5 ms·

Amazing how basically all of these restaurants are complete crap. NYC is the only place I can travel and daily eat as healthy as if I am at home.

by AJ007 9y ago

ballenf 9y ago
I share your frustration living in suburban America and not a trendy suburb. Every time a new restaurant breaks ground I get excited for the chance of something not fried being the main attraction. I haven't been not disappointed in 8 years. I don't really blame the franchisers as much as I blame my neighbors, but I do blame both a little. Here's a great movie that I loved on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branded_(2012_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branded_(2012_film)
- pm90 9y ago
  What surprises me is just how accepting and tolerant most Americans are to what is really unhealthy and disgusting food. Is it just that these foods are cheap? I'm not sure if this has something to do with the building codes in suburbia that require a sprawling parking lots for every restaurant. In South Korea, for instance, there are mom and pop restaurants in every city that serve fresh, delicious food (chain restaurants do exist, but are not as common).
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    > I'm not sure if this has something to do with the building codes in suburbia that require a sprawling parking lots for every restaurant Americans drive themselves around a lot, both for work and for other reasons. When you're looking for something particular or easy, it helps to find a chain location you've had consistent success at. My theory is that something like Yelp (but with less work to use) would help disrupt this quite a bit. Perhaps Yelp has already helped a bit. I know I've gone to some local places I wouldn't have otherwise because they've had good ratings.
  - bllguo 9y ago
    Marketing and that they grew up with it? I don't know. My perception is that foods that are viewed as quintessentially American are almost all unhealthy. Burgers and fries, steak, bbq, fried stuff, mac and cheese, and hot dogs are the first to come to mind. It's what people grow up with and it's glorified in media for being "American" despite any health concerns. After all, most people like fried foods and meat and things that are, strictly speaking, unhealthy. But historically they've been rarer. Meat is still kind of a luxury in rural China, for example.
  - rconti 9y ago
    Unhealthy? Yes. Disgusting? I don't know, it's engineered to taste good, satisfy cravings, and create subsequent cravings for it. I don't know whether or not that disqualifies it as "disgusting". It's not price that keeps people coming back, it's the cravings. Maybe the price draws people in, but I don't think "cheap" is the primary driver behind crap chains. And yes, buildings codes require sprawling parkings lots for every restaurant. The people are going to drive there anyway. The codes are meant to require that businesses invest adequate resources in parking so that they don't negatively impact other businesses, street parking, neighborhoods, etc. I don't particularly like it (in fact, I think they should be required to have sidewalks in every row of cars so you don't have to worry about getting run over walking through one), but there you are.
komali2 9y ago
Watching shows like kitchen nightmares (uk), it always seemed like the clincher for most places was the food was crap. People say "location location location!" and sure it's important, but I bet we can all think of some local "must-eat-at" restaurant that's in bumfuck nowhere and yet still always has a line round the block. Houston - Moon Tower - Various exotic sausages in house-made pretzel rolls. Amazing, and stuck deep in the old warehouse district. https://goo.gl/maps/2oussCLAe242 https://goo.gl/maps/2oussCLAe242 Vegas - Cornish Pasty Co - Incredible and authentic cornish pastys by a restauranteer with a sharp tongue but great taste. Not exactly in the middle of nowhere but well off the strip https://goo.gl/maps/UMx8vuov8m32 https://goo.gl/maps/UMx8vuov8m32 etc
- greedo 9y ago
  Location is really a proxy for visibility. You can get around that with marketing but people need to know where you are. The real issue with many startups is food quality AND undercapitalization. It takes a lot of money to start a restaurant, and a lot to keep it running until you get cash flow positive.
bllguo 9y ago
Where is "all of these"? For all we know you've never set foot out of NY.
humanrebar 9y ago
You can get salads, grilled meats, vegetable platters, etc. in any city. Just to pick one off the top of my head, Corner Bakery Cafe has healthy options and plenty of locations: "The cafe has 192 locations nationwide, including in Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Chicago, Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Austin, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Denver, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Tucson, El Paso, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Tampa Bay and Buffalo metropolitan areas, as well as in Northern California, Mississippi, New Jersey, Virginia, Savannah, East Texas, the Rio Grande Valley areas, and a location in Carmel" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corner_Bakery_Cafe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corner_Bakery_Cafe Likewise, Panera has lots of salads and half sandwiches available and 2,000 locations. Maybe they're "crap" to you? But most people don't eat as well as that, on average, quality-wise.
- p0wn 9y ago
  The food quality is trash. You get salads that are palatable because they're dowsed in dressing and stacked with croutons. By grilled meats I'm assuming you mean the ocean water brined grilled chicken that somehow manages to be as cardiac arrest worthy as a fried chicken sandwich while maintaining the texture of a hockey puck? These places suck. It's because the people who make the food don't care about making food and the owners only care about margins.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    I'm not talking about Wendy's salads. I'm talking about casual-to-upscale places that feature salad like Just Salad, La Madeleine, Pret A Manger, Sweet Tomato (Souplantation), Chopt, Salad Works, Souper Salad, etc. And that's not even getting into the fast-casual sandwich places like McAlister's Deli. If all that's not fresh and healthy enough, it's not hard to pick up an (unsauced) grilled chicken breast at a BBQ place and some fresh veggies at the grocery store. I mean, maybe you have especially refined taste, but all those places aren't unpalatable to the median person.
- chimeracoder 9y ago
  > Likewise, Panera has lots of salads and half sandwiches available and 2,000 locations. Before I moved to New York, I used to eat at Panera all the time. I wouldn't say it's bad, but... honestly, I would never eat at one in NYC, because there's basically always going to be a better and healthier restaurant nearby. (Incidentally, there are very few Panera Bread locations in NYC, and they're almost all clustered along Lexington IRT stops.)
pcsanwald 9y ago
In the poorer areas of NYC there are few, if any, healthy options. Access to fresh, healthy food is a big socioeconomic problem.
bradleyjg 9y ago
Healthy is just another market sector. And not an especially lucrative one. I imagine that's particularly true in Plainfield, IL. Manhattan has a weekday lunch time population of about 4 million (about 6500 per idealized square city block) and a dinner time population about half that. And many of those people are quite rich. That leaves a lot of room for obscure niches to be profitably served. In most places business owners don't have the luxury of being able to target so narrowly.

Amazing how basically all of these restaurants are complete crap. NYC is the only place I can travel and daily eat as healthy as if I am at home.

by AJ007 9y ago

Amazing how basically all of these restaurants are complete crap. NYC is the only place I can travel and daily eat as healthy as if I am at home.

ballenf 9y ago

I share your frustration living in suburban America and not a trendy suburb. Every time a new restaurant breaks ground I get excited for the chance of something not fried being the main attraction. I haven't been not disappointed in 8 years. I don't really blame the franchisers as much as I blame my neighbors, but I do blame both a little. Here's a great movie that I loved on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branded_(2012_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branded_(2012_film)

pm90 9y ago
What surprises me is just how accepting and tolerant most Americans are to what is really unhealthy and disgusting food. Is it just that these foods are cheap? I'm not sure if this has something to do with the building codes in suburbia that require a sprawling parking lots for every restaurant. In South Korea, for instance, there are mom and pop restaurants in every city that serve fresh, delicious food (chain restaurants do exist, but are not as common).
- humanrebar 9y ago
  > I'm not sure if this has something to do with the building codes in suburbia that require a sprawling parking lots for every restaurant Americans drive themselves around a lot, both for work and for other reasons. When you're looking for something particular or easy, it helps to find a chain location you've had consistent success at. My theory is that something like Yelp (but with less work to use) would help disrupt this quite a bit. Perhaps Yelp has already helped a bit. I know I've gone to some local places I wouldn't have otherwise because they've had good ratings.
- bllguo 9y ago
  Marketing and that they grew up with it? I don't know. My perception is that foods that are viewed as quintessentially American are almost all unhealthy. Burgers and fries, steak, bbq, fried stuff, mac and cheese, and hot dogs are the first to come to mind. It's what people grow up with and it's glorified in media for being "American" despite any health concerns. After all, most people like fried foods and meat and things that are, strictly speaking, unhealthy. But historically they've been rarer. Meat is still kind of a luxury in rural China, for example.
- rconti 9y ago
  Unhealthy? Yes. Disgusting? I don't know, it's engineered to taste good, satisfy cravings, and create subsequent cravings for it. I don't know whether or not that disqualifies it as "disgusting". It's not price that keeps people coming back, it's the cravings. Maybe the price draws people in, but I don't think "cheap" is the primary driver behind crap chains. And yes, buildings codes require sprawling parkings lots for every restaurant. The people are going to drive there anyway. The codes are meant to require that businesses invest adequate resources in parking so that they don't negatively impact other businesses, street parking, neighborhoods, etc. I don't particularly like it (in fact, I think they should be required to have sidewalks in every row of cars so you don't have to worry about getting run over walking through one), but there you are.

komali2 9y ago

Watching shows like kitchen nightmares (uk), it always seemed like the clincher for most places was the food was crap. People say "location location location!" and sure it's important, but I bet we can all think of some local "must-eat-at" restaurant that's in bumfuck nowhere and yet still always has a line round the block. Houston - Moon Tower - Various exotic sausages in house-made pretzel rolls. Amazing, and stuck deep in the old warehouse district. https://goo.gl/maps/2oussCLAe242 https://goo.gl/maps/2oussCLAe242 Vegas - Cornish Pasty Co - Incredible and authentic cornish pastys by a restauranteer with a sharp tongue but great taste. Not exactly in the middle of nowhere but well off the strip https://goo.gl/maps/UMx8vuov8m32 https://goo.gl/maps/UMx8vuov8m32 etc

greedo 9y ago
Location is really a proxy for visibility. You can get around that with marketing but people need to know where you are. The real issue with many startups is food quality AND undercapitalization. It takes a lot of money to start a restaurant, and a lot to keep it running until you get cash flow positive.

bllguo 9y ago

Where is "all of these"? For all we know you've never set foot out of NY.

humanrebar 9y ago

You can get salads, grilled meats, vegetable platters, etc. in any city. Just to pick one off the top of my head, Corner Bakery Cafe has healthy options and plenty of locations: "The cafe has 192 locations nationwide, including in Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Chicago, Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Austin, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Denver, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Tucson, El Paso, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Tampa Bay and Buffalo metropolitan areas, as well as in Northern California, Mississippi, New Jersey, Virginia, Savannah, East Texas, the Rio Grande Valley areas, and a location in Carmel" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corner_Bakery_Cafe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corner_Bakery_Cafe Likewise, Panera has lots of salads and half sandwiches available and 2,000 locations. Maybe they're "crap" to you? But most people don't eat as well as that, on average, quality-wise.

p0wn 9y ago
The food quality is trash. You get salads that are palatable because they're dowsed in dressing and stacked with croutons. By grilled meats I'm assuming you mean the ocean water brined grilled chicken that somehow manages to be as cardiac arrest worthy as a fried chicken sandwich while maintaining the texture of a hockey puck? These places suck. It's because the people who make the food don't care about making food and the owners only care about margins.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  I'm not talking about Wendy's salads. I'm talking about casual-to-upscale places that feature salad like Just Salad, La Madeleine, Pret A Manger, Sweet Tomato (Souplantation), Chopt, Salad Works, Souper Salad, etc. And that's not even getting into the fast-casual sandwich places like McAlister's Deli. If all that's not fresh and healthy enough, it's not hard to pick up an (unsauced) grilled chicken breast at a BBQ place and some fresh veggies at the grocery store. I mean, maybe you have especially refined taste, but all those places aren't unpalatable to the median person.
chimeracoder 9y ago
> Likewise, Panera has lots of salads and half sandwiches available and 2,000 locations. Before I moved to New York, I used to eat at Panera all the time. I wouldn't say it's bad, but... honestly, I would never eat at one in NYC, because there's basically always going to be a better and healthier restaurant nearby. (Incidentally, there are very few Panera Bread locations in NYC, and they're almost all clustered along Lexington IRT stops.)

pcsanwald 9y ago

In the poorer areas of NYC there are few, if any, healthy options. Access to fresh, healthy food is a big socioeconomic problem.

bradleyjg 9y ago

Healthy is just another market sector. And not an especially lucrative one. I imagine that's particularly true in Plainfield, IL. Manhattan has a weekday lunch time population of about 4 million (about 6500 per idealized square city block) and a dinner time population about half that. And many of those people are quite rich. That leaves a lot of room for obscure niches to be profitably served. In most places business owners don't have the luxury of being able to target so narrowly.