are more popular in which part of the country and their relation to each other. It appears that Pizza Hut is the most popular. As someone who grew up eating "mom n' pop" pizza, when it comes to national chains, I like Pizza Hut the best. With that being said, when I visit my hometown of Chicago and I want pizza, I'm not going to go to Pizza Hut. Not because I look down on Pizza Hut, but because not only can I get much better pizza from a local pizzeria, I'd have to go out of my way to get to a Pizza Hut. I can easier get delivery or get to a mom n' pop pizza place in my Chicago neighborhood than I can get to a Pizza Hut or have a pizza delivered to me from there. Not only that, local Chicago deep dish and thin crust pizza tastes a million times better than anything Pizza Hut offers, even though Pizza Hut tastes good.
If you have never lived someplace like Chicago or NYC, you will not understand that the neighborhoods in cities like these don't have pizza chains in them but rather mom n' pop places. They are found more in suburbs, malls, airports and tourist areas. I can't speak for other's but I've never seen a Sbarro that wasn't in a mall or an airport.
Again, speaking as someone from a major, industrial, rust belt city, while there are McDonald's there, eating there is rare or occasional depending on the kind of neighborhood you live in. There were more mom n' pop places in my neighborhood (as with other neighborhoods in the city) than fast food places. Being in that kind of city, when you want something quick, you are more likely to order from the neighborhood mom n' pop Chinese takeout than to go get McDonald's, because McDonald's isn't right around the corner or right up the street, but the Chinese takeout is. Not that chains are non-existent, it's just that the mom n' pop food is eaten on a more regular basis because there's more of it and easier access to it than chains up north.
In major cities in the northeast and midwest, you have to leave your neighborhood to get to chains. And growing up or living in that environment, you aren't going to go outside your neighborhood for something quick to go to a chain when chains aren't immediately there.
Yet again, I could easily walk out my door in Chicago and get local food than I had access to chains. In the south I have more access to chains than to local restaurants. It's all about what's more accessible in the city proper of major rust belt or NE cities. In my experience local food is more accessible. I never heard of Applebee's until I moved to the south. There wasn't an Applebee's anywhere around me in Chicago. Without Google, I wouldn't be able to tell anyone where the nearest Applebee's is in Chicago.
My dad is from Brooklyn and I've been there plenty. I've seen plenty of chains.
But don't let that stop you from going on to us southern peasants about how that vile chain food has never touched your inherently superior northern lips.
If you have never lived someplace like Chicago or NYC, you will not understand that the neighborhoods in cities like these don't have pizza chains in them but rather mom n' pop places. They are found more in suburbs, malls, airports and tourist areas. I can't speak for other's but I've never seen a Sbarro that wasn't in a mall or an airport.
Sbarro started in Brooklyn, even if it only exists in malls rather than neighborhoods today. I think there's actually more chain pizza in the city than the suburbs. Probably because the local "native" white population tends to avoid chain pizza and is used to local Italian-American food while the higher portion of immigrants and transplants in the city don't care as much.
What if, like me, you like the South and don't like chains but will eat at them out of necessity at times? Your "concise" reply simply doesn't cover anything anyone's talking about here.
What is implied here is that the South is loaded with chain restaurants unlike any other region in the country. It seems to be a negative thing to the OP. And my answer certainly does cover what is being discussed here. Don't eat there. Find a local place to eat.
What is implied here is that the South is loaded with chain restaurants unlike any other region in the country. It seems to be a negative thing to the OP. And my answer certainly does cover what is being discussed here. Don't eat there. Find a local place to eat.
It would be interesting if someone could quantify that and have a real comparison instead a few people getting offended and repetitive back and forth.
Sbarro started in Brooklyn, even if it only exists in malls rather than neighborhoods today. I think there's actually more chain pizza in the city than the suburbs. Probably because the local "native" white population tends to avoid chain pizza and is used to local Italian-American food while the higher portion of immigrants and transplants in the city don't care as much.
??What? Sbarro (the chain) only has 1 location in all of Brooklyn nowadays, and its literally on the edge of the borough in Kings Plaza mall (the oldest Sbarro mall location in the country), not anywhere near a subway line. And this is a chain that was founded in the borough itself...
Similarly, there is like only 3 locations of Pizza Hut in the entire 2.6mil borough... that's less than in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
We also used to have 7 Taco Bells in the entire borough, but one closed down. Keep in mind that Brooklyn is roughly 40% of your state of Massachusetts population wise.
If South Carolina had the same chain/per capita ratio, there would be like 5 Pizza Huts and 10 Taco Bells in the entire state.
Last edited by Gantz; 08-29-2014 at 10:14 AM..
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