The time has come. HuffPost Food's Chain Food Showdown has reached its end. After sampling common appetizers from Applebee's, The Cheesecake Factory, Chili's, Hard Rock Cafe, Planet Hollywood, Red Lobster, Ruby Tuesday and T.G.I. Friday's, we have learned that some are totally worth it (calories aside) and some we'll never eat again.
What originally turned us on to evaluating the most common fare at the biggest restaurant chains was a surface level understanding of how many major casual dining restaurants work. In some of these chains, food is often pre-prepared in a central kitchen, and then frozen to be shipped and re-heated across the country. We read fascinating tales of this process, such as the section on Applebee's in Tracie McMillan's "The American Way Of Eating" or the discussion of Chili's in David Kessler's "The End Of Overeating."
Perhaps the viral review of an Olive Garden in Grand Forks, North Dakota proved just how much casual dining can resonate with the American audience.
In our evaluation of American casual dining food, we chose eight prominent chains that serve similar American fare across the country. Although locations and number of outlets vary, we felt that all eight epitomized the casual dining experience, perhaps best evidenced by the amount of dish overlap on all menus. In choosing which dishes to evaluate, we stuck to what we deemed the most sought-after appetizers.
As we kept eating our way through the various menus, we were surprised by the huge range across the food categories. While certain chains overall performed better than others, the more appropriate comparison was really about single dishes, rather than a restaurant as a whole.
Here's a recap of the previous Showdowns:
Week 1: Buffalo Wings
Week 2: Nachos
Week 3: Mozzarella Sticks
Week 4: Potato Skins
Week 5: French Fries
Week 6: Onion Rings
Week 7: Spinach Dip
Week 8: Chicken Strips
As you can see, some chains fared much better than others.
Below, we go into a bit more detail about each chain, and why they scored the way they did.
Chain Food Showdown Wrap-Up
Editor's Note: We dined at all chains anonymously -- no restaurant knew that we were evaluating the cuisine. The chains we visited were all located in the New York metro area.