I grew up going to On The Border and Olive Garden, and thought they were good.

Chili’s and Golden Corral.

Five guys used to be amazing, but really felt like it fell off a cliff in my area. I’m also just eating out less. It’s so damn expensive and the food quality in general seems to be way down compared to the mid 00s to mid 10s. Maybe my tastes have changed, but I swear to God if we had a time machine, the food in like, 2011 would taste way better at many restaurants.

Chain restaurants have been garbage since COVID. (TBF they weren’t exactly stellar before.)

You can tell that many servers and cooks moved onto other careers during the pandemic. It seems like servers now are way too inexperienced with little help.

In high school (80s) I thought Del Taco was great. Had some recently when I saw a DT and it was truly awful.

Subway. But now I find all the hole in the wall sub shops way better

Applebee’s used to be our go to late night spot, half off apps and solid drink specials, they have since only made half off apps a limited time thing once or twice and the overall food quality seems to have dropped a lot.

Chi-Chi’s used to be so amazing. They went broke after a hepatitis outbreak, but someone bought the rights to the name in the benelux countries … those remaining restaurants just aren’t the same anymore. Their nada coladas used to be huge, but now they use smaller glasses and fill them only half-way. Meh.

I used to go to Chipotle almost every day at lunch in high school. Their steak was always fresh, always had a kick, and was consistent every time. Today, chipotle is overpriced, cold, stale food 5/6 times you go.

Chipotle has definitely gone downhill in the past 10 years

Tim Hortons. Growing up in Canada they were an icon, good donuts made in store, good coffee, decent food at cheap prices. I would go there all the time.

Now they have tiny donuts, terrible coffee and they’re way overpriced for everything. Penny pinchers ruined that place.

Once upon a time, Tim Hortons made their own donuts. Fresh, on-site, every day.
Whatever they’re serving today is a far cry from what it once was.
Everything they serve generally sucks now unless you’re a cardboard enthusiast.

IHOP. Going there when I was a kid was such a treat, I would always get the huge pancake with the face on it that would take up the entire plate. The last time I went, which was several years ago, the serving sizes were so much smaller than before and nothing tasted all that great.

Growing up our absolute main spot was The Old Spaghetti Factory, and sometimes we would hit Applebee’s or Chili’s.

Now I’m lactose intolerant so can’t eat a lot of the stuff at OSF, plus it all upsets my stomach now, their quality has gone downhill.

Applebee’s and Chili’s were probably never that good but tasted a lot better in my kid brain than they do now.

Red lobster! I’ve been only a few times in my life but the most recent time I ordered fish and chips (easy enough, right?). They somehow managed to take the tiniest piece of fish filet and quadruple fry it to make it look five times larger than it actually was. The first bite was all batter, and the rest of it just began to slough off until I was left with a pile of fried batter and a small, naked filet.