Question About Chain Restaurants

[AndyAMG]

Applebees happy hour and 2 for 20/24s attract people, they also have good prices on beers. My wife and usually use that place or Mcgraths to meet other couples and have a few drinks when we are able to ship kids off to respective grandparents. We used to do nights out at places like 5 spice, Saltys, Stanford's Ruth Chris and Ringside. But it became a chore getting reservations, or finding a good time to go and our bills were astronomical for food that was in my opinion only 20% better than a chain restaurant, but double to triple the price. Most of it is a bunch of hoity toity fluff, rather than amazing food. So we find the 2 for 20 awesome, it's like real food at the price of fast food. We usually leave with a bill of 30 for 2 with tip. We are hard pressed to have that low of bill at Sharis anymore.

I would say it's popular in Portland because it's a decent value, Contrary to popular belief young people still like face to face interaction and drinking and dining together, they just can't afford much more than Applebees. It's open till 2AM and still serves food up to 1AM. I see mostly college kids and 20-30 somethings in groups of 4 there mostly. It was the same in Tucson, the baddest girls always went to happy hour at Applebees and stayed til 2AM. They told me they liked it because it was safer than a normal bar and they didn't get hit on as much as if they went to a real bar.

Also, if you haven noticed people here vehemently oppose national chains of any kind.

[urbanlife78]

Originally Posted by SyraBrian

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

A number of these restaurant chains are currently struggling. The Red Lobster chain is basically worthless because hoe people eat out isn't the same as it use to be.

And in Portland, one is going to more than likely go to a local restaurant rather than a chain restaurant. Not always the case, but local restaurants tend to do very good here.

[jjpop]

Originally Posted by urbanlife78

A number of these restaurant chains are currently struggling. The Red Lobster chain is basically worthless because hoe people eat out isn't the same as it use to be.

And in Portland, one is going to more than likely go to a local restaurant rather than a chain restaurant. Not always the case, but local restaurants tend to do very good here.

Well, the Red Lobster adjacent to Washington Square was always super packed before they invested probably hundreds of thousands of dollars to gut and remodel the building, so at least that one store is doing well enough that they were willing to invest in it.

I agree with you that more people in Portland proper probably go to local restaurants, and I think that's because there are far more options for single-location local restaurants than we have in the burbs. But I can tell you, many of these chain restaurants in the burbs are busy busy busy during dinner.

[urbanlife78]

Originally Posted by jjpop

Well, the Red Lobster adjacent to Washington Square was always super packed before they invested probably hundreds of thousands of dollars to gut and remodel the building, so at least that one store is doing well enough that they were willing to invest in it.

I agree with you that more people in Portland proper probably go to local restaurants, and I think that's because there are far more options for single-location local restaurants than we have in the burbs. But I can tell you, many of these chain restaurants in the burbs are busy busy busy during dinner.

Obviously I can only speak for what I know in Portland because I don't make it out to most of the suburbs around Portland these days. How chain restaurants there are going to be much different than in the city.

Good that a Red Lobster is doing good, but overall the chain is actually worthless. The chain was recently sold for the value of the property they own, not the value of the restaurant chain.

[bler144]

Originally Posted by urbanlife78

Good that a Red Lobster is doing good, but overall the chain is actually worthless. The chain was recently sold for the value of the property they own, not the value of the restaurant chain.

That sale has been considered suspect in financial circles, buoyed by disclosure of various confidential documents.

Without getting into a discussion of "ebitda" and valuation of goodwill, the short version is that the ownership group told shareholders something very different than they told buyers and debt holders. The contention is that they wanted to offload it purely for management interests, made the price low to ensure the sale, and then pitched it to their shareholders in a way that made shareholders think they were getting off easy with just a haircut.

Edit - though, for what it's worth, Golden Gate's interest in Red Lobster was from their vantage point as a private equity firm, along the lines of what made Bain infamous (sell off underlying assets and make the company lease them back). So the resulting sale may well end up dooming the company regardless of whether its prospects were looking up previously.

[NWGirl74]

Originally Posted by urbanlife78

And in Portland, one is going to more than likely go to a local restaurant rather than a chain restaurant. Not always the case, but local restaurants tend to do very good here.

I started a young widow/ers group several years ago that meets monthly for dinner and when I asked for input, the #1 response I got was "can we NOT go to chain restaurants?" The closest to a chain restaurant we do is the occasional trip to Pastini Pastaria.

[j_k_k]

This is one of the things I'm most looking forward to about Portland.

I used to live in Kennewick. The year they got both an Olive Garden and and IHOP, it was rapture approaching what you'd expect from the Coming of Nordstrom or the opening of a Chili's. Seriously. I mean lines stretching around the back of the OG, people waiting two hours. The region measured its culinary 'arrival' in terms of the number of predictable chain restaurants it had. In the meantime, I could stop into the local Indian restaurant on any given day and be one of three occupied tables, the other two of which were Indian. It was sad on several levels.

Somehow, I'm pretty sure that "our neighborhood has officially become cool--we're getting an Olive Garden!" is a very uncommon Portland sentiment.

[SyraBrian]

Originally Posted by j_k_k

This is one of the things I'm most looking forward to about Portland.

I used to live in Kennewick. The year they got both an Olive Garden and and IHOP, it was rapture approaching what you'd expect from the Coming of Nordstrom or the opening of a Chili's. Seriously. I mean lines stretching around the back of the OG, people waiting two hours. The region measured its culinary 'arrival' in terms of the number of predictable chain restaurants it had. In the meantime, I could stop into the local Indian restaurant on any given day and be one of three occupied tables, the other two of which were Indian. It was sad on several levels.

Somehow, I'm pretty sure that "our neighborhood has officially become cool--we're getting an Olive Garden!" is a very uncommon Portland sentiment.

Oh, I'm not a fan of chain restaurants. I was just wondering how Applebee's and Buffalo Wild Wings had managed to make such inroads while the other chains hadn't.

[oldtintype]

Originally Posted by j_k_k

en day and be one of three occupied tables, the other two of which were Indian. It was sad on several levels.

Somehow, I'm pretty sure that "our neighborhood has officially become cool--we're getting an Olive Garden!" is a very uncommon Portland sentiment.

Chains tend to be located near malls, in more suburban areas and not anywhere in the urban core, except there's a Denny's and Red Robin in Lloyd Center (but it's also where all the hotels are). Here it's more like you can gauge the proximity of an Olive Garden to how close you live to a shopping mall, and if you hate chains you don't ever have to go to one because there are so many other choices. There are some local chains though that people like--Little Big Burger and Pine State Biscuits as examples. I guess it's whether or not it's a local chain vs. a national one. And also I guess how many locations equals a chain....Pine State has three locations now and heck, even Salt & Straw and Voodoo Donuts have more than one location.

[j_k_k]

I guess when I think of chain restaurants, there are degrees of chaininess. For me, at least, local chains that don't have a many-state presence don't feel very chainy. I mean, one of the few I've come to know, Bollywood Theater, has at least two locations in the metro area, but neither location felt chainy to me at all. Portland seems rather well set up for chain avoiders, to my delight.

One begins to wonder about the future of the indoor mall concept, as well as the outlet mall. I've seen that one go both ways. The one at North Bend, WA, seemed to thrive last time I was there. Here in Boise, the outlet mall is a near-ghost town that would probably be dead empty if the hockey rink weren't out there.