Question About Chain Restaurants (Portland, Eugene: credit, minimum wage, live in)

[SyraBrian]

How come there are so many Applebee's in the Portland area and so few of their leading national chain restaurant competitors?

there are more Applebee's than Chili's, Ruby Tuesdays and TGI Friday's combined.

[Tipsy McStagger]

# of locations nationwide:

Crapplebee's= 2,000+
Chili's= 1500
TGI McFunster's= <900
Ruby Tuesday= 750

Surprised at the number of Chili's out there.

[khyron]

We don't have enough fratboy culture to place significant demand on the diversity of their "date night" options.

If you want more variety, I guess you need to import some more dude bros...and don't let them sample the real food or they might defect.

[SyraBrian]

Originally Posted by Tipsy McStagger

# of locations nationwide:

Crapplebee's= 2,000+
Chili's= 1500
TGI McFunster's= <900
Ruby Tuesday= 750

Surprised at the number of Chili's out there.

I meant that there are more Applebee's in the Portland area than the other three combined.

Outside of Applebee's, the only national chain of that ilk that seems to have made major inroads into the Portland market is Buffalo Wild Wings.

[jjpop]

I don't think there's a single Chili's in all of Oregon. There used to be one in Wilsonville, but it went away and is now a Ram Pub. So it was replaced with something marginally better, IMO.

There are several Red Robins around the Portland Metro Area. And yes, Applebees and BWW seem pretty common. I think there are three Red Lobsters. Probably 4 if you count Vancouver.

The TGI Fridays that was at the Washington Square Mall for so many years has sat vacant for probably about 3 or 4 years now. The mall management is putting a lot of effort remodeling that south side of the mall property now, so maybe we'll finally see something go in there.

[bler144]

I'm pretty sure there's still a small Chili's at the VRC in Eugene. Coming from the midwest I ate at a fair number of Chili's (and have eaten at a few since while traveling for business) so I'm not making this comment just to pan the chain, but I recall thinking the food at the Eugene one was flat-out bad.

In any case, possible it's a supply chain issue.

[NWGirl74]

Originally Posted by jjpop

The TGI Fridays that was at the Washington Square Mall for so many years has sat vacant for probably about 3 or 4 years now. The mall management is putting a lot of effort remodeling that south side of the mall property now, so maybe we'll finally see something go in there.

The TGI Fridays building in Vancouver has been vacant for about that long too. It's not in a great location, however.

Yelp brings up 15 Red Robins and 19 Applebees in the metro area. Only 8 IHOPs-that kind of surprised me-but there are 10 Elmer's.

[bler144]

Originally Posted by NWGirl74

Yelp brings up 15 Red Robins and 19 Applebees in the metro area. Only 8 IHOPs-that kind of surprised me-but there are 10 Elmer's.

And if you live in NE, there's the Pig N' Pancake.

[SyraBrian]

I wonder if Oregon's high minimum wage and lack of tip credits are scaring away some of the national chains.

[bler144]

Maybe, but I'd be skeptical of that claim. Supply lines/costs relative to population density are likely to be a far bigger drain than $1/hr difference in labor costs.

Boise had a TGIF but it closed over the summer.