Busted those assholes at Applebee's

[greygoose]

Add O'Charlies to your list.

Such places are the reason the flask was invented.

Yeah, but where can you get rolls like that. That's good eats right there.

[Crystal]

GG, the Applebees in Indiana must be damn good. We were ripped off completely. The food was tolerable. It used to taste like rubber. Now it has some flavor. The drinks SUCK! I ordered a Long Beach (Long Island Iced Tea, with a splash of cran instead of coke), and we all agreed it tasted like punch. I was sorely disappointed. I used to go with my mom to have a few "perfect margaritas" because it came in a shaker. I was upset last night and I didn't want to go to the local... mostly because I have had everything on their menu and the last thing I needed was to tell all the regulars what was going on. Believe me, I would need to.

[Oggar]

I have rallied long and hard against chain restraunt/bars. Thay flat out suck. The one I still hit ocassionally is BW-3 on cheap wing night (damn their addictive spicy sauces!) then I get them to go. It's not worth drinking in the place. I can't imagine willingly going to places like Applebee's or TGIFridays or thier ilk. Like the Judge I have been coerced a couple times and it's misery. Just for fun bring along a measuring tool and check out the cheater pints those fucking rip-off artists use. 12oz in a pint? What country is that? Lilliputia? Fuckers.

[Mother Goose]

Our local Applebee's isn't too bad . . . I usually stick to a big domestic draft to avoid getting completely raped on booze pricing. I like some of their food, but I'm a bit partial because I worked there when I was in college. They have good buffalo wing sauce (IMO) and I like their Santa Fe Chicken Salad. And some of their sandwiches.

BUT, I will say that nothing beats the local for REALLY good food and cheap booze.

[JohnnyT]

DJF and I had lunch at a Crapplebees once. We sat at the bar, and might I add, at least they have a bar in there. There are some really shitty family restaurants that don't.

Anyway, we sat at the bar and ordered drinks, watched the bartender make the drinks, and had to order doubles because the regular shot was of course diminutive.

Like goose said, it is what it is: relatively quick, deep fried crap that fills your belly. no more, no less.

[gthevinoslinger]

it's not that no chains can ever be good, but certain ones are built on such a buy low, sell high business model that a quality product can never be turned out. applebee's and tgi fridays stand out as examples, but lots of huge chains end up heading this way. outback is a variant on this theme... once flemings (the upscale restaurant chain from the same folks) opened, the quality at outback declined because they knew they already had a customer base.

regarding drink prices, restaurants make the most money on alcohol, so it's just a matter of what the traffic will bear. from the only example i can confirm from recent experience, if you buy a glass of wine, you are paying at least half the wholesale bottle cost, unless you have an especially generous/stupid restaurateur setting prices.

[Leftboston]

The chains watch every drop. I was at an Elmers in Tacoma. A chain of family restaurants with a 6 seat bar at the far end of the restaurant. The night and weekend bartenders would overpour, refill your half empty beer w/o asking and after watching basketball for 2 3 hours one Sunday, they charged 2 of us 5 bucks apiece. I go back in there one weekday for lunch and the old lady bartender is telling the other guy eating that they are consuming X amount of liquor. Turns out this guy runs the new Olive Garden down the road and starts spewing database values of how much booze vs dollar intake from the bar and he knew his shit. He guessed they were overpouring or just taking bottles home period. I guess they teach that at olive garden/Red Lobster University.

I stick with beer at Crapplebees.

[Mother Goose]

I can appreciate that the chain restaurants have to have some safeguards in place to avoid "shrinkage" - with that many young adults working there, it would be a veritable free-for-all if the management didn't exercise a little caution. That being said, though, if they would allow their bartenders a bit more freedom to take care of good customers, they'd probably see significant repeat business, at least in the bar.

[greygoose]

I can appreciate that the chain restaurants have to have some safeguards in place to avoid "shrinkage" - with that many young adults working there, it would be a veritable free-for-all if the management didn't exercise a little caution. That being said, though, if they would allow their bartenders a bit more freedom to take care of good customers, they'd probably see significant repeat business, at least in the bar.

A 'regular' at an Applebee's bar must be a real loser.

[The Drunken Songstress]

The Applebees in Vegas isn't so bad. Its Red Lobster that I want to fucking bomb! I ordered a giant frozen margarita double shot and when I drink it I don't taste ANY alcohol. I check with the waitress to see if there was a mixup and that they might have given me the non-alcoholic one. She said no. So I drank about 2 thirds of it and notice that I feel nothing except cold. Booze is not supposed to make you cold, even frozen. So I call the waitress over to ask her about it again. Her answer was, "Well, you ordered the big one and we put the same amount of alcohol regardless of size. We're don't want anyone to get drunk."

Fuck that! Now I take flasks to spike my so-called alcoholic beverage if my family ever drags me out to eat.

[*****]

Old Spaghetti Factory had generous pours for the dollar. Their food is shite, however. I worked their for 3 summers and their rail drinks were like $2.50-$3.00. Though that was 10 years ago and they've raised their meal prices by 60-80%.

I went to Applebee's in Yuma, AZ last week because 75 year-old Grandma wanted to go there and her husband just had a stroke. I think the hospital cafeteria would have been about equal; neither my mom or my 19 year old brother finished their meals, and neither my mom no my Grandma finished their Bloody Mary's. I passed on booze out of respect for ETOH: if I was dead, I would want anybody to consume me in a place where the servers were half-heartedly pushing the Perfect Margarita to a bunch of retiree snowbirds at 10:45 am.

[fiyah]

Old Spaghetti Factory had generous pours for the dollar. Their food is shite, however. I worked their for 3 summers and their rail drinks were like $2.50-$3.00. Though that was 10 years ago and they've raised their meal prices by 60-80%.

I threw up bleu cheese salad dressing at the Old Spaghetti Factory in Tacoma when I was a kid..

[Joe Twelvepack]

Worst I ever got screwed by a chain was Hooters. For one, their wings fuckin suck. But it was when they brought out the $9 domestic pitcher with the cooling core ALREADY IN IT that we got up and got the hell out. Seeing a few tight tshirts just ain't worth it.

[&]

Worst I ever got screwed by a chain was Hooters. For one, their wings fuckin suck. But it was when they brought out the $9 domestic pitcher with the cooling core ALREADY IN IT that we got up and got the hell out. Seeing a few tight tshirts just ain't worth it.

if they used this one, it would count as a piece of flair:

http://www.coolstuffcheap.com/incredibl ... tcher.html

hooters fucking sucks, the food sucks and the women aren't attractive.

[Joe Twelvepack]

It's a cooling core for ravers.