The closest thing to a 90s style affordable but good sit down meal I can reliably find in the US is from Mexican restaurants. The best ones are still locally owned and have lots of work trucks parked in the lot during lunch. These places are absolutely delicious and often cheaper than fast food.
The article and the analyses in it seem to have overlooked a couple of things:
- Decline in quality of food: As far as I know, pan pizza in the 90s at Pizza Hut (that the article talks about) had the dough made in house; modern versions have reheated frozen dough. I feel like this is an important distinction. If I'm just reheating frozen pizza, I can do that at home.
- Decline in quality of service: The article mentions this in passing (server knowing the order of a frequent customer) but doesn't go any deeper. In my experience, a lot of the servers (not just at chains, but everywhere) these days are younger people who seem pretty indifferent to the customer experience. Certainly I don't think that any servers at a Pizza Hut will remember someone's order in 2025.
The factors I mention above are hard to measure, especially over time. But I do feel like they have contributed to the decline of chains to some degree as well as things like orders to go, did delivery apps, etc.
Here in Berlin fast food chains are for the tourists. You pay way too much for crappy food. If you know where to go, you can sit down for a proper meal and pay far less.
There are about 40 Mc Donald's restaurants in Berlin. About 1 per 100K citizens. There are a few other chains operating of course but they are similarly small. There are 4000 kebab restaurants in Berlin. And loads of pizza, pasta, currywurst, sushi, etc. restaurants too. Probably close to 10K restaurants or so. The vast majority of which are not franchises. It's great.
Germany just seems to have a lot of rules that prevent franchising from being very lucrative. Whatever it is, I love it. I'm from the Netherlands. That's more like the US. Restaurants are expensive. Sitting down for a quick, affordable lunch is not much of a thing. It's either cheap fast food or self-catering in the super market/bakery. With all the health consequences as well. Obesity is on the rise and it's a poverty correlated thing. Food poverty means lots of fast food.
Are these types of restaurants actually going away or are crappy chains just going under because better alternatives are a dime a dozen?
One type of restaurant that would be a great import into the U.S: The "comida corrida" places of where I live in Mexico. Basically, they're tiny, family-run sit-down joints with simple setup (sometimes being run right in the lower floor of someone's home or in their garage, repurposed with a kitchen addition) and simple but essentially home cooked and balanced fare. For the equivalent of 3 to 7 dollars, you get a starter, main course and desert for lunch (in some cases they also serve breakfast) The food isn't fancy, but it's freshly made and filling.
I live in a pretty sleepy farm type area, with a growing town in the middle. There are most of the main restaurant attractions. My wife and I are always amazed as we drive by the back to back Chili's, Outback and Texas RoadHouse., that are bustling at the seams, the parking lots are very often overflowing. We are amazed that there still are apparently plenty of people who can frequent these places.
So i can fully imagine that this article has it right, i just don't see it where i live.
> Americans are spending money at restaurants as much as ever — but really, they are buying food made by a restaurant and eating it somewhere else. Takeout and delivery apps are now ingrained habits. Drive-throughs are going strong. Random snacks and little treats are obsolescing breakfast, lunch and dinner, according to multiple analysts.
I admittedly lost the patience to sit there and wait instead of doing something else, having the food delivered, and immediately eating upon starting the process.
Eating at a restaurant seems like a subpar experience now compared to my own table.
It isn’t just me. Everyone from my grandparents to my friend groups is increasingly takeout and delivery driven.
One of the benefits of the increase in fast food prices is that local burger places have become the better option.
I wish the concept of a milk bar would spread to America from Central/Eastern Europe. They are essentially a mix of an American diner and a cafeteria, where you can get cheap, good food that is already cooked (with a few exceptions like pierogi.) Think Chipotle but with local specialities and with an 80s communist-era vibe. It is usually fast but is much healthier than typical fast food chains.
Milk bars were started during the communist era and are still popular amongst the older (70+) crowd, but modern versions are a go-to for younger people too. And so you'll usually get a very interesting mix of society sitting side-by-side. Not quite a family dinner restaurant, but is a social restaurant concept nonetheless.
I suppose it's because I grew up with it, but I greatly prefer food from these type of restaurants than from fancier more expensive restaurants.
So we are talking about cheap chains, not middle class places. These are just slightly glorified fast food. In Europe, apart from TGI Fridays, they were never a thing. And they were seen as just simply fast food. If they vanished, few people will mention. If these are middle class they are for well, "statistical middle", i.e. working poor.
Proper restaurants should be small businesses and family owned and grow their client base over generations, then they are pretty much bulletproof against all kinds of economic hardships.
Here in San Diego (where death of middle class everything is rampant) we have Rudfords:
Open 24 hours/day, on El Cajon Blvd, since 1949
It is an americana throwback that I'm happy to have in the neighborhood...
Yes, let's mention the middle class squeeze, but also conveniently not talk about America's tipping culture problem which would increase reluctance to sit down at a restaurant. Yes, let's completely ignore that.
Everyone obviously wants to pay extra so they can be constantly badgered and rushed out the door like cattle, and if you complain about any aspect of this, the white knights come out to drown you as they say it's your fault for not understanding the plight of the woe-is-me restaurant worker and there's absolutely nothing to be done other than shame you into not going out to eat.
I wonder why sit-down restaurants are declining.
> Where Will We Eat When the Middle-Class Restaurant Is Gone?
I currently live in a suburb outside a small city with a family of 5. I gues when the middle-class restaurant is gone I'm going to be eating exactly where I have been eating the last 10, 15 years: at home.
My two cents from over the pond. Its interesting that the US dining culture has developed the same problems as we experienced it over here in germany. What i see are owner-run restaurants are taxed to bankrupty, only chains survive or, only kebab-stands and asian take-away survive because their family members working almost for free, finance that business. I once was on a trip in vienna, austria. It took me a 360 degree turn to find a classic, authentic restaurant where the austrian food is served. Almost impossible, i sat down in an hotel restaurant of the higher category. Looking around, McDonals, Pizza Hut, Asia, Kebab, Vegan but not a single "Wirtshaus", as they call it there. Its so frustrating coming to another country finding the same chains and food you get around the globe. In my hometown Augsburg, Germany, i once went out for a breakfast. Usually we walk to the bakery, order some kaiser rolls, Brezn(Pretzels..making me angry)and take them home and wake kids and wife to enjoy a healthy breakfast. Some bakerys offer tables and coffee to spend time there. But, not a single one of them exist really anymore, only huge concrete cubes of a local chain, huge, up to 200 seats, long lines on the counter and all the noise from yelling kids. Expensive is the other problem they are. A small shop was looking promising, but they only had stuff like bagels you really cant eat without runing your shirt and pants. Looking all nice and prepared sitting hours in the counter. Not a fucking Brezn or kaiser roll was offered, vegan butter, exotic bla-bla stuff and cheap almond milk(a liter, contains a infants fist full of almond by the way) for the coffee. The loud music was also annoying. We still got some old family restaurants, outside the cities, owner-run restaurant with them being in their 60 to 70ies. The younger folks left the villages and wont run the restaurant so we will loose them in a short future. Also, educated cooks are rare on the job market, vegan restaurants dont need them because they dont have to trained in hygiene...They only warm up pre-fabricated stuff. Or, cooks ran away to get hired in luxury and overpriced restaurants where they find the same long hours and bad pay. But its better for the vita having worked in $Restaurants.
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