Major restaurants and stores not in your area?

[Guest Vitamin X]

I liked Blimpie's better than Subway. Excellent sandwiches.

[treble 0]

I think there are 2 Arby's in Peterborough, but I'm not sure if I've seen one anywhere else. Maybe in Toronto somewhere.

There's one in Kingston that looks like it's about to close down every time we visit it.

Yeah, you're right, I think I've seen that one, too. Whenever I go to Kingston I'm hardly ever in that area, though, so it's probably why I forgot it.

[Guest Tzar Lysergic]

Baskin-Robbins we don't have, I forgot about that one. We used to have a couple of them but they closed. Also, Grindstone Charley's, I'm not sure how big of a chain that is, but ours just closed last year. We do have a Steak & Shake, though.

 

I thought there was a Baskin-Robbins in Muncie. There's a couple in Ft. Wayne, but I doubt you're keen on driving 90 minutes up the interstate for an ice cream cone.

[Scarlett_Rayne 0]

No Sonic's, Popeye's Chicken, Hardee's, Boston Market or Dave and Buster's. I would kill for a Popeye's Chicken. I love that stuff.

 

 

Fuck, there's so much more stuff that's not here than the stuff that is here, it's horrible. We have Sonic and used to have Popeye's but it got bought out by the monster known as Church's Chicken here. This place is obsessed with it, I mean fuck, the Rio Grande Valley as a whole is the #1 market for this shit in the whole country, even more than it's base city--Atlanta.

 

The only solace is that we do have plenty of Whataburgers

[Steve J. Rogers 0]

Recently CiCi's Pizza Buffett was running ads, in New York City, and they do not have a franchise in New York State! Mostly in the Southern States.

 

I know what they are trying to do (rise up interest in the market so they know that they would do well in said market), but it is crazy when there are probably those who think about eating out at the said restaurant that day based on a radio (or TV ad) that very second after the ad runs.

 

Well thats what I thought about when I tried to see if there was a CiCi's in my area!

 

[Hawk 34 0]

If you care about yourself, you wouldn't go to Cici's.

[Nighthawk 0]

Yeah, CiCi's is poison.

 

Also, I like Church's Chicken, but Popeye's is so much better. Plus, Church's uses unethical business practices. Look up the Popeye's wikipedia and you'll see it.

Now as far as fast food chicken, they are both awesome, and fuck KFC, but is there anyone who remembers Pioneer Chicken? They no longer exist, they became Popeye's, but it was probably the single greasiest place ever. Yes, I am including Long John Silver's. That's kind of how it was, Long John Silver's for chicken.

[King Kamala 0]

If you care about yourself, you wouldn't go to Cici's.

 

 

Yeah they haven't expanded up here yet but a $3.99 All You Can Eat Pizza Buffet doesn't sound all that appetizing.

 

 

I don't know how popular they are but I really wish we had an A&W up here.

[Steve J. Rogers 0]

If you care about yourself, you wouldn't go to Cici's.

 

Oh I'm sure, and no doubt I'd probably go just once after "trying it out" and comparing it to say Pizza Hut or Papa Johns which probably would be the equivalent (Dominoes near me are for the most part take out/delivery and not really so much sit-in restaurants)

 

I just love the ad campaign tactics that were used by them during the spring on local radio.

[Steve J. Rogers 0]

I can tell you that the third largest brick & motar book seller in this country, Books-A-Million has yet to come to at least the New York City area, while there are TONS of Borders/Waldenbooks and Barnes & Nobles stores around.

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

What the fuck is with this reading shit? We're talking about food here boss.

[Steve J. Rogers 0]

What the fuck is with this reading shit? We're talking about food here boss.

 

Major restaurants and stores not in your area?

 

Can I also get a ruling based on all major bookstores (other than outlet express shops) have some sort of cafe in them?

 

[Guest •]

Ooh, SJR's gotcha there.

 

I've never seen a Books-a-Million. I remember Crown Books and Crock's & Brentano's, but they gawn. Woodfield needs a better bookstore; all they have is a crappy little Waldenbooks. I think there's a Barnes & Noble down the street on YGolf, but it's not a very good one. You'd expect more from the largest mall in the area. They should put one where the Rainforest Cafe is.

 

And that segues us back to food. The Rainforest Cafe. I went there when I was 9. Never again. That was like right when it opened, too. Quite frankly, I have no idea how those places can possibly stay open. Nobody ever goes back. It's like that gimmicky outer space restaurant that was there for a while and then shut down, except I think it had to do with drug dealing more than just being expensive, gimmicky, and not very good.

 

http://www.foodproductdesign.com/archive/2002/1102FSA3.html

In the Schaumburg area, there just weren’t as many tourists as we had initially envisioned.

This made me laugh.

[Red Baron 0]

Rainforest Cafe is expensive and crappy rolled into one.

[godthedog 0]

i think there's a pretty big drop-off after the biggest 2 bookstores. except for my hometown, i don't remember seeing a books-a-million in any city i've been in. or maybe there's also one in athens, i'm not sure.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Yeah I've never even heard of books-a-million.

[CanadianChris 0]

We finally get this folder out into the open, and the first thing people do is start talking about books.

 

Well done.

[razazteca 0]

CiCi Pizza is only good is you are hungry and don't care what you shove in your mouth but then again this applies to all buffet restaurants.

[godthedog 0]

We finally get this folder out into the open, and the first thing people do is start talking about books.

 

Well done.

 

there's at least 3 or 4 other healthy conversations going on in the food folder, stop acting like it's the downfall of humanity.

 

[Guest Tzar Lysergic]

Haven't seen a Blimpies around here in a while, which is fine since I've discovered the holy grail of sammiches, Jimmy Johns.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

I love Jimmy John's advertising. They must target hispanic demographics pretty heavily, as the majority of their ads in Virginia are in Spanish and thus doubly hilarious.

[treble 0]

We don't have a Mr. Sub here, but I'd probably never go, anyway, since we already have Subway and Quizno.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

Quiznos has slowly been opening some stores here in Windsor. They had one store open sometime in the early 00s, I don't remember. Anyway because everyone likes to go to new places this place was incredibly busy and didn't seem to be quite worth it (admittedly, the line-up and busy nature made the line set up where I was immediatley asked what I wanted just by stepping close to the counter and didn't want to hold up the line forming behind me so I ended up with something I only moderatley wanted).

 

On the flip side, 7-11s seem to be slowly closing here. One downtown in a crappy neighbourhood closed and that was fine because I remember going there when I worked midnights at the nearby Art Gallery and thinking it was never as nice as the other Sevs. Shortly after that, a nice store that I had been going to for years, especially when my grandmother lived in that end of town and a video game store was across the street, just up and closed. We still have 3 in the city, though, and one is near the University and will probably never go out of business.

 

I don't know if this effects all of Canada, but at least in my travels through Souther Ontario, there are no White Castles, Hardees/Carls/Checkers, Sonics, non KFC chicken places, or non Taco Bell taco places anywhere.

 

A&W here has been mall food court only for years but a stand alone place just opened a few months ago.

 

We have Applebees here but no TGI Fridays (I like their Jack Daniels BBQ sauce based foods as well as their mexican stuff).

 

Mr. Sub also seems to be on the endangered list here. Two locations have closed in the last 5 years (that I know of - a few months ago I took place in one of those sessions where they pay you to discuss whatever and one of the people at the session said she worked for Mr. Sub, which caused another participant to ask where as he thought they all went out of business). We have one at a mall and another at a Mac's, but since most Mac's partner with Subway, I wonder how much longer that will last. Subway is my favourite anyway.

[Nighthawk 0]

Don't lump Checkers in with Hardees and Carl's, that's a different thing.

 

On the east coast we had Checkers, and on the west coast it's called Ralley's (sticking with the racecar theme, I guess). It's exactly the same too, not even slightly different like Hardees and Carl's.

 

Checkers and Sonics were on the short list of places I liked to go because you could get hot dogs there that didn't taste like crap, like they do at Weinerschnitzle. There are a few decent quick serve hot dog places, but those were the only ones with a drive thru.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

My mistake. It's Roy Rogers that's the Hardee's Jr. clone too, right?

 

I saw Checker's in Maryland but in Michigan they were all Rally's until either last year or late 2005, then they were all renamed Checker's.

[treble 0]

The Quiznos here opened about 2 years ago and is still pretty busy if you go around regular lunch time. I try to hit them up at around 2 or 3 when there's not a big wait.

 

A&W is the same here, it was in the food court for as long as I've lived here, but they opened a bunch of new stores off the 401 and stuck one in the Wal-Mart parking lot.

 

I think I've been in a 7-11 once in my life, most of the convenience stores here are Quickies or Mac's.

[Nighthawk 0]

Roy Rogers I've actually never even been to, so I couldn't say.

 

Local grocery stores: Safeway, Albertsons, Food Max

Southern California (as of years ago): Ralph's, Lucky's, Von's, Food 4 Less (basically the same as Food Max)

Tampa: Publix, Winn Dixie, Kash N Karry

 

I have never shopped at a Piggly Wiggly unfortunately.

[Star Ocean 3 0]

but is there anyone who remembers Pioneer Chicken? They no longer exist, they became Popeye's, but it was probably the single greasiest place ever.

 

 

They exist. There are a few in LA, and are probably all independent of each other, but apparently at least one still uses the original recipes.

 

There's one across the street from where PWG used to run, in Hollywood.

[Steve J. Rogers 0]

There are Wah Wahs (glorified convience store/sandwich shop) in New Jersey but I don't think there are in NY

 

 

[Nate 0]

i dont have a Sonic's or 7-11 far as i know