Battle of the viral restaurant chains!

An ex-coworker of mine actually planned vacations to places where there are Rainforest Cafes. According to him, there's even one in London. When they changed owners, he detailed the differences in menu theme to me.

And, since I just posted this on the original thread:

I have a friend who has parents that never took him to any chain restaurants. As a result, we had to go to ALL of them and I can now classify them by economic status, specialties, and differences in the stupid crap stuck (or not stuck) on the walls.

..so you can see why this thread theme intrigues me.

try eating the food there

Olive Garden can be decent but I really have no idea what the relation is to actual Italian cuisine. Then again, I grew up near a lot of third-generation Italian kids.

Joey Bag of Donuts

Rice, beans, choice of meat, shredded cheese, and salsa.

Triple Lindy

Rice, beans, choice of meat, shredded cheese, salsa, and guacamole.

Homewrecker

Rice, beans, choice of meat, shredded cheese, salsa, guacamole, sour cream, and lettuce.

Art Vandalay

Rice, beans, shredded cheese, salsa, sour cream, guacamole, and lettuce (vegetarian).

The Full Monty

Beans, choice of meat, shredded cheese, salsa, and lettuce.

The Other Lewinsky

Beans, choice of meat, shredded cheese, salsa, lettuce, sour cream and guacamole.

The Ugly Naked Guy

Beans, shredded cheese, salsa, lettuce, sour cream, and guacamole (vegetarian).

All tacos served with crispy tortilla chips.

Sherman Klump

Melted cheese with a side of salsa and sour cream.

John Coctostan

Choice of meat, beans, melted cheese, salsa, and sour cream.

I Said Posse

Melted cheese, beans, salsa, sour cream and sauteed veggies (vegetarian).

Ruprict

Beans, melted cheese, salsa, jalapenos, and black olives (vegetarian).

Billy Barou

Beans, melted cheese, salsa, jalapenos, black olives, and choice of chicken, steak or tofu.

Served with choice of dressing.

Pinky Tuscadero

Lettuce, cucumbers, salsa, shredded cheese, black olives (vegetarian).

Close Talker

Lettuce, beans, cucumbers, salsa, shredded cheese, black olives, with choice of grilled chicken, steak or tofu.

Served with three flour tortillas.

Alfredo Garcia

Choice of grilled chicken, steak or tofu with lettuce, salsa, and shredded cheese.

Fat Sam

Choice of grilled chicken, steak, or tofu with lettuce, salsa, shredded cheese, guacamole and sour cream.

Puff The Magic Dragon

Hard or soft taco with choice of grilled chicken or steak, lettuce and shredded cheese.

Moo Moo Mr. Cow

Kid-sized burrito with rice, beans, choice of meat, shredded cheese, and salsa.

Mini-Me

Kid-sized cheese quesadilla.

Moe-ritas

Frozen margaritas.
Blabbermouth Soup (lime)
Village Idiot (strawberry)
Fun Bobby (pitcher)

Mostly, Cosi trumps Corner Bakery because their tomato-mozzarella sandwich is like 20 times better. Corner Bakery puts it on rock-solid ciabatta (tough to chew) and ruins the simplicity of the sandwich by draping limp roasted red peppers over everything.

xpost

xpost YES jam band, also, playing espn on the tvs. i hate restaurants with tvs!

Is there anyone who will confess love for Cracker Barrel?

xpost I have had a few of the greatest hungover meals of my life at Cracker Barrel...I love being really stoned at like 10 am and playing checkers out front in rocking chairs.

Koo Koo Roo > El Pollo Loco > Boston Market > KFC

I like Pollo Loco generally, but their "just in time" inventory system suxors. There's one nearby on San Fernando Rd. and Fletcher and after 8pm you run a 50% of there being no chicken.

Trivia: American EPLs are run by Dennys

there's a p.f. chang's about 10 minutes from my parents' house, and on weekends the crowds cause backup into the main road from the parking lot. a bahama breeze just opened nearby, and according to my mother it's fouling up traffic on the closest freeway exit.

I think I posted about this once, but I shalln't bother to check - Amazon Grill .. 13 courses of MEAT! Even carnivores get ill at the thought of meatfest. I don't know if amazon is a national chain yet or if it's still being test marketed - but 13 fucking courses of meat! Good fucking god, 13 bites of meat is more than enough. (shut it.)

there's a p.f. chang's about 10 minutes from my parents' house, and on weekends the crowds cause backup into the main road from the parking lot. a bahama breeze just opened nearby, and according to my mother it's fouling up traffic on the closest freeway exit.

all of that is somehow almost more terrifying to me than any soylent green-type dystopic future food scenario. and what the hell is bahama breeze? and macaroni grill?? I saw one of those recently. is it just some sort of olive garden knock-off? what a horrible, horrible name for a place. i know i should be industrious and google those, but first-hand anecdotes are always edifying/amusing.

not to mention, the whole idea of those bubba gump shrimp co. restaurants still scares me.

They're scattered all over Orange County and inland, so yeah...

that shit is a heart attack waiting to happen.

that sounds pretty funny and I guess scarily does appeal to the, um, "kid in me". (ewww, I know).

I am hoping that banks and other similar staid institutions will soon pick up on the whole theme/novelty thing, and I'll be able to fill out loan applications with a big oversized crayon. And Bon Jovi will be blasting over the speakers.

xpost: the words "macaroni", "grill", + "wine" do not belong in the same sentence, ever. no effin way. it would have been surprising if you hadn't chundered.

yeah, we'll wash it down with some chablis.
"macaroni grill's wine": that phrase is hypnotic, even if the reality is nausea-inducing.

that sounds incredible.

The Melting Pot

Chain fondue place...

Also, U.S. chain of Very Irish pubs: Fado.

xpost.

some highlights:

Big bucks are at stake in the battle between what one lawyer termed the "breastaurants" niche. Hooters, with 386 stores worldwide, had revenues of more than $750-million last year. WingHouse, with 14, had sales of more than $26-million.

...Describing Hooters' decor as a unique combination of elements that the chain's founders "bled and sweat for,"...

...The elements of Hooters' atmosphere that help evoke the chain's distinctive "sensory overload," Hill said, include parchment paper menus reciting the "Hooters Saga" and road signs on the wall with such sayings as "Double Curves" and "Caution: Blondes Thinking." (Hill's mention of this sign did not spark a reaction from the lone blond on the jury.)...

...The exhibits bolstering Hooters' case will include copies of the Hooters University training manual (also known as the Hooters Bible) and a copy of WingHouse's training manual, as well as woodweave plates and table-top paper towel holders from both chains. Hooters' legal team also came to court Wednesday with a surfboard on a dolly, to be entered as an exhibit.

WingHouse, meanwhile, said it will introduce photos of other chains that could be considered similar to Hooters but which are not named in the lawsuit. Among them are Mugs and Jugs, Crabby Bill's and Beef O'Brady's...

I do not find my job duties, uniform requirements, or work environment to be offensive, intimidating, hostile, or unwelcome.

i like how you have to sign a contract that makes you not think certain things! also i like the weird suntan pantyhose.

-- firstworldman (3...), June 8th, 2006.

I thought that Baja Fresh was owned by Wendy's. I happen to think it's the best fast food around, in fact it's almost the only chain food I genuinely look forward to eating. If Wendy's owns Daphne's too, and it's as good as you guys say, the company is doing something right.

that shit is a heart attack waiting to happen.

Haha, I was going to say Portillo's. Have they spread out of the great lakes area? I know there are a bunch in Chicagoland, but I don't live there so I have no idea how far they've spread. I'd almost be happy if they came to California at some point. At least I could get a passable Italian beef when I got that one-a-year craving.

"Cannot get a table" versus "30 minutes? You wanna just grab some Sbarro instead?"

My meal SUCKED. but the cheesecake, admittedly, was pretty damn tasty. And the coffee weren't so bad either.