I live in a city that is very service industry oriented due to its size and per capita restaurants/bars (often cited as #1 if not close to it, though very likely actually isn't since coastal/vacation destinations will always have more food and drink options) and so a lot of people come up through restaurants and bars for their first/college jobs.

It gets instilled in people through their work and all the entertaining shows like Top and Master Chef that show off great food with every day ingredients and make service seem so romantic, the idea of an Applebee's or TGI Friday's is just so alien to myself and everyone I associate with in my age range. It's even to the point where it's hard to convince people to go to a long-running, perfectly good local pizza chain because "all my friends from New York say it's terrible" or "yea but this new by the slice spot really does it right."

Other than a bar, I can't remember the last time I was asked to go to, or really gave a second thought to going, to anything other than restaurants opened in the past 4-8 years by people I've heard a lot about or met and are doing something unique with food in the city.

Plus, I don't really think about brokeness since I've never been much of a saver, but if brokeness is an issue, I can definitely see how the allure of going out to eat loses its luster when the major chains cost the same as the farm-to-table spots, sometimes more, and there's no personality or passion in the food. I've noticed the frozen pizza isle at the grocery store has got real, real lit in the past few years here - if you're the type of person who'd even consider Applebee's for dinner, you've likely realized the supermarket is more bang for your buck and your foodie friends aren't going to clown you for a Digiorno's Rising Crust.


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"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
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