To wonder why so many of UK mid range restaurants are poor value chains

[Dr1ftw00d]

Spent a few weeks in the US over the summer and noticed how easy it is to get individual, decently cooked, good quality food and portions often in long time restaurants.

Near where I live mid range equals a chain. Microwaved stuff with no individuality and often poorly cooked.

Why is this?

Supply and demand. Sort of example: trying to arrange a team Xmas do at the moment and people want a decent three course meal for less than £20. Given margins, small independents just can’t provide what people expect. High street rents, wages, business rates etc. erode profit terribly.

But why isn’t this the case in the USA?

Near me if I wanted to go out for similar there is nowhere in the city and shitty pubs rurally. A few good pubs but they’re few and far between.

Same with coffee shops and ice cream shops. In the USA loads of interesting qwerty places with good quality food. UK zilch, chains and chain ice cream sold out of a window.

I’d far rather spend my money in the above. The shite on offer makes me not bother. It’s a complete waste of money.

Rents are sky high in our small town and only chains can afford them!

How weird. I thought the exact opposite. In the States the food was overpriced and bland and fatty. I was glad to get back to places like Cote that do delicious, fresh-tasting food very cheaply.

Lots of chains here too but we manage to avoid them and go to good independents both I our small local town and the main (county) town. Ditto coffee shops - we never use the well known names as there are so many good independents. You obviously just live in the wrong place!

@Dr1ftw00d in the US servers (waiting staff) aren’t paid a min wage some solely work for tips which cuts a cost we can’t, buildings in general even homes are cheaper, there’s more foot fall so more money to be made. They still have crappy chain restaurants but there’s more variety.

It's the same where I live OP. The only exceptions are well established, family-owned Italian restaurants. You pay an honest price for a good meal that someone has actually cooked on the premises. I have lost interest in chains TBH. Like you say - why bother?

No idea, I found the same.

Cote is just another same old same old chain restaurant. No individuality and after a while you can just taste it in the food. It’s so boring too. They all morph into one.

And yes clearly I do live in the wrong place. But looking for somewhere to take teens in London too. There seems to be a shed load of chains in the areas I’m looking at and little else- Byrons, Gourmet Burgar etc, etc

Other than breakfast places I rarely found that in California. A couple of great seafood restaurants but otherwise not the best. I like Franco manca, Cote, even Bill’s sometimes and pizza express is reliable (but expensive). We have good independents in west London.

We have Bills, Cote, BistroPierre. Overpriced and after a while boring and they morph into one.

I want individuality.

Bored shitless of Pizza Express.

East Coast was fab/ don’t get me started on the individual pizza joints.😋

I do agree with you it’s one of the first things I noticed when I moved to the US but it’s a big country and there huge swathes where an Olive Garden passes for fine dining!! You can’t really generalise based on what I’m guessing are experiences of visiting wealthy big cities. It’s also likely you don’t recognise US chains in the same way, we have a great coffee and ice cream shop and I didn’t realise they were a big chain until our friends from out of state mentioned going to same one where they live. On the whole though we do have more independent options which is great; I could happily never see a Cote again but I do miss a good pub lunch.

I'm very, very surprised you can't find independent restaurants with food that teens might like in London! What area are you looking in? Have you looked at Time Out's website and recommendations?

I found the food in America to be quite dull.
And very hard to eat as a vegetarian.

IMO, a lot of the time it's because a smaller, successful chain has been bought out by private equity. They then vastly and quickly increase the company's number of restaurants, combined with dumbing down homogenising the menus to make them blander more profitable whilst cutting as many costs as they can, including the food and service quality. This is so that they can flog the company on as a product giving good returns with low outlays. Of course, by this point the chain is like the Roadrunner off a cliff - running on empty and about to crash to earth - but they'd rather prospective purchasers didn't know this so they can make their fast buck.

And, ta-da! Boring, standardised, over-priced chains with crap service specialising in nothing in particular, that go bust with the usual hand-wringing over why it happened. They'll bleat about rates/Brexit/the minimum wage but the truth will be that it was because they were awful.

(See also: Jamie's Italian.)

Totally agree. I always say that mid range food in the UK is appalling. We have some amazing high end restaurants (that I can’t afford), lots of brilliant ‘pub grub’, but the restaurants in between are overpriced and meh.

It's not the same across the UK. Although London has a reputation for being expensive, one thing I do find here compared to many other towns, is that there is an abundance of cheap independent easy-going small restaurants.

(If you want to you can spend £500 a head at a place with a Michelin star, but that's another matter )

I live in a town that has lots of independent cafés - they can be just as mediocre. Just because it isn't a chain, that doesn't guarantee a better meal.

It very much depends where you are in the US. There is a lot of areas of the country where it’s real cross or no variety.

Dross that should say

Maybe Izvestia just been lucky by west Coadt and all the way up the East we were spoilt for choice- pizza joints, Mexican, seafood shacks, ice cream parlours, burglars, delis, cafes, Italian.... all individual, fantastic food, fab portions...

Is it really that impossible in the UK?

I live in the UK (England) and out of all of the eateries the OP has listed the only one I have heard of or am aware of in a 50 mile radius is Pizza Express.

I eat out A LOT as my size 16 waistline testifies.

I think this is an issue concentrated in urban areas rather than everywhere.

There is barely any chains near me (north of Ireland) a lot more independent,local restaurants- and the food is very very good and reasonably priced !