Worst chain restaurant

I'm one of the few that likes Applebee's, but the local spot was my high school hangout and I find the food to be pretty good, especially their Cowboy Burger.

I hate the Olive Garden. The breaksticks suck and all of their menu items are typically so bland tasting and watered down. Plus, there is just so much fakeness to the Italian vibe. Terrible, especially if you have Italian relatives (my grandmother is an immigrant) who can make some of those dishes 10x as good.

Bertucci's is usually my favorite chain. Very good food.

 

I think they had a few places here in Canada but I haven't seen on in at least ten years.

 

It's not the worst, by any stretch, but I'll second the hatred for Outback... That onion tray that everybody seems to love, is one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen served as a restaurant...

Plus, they may have the worst fries of any restaurant ever...

 

Also a quality episode.

 

I'm with you there.

And which cheapo steak place is it -- Golden Corral or Ponderosa -- where you pay when you come in. Then can eat all you want at the buffet but have to wait in line like a Dickens orphan to be served a scrap of meat?

Horrible experience and the sheer amount of food that people would pile on their plates and leave was just sad.

 

I hate buffets. Hate 'em, hate 'em, hate 'em.

Food is usually shitty and hey, if I wanted to serve myself, I'd stay at home.

 

Applebee's, Outback and Golden Corral all get votes from me as well. And, I hate to say it, Bennigan's, too. I hate their attempts at being Irish.

 

Applebee's used to be a favorite of mine until the past two times, when I ordered a hamburger and chicken tenders and they looked the same. I'll second, third or ninth the nomination.

 

Smokey Bones can be lobbed into the mix.

They use the old bait and switch of "grill" and "flames," and you walk away with a dining experience with the social movers and shakers of the area. That is if the movers and shakers like to wear Wal Mart sweat pants and chew with their mouth open.

I love scooping my food out of a glass bowl while trying to avoid the sneeze window.

Smokey Bones, you fail.

 

The wife and I like Applebees, although I'm starting to recognize its shittiness. Everything is some variation on grilled chicken, or just combines ingredients that are supposed to sound fancy (ooooohhh....Asiago Cheese! Wait, what's Asiago cheese again?).
Waffle House is god awful, dirty and nasty, but that's its charm. Where else can you get scrambled eggs served by a three-toothed waitress, on a plate that may or may not have seen the inside of a dishwasher this week, at 4 a.m.?

I think the worst, though, is IHOP. Every one I've been to is like a cross between the worst parts of Waffle House (dirty, subpar food, always just a step ahead of the health inspector) and the pretentiousness of an Applebees or Chili's. It's trying to be something it's not. My food is most likely being prepared by either an ex-con who, unlike Waffle House, I can't see and make up a reassuring back story for, or someone who looks like Barth from "You Can't Do That on Television."
The bathrooms are on par with the Exxon next door and there's probably a condom machine in there selling french ticklers. If there's carpet in the dining room, it's blackish or deep red -- not because that's its natural color, but rather that's the color it turns to when it doesn't get cleaned for the five years the place has been opened. There's a stale cigarette smell in the air that never leaves, except when the air conditioning shifts the air currents around and you get the stale mop water smell.
As bad as the IHOP is, though, it's never open long. It goes out of business and Denny's moves in.

 

This thread would be great if you're on a diet.

 

I'm not against the general ambiance of BWWs, but they use some very strange filler in the process of preparing their wings that I do NOT find mouth-friendly.

Now, their special 50-cent leg nights . . . that's OK.