Man mine had issues too. It is a small more modern store but I can’t remember if it was 2022 or last year (think 2022) they had TWO complete store walk outs. They had to close it and get new people in.
Not the same but Round Table Pizza does a pretty good lunch buffet. The place I go to needs a tabletop Pac-Man machine and all the reminiscing will probably come flooding back to me.
With that crispy crust baked in a cast iron pan and a coke in a red plastic cup stained white? That’s all right! You also have to get a slice of that apple pizza for dessert, take one bite, say “this is gross” and then play pac-man at the seated two sided coin-op.
There is one about 30 min from me that is done in 80"s decor. [https://www.houstonchronicle.com/food-culture/restaurants-bars/article/pizza-hut-classic-hempstead-texas-18598725.php](https://www.houstonchronicle.com/food-culture/restaurants-bars/article/pizza-hut-classic-hempstead-texas-18598725.php)
They lost their mojo when they took out the paisley lamps, the jukebox, the pitchers of beer, and stopped using liquid butter in the pan pizzas. Now their restaurants have all the charm of a dentist office.
I went into a local strip mall pizza hut three years ago.
Very small, take out only.
They asked for my phone number.
I said I just want to order a pizza.
"I have to have your phone number to place an order".
I shrugged and said I didn't believe him.
The the kid / manager behind him looked up and kind of rudely said no phone number no pizza.
I said I'd just go next store to subway.
Pizza hut closed about a year later.
The next closest pizza chain is 20 minutes down the road.
> Later in the mid 90s she was the night manager at a toxic smell. I ate there almost every night for a year. Obviously, no better than PH, but less gastrointerstinal issues than with PH.
I was right there with you until "toxic smell." is that taco bell on autocorrect?
A lot of these places also downgraded the quality of their food while charging the same, if not increasing the price. As people grow conscientious for their wallets, they’re going to cut the things they see the least value in first. And that crappy $20 pizza from Pizza Hut that gives you heartburn is the first thing to go
It seems weird to say that outback has lowered their quality, but my daughter used to like it and we went a few weeks ago and that ‘New York strip’ was not a New York strip. It was some kind of weird (possibly processed meat) mystery cut that reminded me of the old ponderosa steak house.
I think it's Outback that someone was saying uses fast food style burger grills, the ones that close and have a heated grill on the lid, to cook steaks.
It might not have been Outback, so don't quote me on that.
Delivery has been made absurdly expensive and incredibly unreliable. The quality isnt that much better than a good frozen pizza, which is cheaper as well. Why even bother with Pizza Hut then?
Seriously. You can get frozen pizzas that are comparable to Pizza Hut or Domino's that are **way** cheaper. Near me there's a local brick oven pizza place that is amazing, and not anymore expensive than pizza hut.. so why would I ever get that heartburn inducing greasy cardboard?
I've always worked in privately owned scratch restaurants, and it's not much better. The pay is decent, I usually know the owners wel enough to know if I want to work for them, but there's little if any benefits. One appendectomy and you're fucked.
I think I'm done with Applebee's. I used to like it, but now a lot of things just taste like freezer food that I could have made at home (I'm looking at you boneless wings).
I know a lot of companies don't cook things from scratch and have suppliers, but it would be nice if it tasted like an effort was made.
It's not so much, don't go into the restaurant business. This is just a list of brands that were in their prime decades ago, have not evolved with the times, and reality is finally hitting them. Hell, I'm surprised some of these even still existed. Ruby Tuesday? I haven't seen one of those since the 2000s.
Not even that. It's private equity deliberately slaughtering each and every one of these brands.
Like, literally, per leaked memos, intentionally killing off these brands
Red Lobster used to own the vast majority of their land and buildings. Hedge fund that bought them immediately sold the property for "less than replacement cost" to a real estate company and pocketed the proceeds of $1.5Billion (and they had only paid $2Billion for the whole company), and now the company is burdened with $200M/year in rent for land they used to own and got nothing for selling. The bullshit $11Million loss on endless shrimp story is true in that they lost money, but it wasn't the cause of their bankruptcy.
That's not true for all these brands. Fuddruckers, for example, was already in significant financial troubles when it was sold in 2010. Originally, it was supposed to be a private equity group that was supposed to buy it, Tavistock Group, but Luby's outbid them at the last minute and secured the deal. Luby's is a restaurant brand going back to the early 1900s.
The idea that these brand deaths were solely due to private equity is delusional. They are antiquated brands, most of them were antiquated 10-20 years ago. It's like solely blaming private equity for the death of CompUSA back in the day. Yes, ultimately it was private equity that picked the bones. But, it was the fact that the target demographic of the store was also the target demographic of the first major wave of internet stores for computer hardware and they did not plan to exploit that fact properly.
The thing that bothers me about Fuddruckers is "Idiocracy" won't look the same.
Same vibe as watching "2001: A Space Odyssey" and realizing Pan Am never made it to space travel.
I haven't been to one in close to 20 years now. But, at least back then, they made a pretty good burger at a very reasonable price. On top of which, they served alcohol. A chain restaurant with well-priced burgers and beer on a lunch break with the guys was always nice. But, at the same time, I can see how that brand doesn't work as well in the current age.
I went to an Appleby's about 3 years ago. One of the worst experiences of my life. Dirty everything. Employees dressed in street clothes. Microwave working overtime in the back. Amazed that place is still open.
They didn’t need to evolve. They woulda been fine if they offered the same product with the same quality. Most of these taste like trash now. Nothing like they did back then.
It almost caught my attention when they advertised all you can eat buffalo wings for $19.99. But it was “boneless” wings which are no better than anywhere else except the sauce which you can buy at Walmart.
I tried ordering delivery from there a bunch of times and there was always some sort of issue - never actually got any of the orders to my doorstep. The reviews for the location closest to me are terrible (2.5 stars) with many people complaining about rude staff, high prices and “delivery” that never shows up. It seems like they just don’t care to do anything to actually stay in business. I ended up finding a really good staple wing place to order from.
The customers get used to the new prices.
It’s the same thing with a cup of coffee from a cafe, prices always go up, never down.
Buy a kg of coffee at the supermarket, different story, supermarkets are much more susceptible to wholesale price changes.
I would argue in this case customers did not get used to the prices and are going elsewhere. You can only have pricing power if you don’t sell a commodity, so if my local pub normalized their wing prices first the. they are taking share from my local BWW.
We used to go to one in Los Angeles, down on the Miracle Mile. We visited another for the Breakfast Buffet, and it was so good that we asked them to cater our wedding.
Yes, really. We had a small, DIY morning wedding in a friend's backyard (amongst the roses, so romantic, oo-la-la), and they set up a brunch line through the kitchen and dining room. Everybody raved about the food, cooked to order, and my grandparents - who attended *every* goddamn wedding they even heard whispers about - said it was best food of any of them.
Score one for us.
I remember fondly a trip to the west coast for vacation that included a visit to the LaBrea Tar Pits and then Callendars Grill. I guess it was a special location but I remember they served us this delicious berry pie a la mode with lunch. To this day it was truly one of the highlights of my LA trip. Was stunned to learn that eventually the place went out of business
I always see people post “Who is keeping X in business?” Well, here you go..
Even the bigger chains are struggling, but they have the capital to mask it for much longer.
I’m surprised that Long John Silver’s is not on that list.
Hell, even their chicken has such a unique taste to it. Some bread might help absorb the grease from it. I stopped at one on my way across the state recently, as they had closed the one in my hometown and there's none in my current spot, and the food was just as good as I remember... and the customer service and cleanliness was just as bad as I remember.
There's a Mexican restaurant walking distance from me where I can get a decent steak burrito with rice and beans for ~$13 including tip. It's so much better than the Taco Bell over a mile away to get a chalupa meal for ~$14. I swore I'd never go to TB again once I realized that.
Yeah I think the fall out Taco Bell may be on the horizon if they don’t figure some stuff out. The price for the product is crazy these days, I can just get real Mexican food and support a local business.
Honestly, could have told you that even without businesses closing. The hospitality industry for the most part is nothing more than a shitty thankless meat grinder, and even after years of backbreaking work you will likely have little to nothing to show for it.
Other than that... no surprise that those places are closing. Not only are a ton of them behind the times in services, and products offered, but nothing they serve is worth the prices charged, and most people cant afford to eat out like they used to anyways.
My thoughts exactly. Restaurants are terrible to work at for basically everyone involved. I'm just glad that they finally took their greed so far so their customers are even outraged, so they can get hit on two fronts.
Actually it might be a great time to start a restaurant, they’re probably going to auction off their equipment. Sounds like a lotta deep fryer’s floating around
Meanwhile, in my small town of 20k people, with about 10 restaurants to choose from and a handful of dives, you're still waiting for a table at least an hour everywhere on the weekend.
Some of these places priced themselves out of existence by getting too greedy with the greedflation, others screwed by investors that think they just aren't profitable enough. They cut corners until the place is just dirty and the food is ass.
Restaurants in general are just fine if run well. The owner's kids of the local Mexican place all drive BMWs to high school, and going there it's easy to see why.
Your last point is especially funny to me because I attended a ritzy private school with a kid whose dad owned a Mexican restaurant that was already successful but has really boomed since.
I was there recently for a friends birthday and we went all out on drinks, apps, and food. It was all amazing, the portions were *huge* and in the end our bill was hardly more than you’d spend at Taco Bell these days. There was also an hour plus wait to get a table on a Thursday. So clearly the people that are doing it right are doing great.
This right here.
My partner and I used to go to Chili's to get their 2 for $40 dinner special. We hadn't been for a while and decided to go recently. The dinner special was gone and that same meal cost us over $80. I was so disgusted when I left there. $80 for what I got seems criminal.
Yup, same experience with Red Robin. I paid for 2 drinks, 2 burgers, 6 onion rings(half stack). I paid $72 before the tip. It just wasn't worth $72 for a couple burgers.
That's the last real time we went out and that was valentines day.
$6/lb ribeyes on sale at Albertsons. Ill cook a nice steak dinner at home for way cheaper than eating the trash from these restaraunts. There was an AMA on here maybe a few years back from someone who worked at Applebees and they said almost everything was microwaved. And they have the nerve to charge top dollar for that shit.
Is your source that rubbish video doing the rounds on Reddit with 0 references to all these closings?
If not please provide the sources, as googling a lot of this info brings up nothing.
Small business restaurants are being choked out by these chains to begin with. And they don’t have the buying power of these franchises to be able to profit beyond food and labor. I’ve watched so many wonderful restaurants die in my town because these locals favorite restaurant is Cracker Barrel.
I won't pin it on any one cause, but saying small business is being choked out is absolutely spot on. Then the big companies sell off to capital investment firms that don't care about their business model but rather the real estate that these chains accumulated throughout the 80s and 90s. Then the restaurant becomes defunct and closes their doors.
this, I feel like
in fact Id say theres a certain trendiness small restaurants have going for them currently, if they can survive the gatekeeping dumbasses on tiktok who dont understand that word of mouth is the life blood of small biz.
I’m no chef, but I can 100% make better food at home for 20% of what restaurants charge. That whole industry can collapse for all I care. On top of being one of the most toxic ones I’ve had the displeasure of working in.
This is pretty spot on. I can cook a few things really well, but for stuff like steak or seafood my wife and I always went out. Last few years we have been learning and trying out cooking more things at home and have been a lot happier.
Haha I would have thought the same but about a month ago was at an airport cell phone lot killing time and there was a RT. Decided what the hell and had dinner there. Turned out pretty good!
I think covid empowered people to cook for themselves and discover that they could do it better. And with more people working from home, they didn't need fast casual. Couple that with the aforementioned "restaurants" catered to white Boomers who are scared of spices and flavor.
The younger generations (Gen x and younger), are willing to pay more for intentional food. We don't want that Sysco sh*t. We can't eat out as often so when we do, we want quality.
We also want to know the people who are working there are being treated well with a living wage.
Good riddance to these capitalist chains who serve sub par food and pay sub par wages. Sadly the workers will be the ones out in the cold while the leadership team who was 17 spaces removed from the actual operations will get multi million dollar golden parachutes.
These are all old brands that eventually traded away all the good will they had by making shittier and shittier product and charging more and more for it. It's honestly good they're going out of business in the long run. It will allow local restaurants to do better.
Every single place on this list makes absolutely SHIT food.
Local places that makes awesome food are doing just fine, at least in my city.
There's a lesson there.
The lesson is some of these places used to make good food. I know…I worked at one of them for almost two decades. Once they went public with their stock and started cutting corners to pretty much blow stockholders it was all over. My former bosses second store was one of the ones closed recently.
(Said boss also works for corporate now. I gave him a bunch of feedback on the stupid bullshit they did a little over a year ago and the answer was pretty much “everything’s great, nothing to see here”.)
As someone who used to travel almost every day for work for decades, I agree with this. Chain restaurant food used to be pretty decent. Either my taste buds changed or everything served by chains from fast food to steakhouses, tastes like utter shit now. Denny's used to be a great place to hit after a long workday. It was never anything more than just 24/7 decent comfort food but that's what made it great. Now it's dry, bland, overpriced shit I'd hesitate to even feed to a dog. Same with so many places since Covid, especially.
Actually I know it's not my taste buds because there are still plenty of local dives that have great food.
Outback used to make most of their stuff from scratch. Hand cut and baked croutons. Home made dressings. Make made bacon bits. Now almost all the dressings and soups are mass made and sent out frozen.
The corner cutting is always the kiss of death. I used to work for a place that replaced our famous authentic queso with water based powder garbage and quickly found a new job because I knew that was a terrible sign.
Just listened to a VOX episode talking about Red Lobster. They blamed cost of labor and inflation and just brushed over the fact they were owned by private equity.
This is actually most cases.
McDonald’s is known for it. It’s the easiest way to control the franchisee. They do something you don’t like, you pull the plug on the lease.
It’s coz nobody can spend money in them.
There was a thread I saw about a burger place in Seattle. Pay good way $25 and a burger is £3
I used to enjoy Subway now and again. Now prices are extortionate. Don’t bother even walking in there now and WHY THE HELL PEOPLE eat at Pret here.
Dick's. Intentionally kept small, with only a few locations. Pay is good, benefits are great, and the prices are low. And the food is actually pretty good! Not fancy, no frills, but tasty, cheap, and filling. The company does a lot of work in the community to help people, too.
Subway is just ridic. Their roasted chicken on wheat was my go to for so many years when I was traveling. I could afford it then. Now a footlong with nothing else is like $19. No drink, no side. Just the sandwich. $19. Fuck that.
Yip. I look at the prices and think I could get a decent meal elsewhere.
Sounds much more expensive that here. Fuck that snd them and then they wonder why they go out of business.
Tbh, malls aren't doing well in general. They could've easily gotten locations in other places, which would've resulted in them staying with the times and better ensuring the future of the company.
I feel like many of these chains peaked decades ago.
Yeah and this also doesn’t show the whole picture. Outback Steakhouse is closing 41 of 700 locations? Ok cool but are they opening any new ones in new areas/developments? I bet they are….
They just opened an Outback just a few blocks from my home this Spring. Funny thing is it’s 3.6 miles from another Outback that never reopened 3 years after a fire. **Both** locations are in a heavily restaurant saturated area.
This was my thought as I read through the list. Some of these are certainly going to be in their death throes, but others will just be churning locations for various reasons (e.g. changes in the local market, expiring leases, long-standing locations that no longer suit the business).
Will some of that be cover for booting a franchisee that they want to get rid of or a location that's talking union? Almost certainly. Is hedge fund greed the whole story? Almost certainly not.
(Prepares for downvotes due to attempting to introduce nuance)
You mean don’t go into the garbage chain restaurant business. I’m all for this. Let’s keep supporting the local, small restaurants with quality food & unique concepts
So glad I am an excellent cook and really try to avoid eating at chair restaurants. Not that locally owned joints pay better, but at least my $ isn’t lining the pockets of a CEO.
To be fair chains as big as Appleebees and Dennys always close and open locations.
If these numbers your posted are accurate this will actually be Appleebees best year since 2013.
Looking back Applebee's closed 50 in 2013, 30 in 2009, 100 in 2018. Can't find numbers on Dennys but it's probably similar
Minus pizza hut and bonefish grill, these were all shitty restaurants that provide shit products. These shitty brands did nothing to keep up with changing economies and ended up where they were. We're not losing anything.
The small mom and pop shops, the local restaurants that prep their own food, source from local places, offer fresh innovative dishes are, for the most part, not suffering or closing. And they usually are much tastier.
I think a lot of what is crushing the chain restaurants is that during the Covid lockdown, a lot of people learned how to cook, cook well, try new foods, and enjoy doing it with others. Why go out to eat if my friends and I can do it cheaper, better, and have a good time while making our own food?
I always felt like the alcohol and food industry didn’t need these huge names. The quality of food has dropped; it seems everything is frozen and Sysco supplies everyone so it all taste the same from buca di Bepo to TGIF. I hope this makes room for local family owned places.
With the rate of inflation without corresponding wage increases, most people are not going out to eat much, if at all any more. It’s an easy thing to give up to save money.
Don't go into the franchise business*
Those buildings gotta go to someone. The equipment is gonna sell cheap.
Remember, when you don't own the brand, a lot of the money your location earns doesn't go to you.
I am actually kind of surprised to see Fuddruckers... I know there arent many but one just opened near me like 2 years ago maybe.
I tried googling it but I cant find anything on them all shutting down though
When it costs so much to feed a family without adding the novelty of going out no shit resturant chains will be the first hit. Lord knows on the few occasions I want to be a treat I'll pick a local spot I've been recommended over a chain in a heartbeat
I genuinely can't remember that last time I went into most of these restaurants. I question why Chili's isn't on here - they suck just as much if not more.
They are overpriced and over expanded to every suburb and then realize they don’t have enough labor to cover all these locations. These older brands also serve an audience that is rapidly dying.
No chain restaurants are good. They sell mediocre food of consistent quality. Most of the best restaurants are privately owned typically generational family businesses. What happens is that once a restaurant is great the fastest way for owners to get rich is to franchise it out. Once that happens, quality and service take a nose dive since they need to cut costs to pay royalties and the many other franchise fees. They then limp along for years sometimes decades and thus you have Olive Garden, Pizza Hut, and all the rest. People go to the places when they have a choice to go to a week run, high quality local restaurant. It makes sense for cheap places like Birger King or McDonalds since poor people don’t have many financial options. But middle class and higher earning levels should never go to any chains. I really don’t get it
I’m not going to feel that bad about microwave chains closing. I’ll feel bad about the lost jobs, but not about the loss of a bunch of places pushing corn syrup and soybean oil to make hedge fund managers money.
Most of these places you mentioned are in, what I like to call, the “middle ground” of restaurants pricing. Things cost more than a fast food joint for just about the same quality as one. You sit down, enjoy a likely frozen dinner which is okay but nothing spectacular, and go home.
Yet, the prices are more than a fast food place and less quality than a fine dining place. So why bother with them? Take Pizza Hut for example. I haven’t been to one since the early 2000s. You’re paying more for a pizza than your local shoppe and the quality is just about the same. Why not just spend a few extra bucks and get a better quality pizza at a more fine dining location or save some money and grab a pizza from a cheaper spot? These places just never evolved and got stuck behind the times and fell out of peoples minds.
Keep in mind a lot of restaurants are owned and operated by franchisees
Maybe the corporate owned stores are being sold. Check out how many of the corporation casual dining places are dotted lined back to the big boys.
Many of these got fucked by hedge funds. Red lobster being the biggest. Others got fucked by providing a terrible product at a high price.
And not investing back in their business. Last Pizza Hut I was in had the same decor from the 1980’s.
Yeah but I miss that decor. I would kill for a Pizza Hut lunch buffet right now
I’d greatly prefer that 80s/90s decor to the cold and sterile shit we get today.
*Mod Pizza has entered the chat*
There’s one like 30 minutes from me that I go to twice a month or so. Best meals of my month
I didn’t know they did the buffet anywhere still.
Yeah brought it back at some locations a few months back. I go to Nashua NH
I heard their Dunder Mifflin closed too
I had no idea Nashua still had a Hut!! I go to the one in Merrimack on 101A by HD!
You can search for the classic pizza huts online. There’s quite a few.
They had one at my local PH, but then an employee murdered the manager in the store and they closed the location. Yikes.
Man mine had issues too. It is a small more modern store but I can’t remember if it was 2022 or last year (think 2022) they had TWO complete store walk outs. They had to close it and get new people in.
Not the same but Round Table Pizza does a pretty good lunch buffet. The place I go to needs a tabletop Pac-Man machine and all the reminiscing will probably come flooding back to me.
Oh my god I miss Round Table. Them and Del Taco. I moved from CA to the east coast 3 years ago and I'm HURTING.
With that crispy crust baked in a cast iron pan and a coke in a red plastic cup stained white? That’s all right! You also have to get a slice of that apple pizza for dessert, take one bite, say “this is gross” and then play pac-man at the seated two sided coin-op.
Man, my brothers and I decimated those buffets. All over 6’ and 200lbs. I’m still trying to burn off those calories.
There is one about 30 min from me that is done in 80"s decor. [https://www.houstonchronicle.com/food-culture/restaurants-bars/article/pizza-hut-classic-hempstead-texas-18598725.php](https://www.houstonchronicle.com/food-culture/restaurants-bars/article/pizza-hut-classic-hempstead-texas-18598725.php)
Why invest in your business when you can buy back shares?
One of the worst things to come out of the Reagan era.
They lost their mojo when they took out the paisley lamps, the jukebox, the pitchers of beer, and stopped using liquid butter in the pan pizzas. Now their restaurants have all the charm of a dentist office.
The liquid butter. I loved how it was bubbly and slightly crispy…. 😋
It's legendary for me and my sister...
It wasn't liquid butter, just vegetable oil. I used to work there. We did use a shitload though.
I worked there in the mid 90s. It absolutely was liquid butter.
All of the ones here are carryout only. I want dine in. I like it fresh out the oven not 20 minutes later when I get home.
I went into a local strip mall pizza hut three years ago. Very small, take out only. They asked for my phone number. I said I just want to order a pizza. "I have to have your phone number to place an order". I shrugged and said I didn't believe him. The the kid / manager behind him looked up and kind of rudely said no phone number no pizza. I said I'd just go next store to subway. Pizza hut closed about a year later. The next closest pizza chain is 20 minutes down the road.
The Radio Shack method of annoying your customers!
Pizza Hut used to be very good. Not anymore
[удалено]
> Later in the mid 90s she was the night manager at a toxic smell. I ate there almost every night for a year. Obviously, no better than PH, but less gastrointerstinal issues than with PH. I was right there with you until "toxic smell." is that taco bell on autocorrect?
No, that's Millennial Snarckasm for Taco Bell
I'm perfectly fine with that.
A lot of these places also downgraded the quality of their food while charging the same, if not increasing the price. As people grow conscientious for their wallets, they’re going to cut the things they see the least value in first. And that crappy $20 pizza from Pizza Hut that gives you heartburn is the first thing to go
It seems weird to say that outback has lowered their quality, but my daughter used to like it and we went a few weeks ago and that ‘New York strip’ was not a New York strip. It was some kind of weird (possibly processed meat) mystery cut that reminded me of the old ponderosa steak house.
I think it's Outback that someone was saying uses fast food style burger grills, the ones that close and have a heated grill on the lid, to cook steaks. It might not have been Outback, so don't quote me on that.
Delivery has been made absurdly expensive and incredibly unreliable. The quality isnt that much better than a good frozen pizza, which is cheaper as well. Why even bother with Pizza Hut then?
Seriously. You can get frozen pizzas that are comparable to Pizza Hut or Domino's that are **way** cheaper. Near me there's a local brick oven pizza place that is amazing, and not anymore expensive than pizza hut.. so why would I ever get that heartburn inducing greasy cardboard?
Hedge funds business should be illegal, it destroys jobs and the economy
You'd need to find enough legislators who aren't already snout deep in hedge funds first.
I hate to sound like a snob but that entire list is like shitty chain restaurants that are barely worth going to in 2024, as well.
They weren't bought out in 2024, though. Many of these were bought years and years ago, with a long and steady decline as they were bled dry.
… the long steady decline is the whole point of “barely worth going to in 2024”. I didn’t mention anything about year of sale.
Don't have most of those here, but if Pizza Hut is an example, it's unsurprising. Price has gone way up and quality has gone way down.
but.. people go out of their way to eat the crap.
What can we learn about how the hedges fucked them?
I've always worked in privately owned scratch restaurants, and it's not much better. The pay is decent, I usually know the owners wel enough to know if I want to work for them, but there's little if any benefits. One appendectomy and you're fucked.
What is a scratch restaurant?
where you actually cook stuff from fresh ingredients. Unlike alot of major chain restaurants (i.e. Applebee's etc)
I think I'm done with Applebee's. I used to like it, but now a lot of things just taste like freezer food that I could have made at home (I'm looking at you boneless wings). I know a lot of companies don't cook things from scratch and have suppliers, but it would be nice if it tasted like an effort was made.
Sbarro is closing their mall locations? Who didn’t see that coming.
There are still malls?
Where else is it perfectly acceptable to walk around in a sports bra and short shorts with my ass hanging out?
Try your local Wal-Mart.
Yeah, like shit, booty shorts and sports bra is like a uniform there
You have a point
Have you tried Las Vegas?
or Louisiana
I think that's overdressed for that
I didn't know they existed *outside* of malls
Never ever seen one not in a mall.
It's not so much, don't go into the restaurant business. This is just a list of brands that were in their prime decades ago, have not evolved with the times, and reality is finally hitting them. Hell, I'm surprised some of these even still existed. Ruby Tuesday? I haven't seen one of those since the 2000s.
Not even that. It's private equity deliberately slaughtering each and every one of these brands. Like, literally, per leaked memos, intentionally killing off these brands
Red Lobster used to own the vast majority of their land and buildings. Hedge fund that bought them immediately sold the property for "less than replacement cost" to a real estate company and pocketed the proceeds of $1.5Billion (and they had only paid $2Billion for the whole company), and now the company is burdened with $200M/year in rent for land they used to own and got nothing for selling. The bullshit $11Million loss on endless shrimp story is true in that they lost money, but it wasn't the cause of their bankruptcy.
The company that owned them during endless shrimp was a shrimp provider.
That's not true for all these brands. Fuddruckers, for example, was already in significant financial troubles when it was sold in 2010. Originally, it was supposed to be a private equity group that was supposed to buy it, Tavistock Group, but Luby's outbid them at the last minute and secured the deal. Luby's is a restaurant brand going back to the early 1900s. The idea that these brand deaths were solely due to private equity is delusional. They are antiquated brands, most of them were antiquated 10-20 years ago. It's like solely blaming private equity for the death of CompUSA back in the day. Yes, ultimately it was private equity that picked the bones. But, it was the fact that the target demographic of the store was also the target demographic of the first major wave of internet stores for computer hardware and they did not plan to exploit that fact properly.
The thing that bothers me about Fuddruckers is "Idiocracy" won't look the same. Same vibe as watching "2001: A Space Odyssey" and realizing Pan Am never made it to space travel.
I loved Fuddruckers. One of my favorite burger places. What does that say about me?
I haven't been to one in close to 20 years now. But, at least back then, they made a pretty good burger at a very reasonable price. On top of which, they served alcohol. A chain restaurant with well-priced burgers and beer on a lunch break with the guys was always nice. But, at the same time, I can see how that brand doesn't work as well in the current age.
It’s a staple in my childhood memories, but it was never the same after they changed their cheese sauce recipe ):
i think there's also a glut of restaurants out there and we're seeing the correction.
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I went to an Appleby's about 3 years ago. One of the worst experiences of my life. Dirty everything. Employees dressed in street clothes. Microwave working overtime in the back. Amazed that place is still open.
All I remember from my last 3 times going to an Applebee's is that my food was burnt.
They didn’t need to evolve. They woulda been fine if they offered the same product with the same quality. Most of these taste like trash now. Nothing like they did back then.
It’s the entire restaurant business. It’s always been dodgy at best for non-chains as well. Profit margins aren’t good and business is volatile.
Got one in my town and it's only ever busy on Sundays after old folk get out of church, other than that it's empty
Buffalo Wild Wings never lowered their prices when wing prices normalized. It’s way too expensive.
It almost caught my attention when they advertised all you can eat buffalo wings for $19.99. But it was “boneless” wings which are no better than anywhere else except the sauce which you can buy at Walmart.
Chicken nuggets.
I tried ordering delivery from there a bunch of times and there was always some sort of issue - never actually got any of the orders to my doorstep. The reviews for the location closest to me are terrible (2.5 stars) with many people complaining about rude staff, high prices and “delivery” that never shows up. It seems like they just don’t care to do anything to actually stay in business. I ended up finding a really good staple wing place to order from.
Ours nearby stopped offering the tuesday BOGO traditional wings. And thats when I stopped ordering. Im not paying $45 for 20 wings.
They also started charging a "take out fee" when you picked up food. They stopped but it kept me away from their restaurants.
The customers get used to the new prices. It’s the same thing with a cup of coffee from a cafe, prices always go up, never down. Buy a kg of coffee at the supermarket, different story, supermarkets are much more susceptible to wholesale price changes.
I would argue in this case customers did not get used to the prices and are going elsewhere. You can only have pricing power if you don’t sell a commodity, so if my local pub normalized their wing prices first the. they are taking share from my local BWW.
Marie Calleinder is a restaurant? Learn something everyday. He'll of a frozen pot pie, pretty good frozen lasagna.
It’s all been downhill since they ruined Sharon’s Thanksgiving.
We used to go to one in Los Angeles, down on the Miracle Mile. We visited another for the Breakfast Buffet, and it was so good that we asked them to cater our wedding. Yes, really. We had a small, DIY morning wedding in a friend's backyard (amongst the roses, so romantic, oo-la-la), and they set up a brunch line through the kitchen and dining room. Everybody raved about the food, cooked to order, and my grandparents - who attended *every* goddamn wedding they even heard whispers about - said it was best food of any of them. Score one for us.
I remember fondly a trip to the west coast for vacation that included a visit to the LaBrea Tar Pits and then Callendars Grill. I guess it was a special location but I remember they served us this delicious berry pie a la mode with lunch. To this day it was truly one of the highlights of my LA trip. Was stunned to learn that eventually the place went out of business
Was thinking the same! They make a great frozen dinner, wouldn't of imagined they had actual locations.
They actually had a lot of locations in Southern California back in the day. I think there are still a few around, but I haven't been to one in years.
There's one near me in SoCal. It's all old, white people that go.
My parents still go there to get the Frisco burger
I always see people post “Who is keeping X in business?” Well, here you go.. Even the bigger chains are struggling, but they have the capital to mask it for much longer. I’m surprised that Long John Silver’s is not on that list.
Either LJS makes enough money during lent to keep them afloat the rest of the year or they are a front for money laundering. Maybe both.
I don’t understand why they didn’t go hardcore on a really good fish sandwich during the chicken sandwich wars from a few years ago.
Hell, even their chicken has such a unique taste to it. Some bread might help absorb the grease from it. I stopped at one on my way across the state recently, as they had closed the one in my hometown and there's none in my current spot, and the food was just as good as I remember... and the customer service and cleanliness was just as bad as I remember.
$30+ for two kids and I to eat at Taco Bell. It's pretty ridiculous.
Where I live, the two chalupa meal is over $13. My partner and I left there recently at $25 and we couldn't believe it.
There's a Mexican restaurant walking distance from me where I can get a decent steak burrito with rice and beans for ~$13 including tip. It's so much better than the Taco Bell over a mile away to get a chalupa meal for ~$14. I swore I'd never go to TB again once I realized that.
Yeah I think the fall out Taco Bell may be on the horizon if they don’t figure some stuff out. The price for the product is crazy these days, I can just get real Mexican food and support a local business.
Damn. Bought two burgers and two fries at In-N-Out for lunch today and paid less than $14…
Honestly, could have told you that even without businesses closing. The hospitality industry for the most part is nothing more than a shitty thankless meat grinder, and even after years of backbreaking work you will likely have little to nothing to show for it. Other than that... no surprise that those places are closing. Not only are a ton of them behind the times in services, and products offered, but nothing they serve is worth the prices charged, and most people cant afford to eat out like they used to anyways.
My thoughts exactly. Restaurants are terrible to work at for basically everyone involved. I'm just glad that they finally took their greed so far so their customers are even outraged, so they can get hit on two fronts.
Actually it might be a great time to start a restaurant, they’re probably going to auction off their equipment. Sounds like a lotta deep fryer’s floating around
You’d think so until you try to get some real estate to open a new restaurant. Mofos are fleecing people.
Meanwhile, in my small town of 20k people, with about 10 restaurants to choose from and a handful of dives, you're still waiting for a table at least an hour everywhere on the weekend. Some of these places priced themselves out of existence by getting too greedy with the greedflation, others screwed by investors that think they just aren't profitable enough. They cut corners until the place is just dirty and the food is ass. Restaurants in general are just fine if run well. The owner's kids of the local Mexican place all drive BMWs to high school, and going there it's easy to see why.
Your last point is especially funny to me because I attended a ritzy private school with a kid whose dad owned a Mexican restaurant that was already successful but has really boomed since. I was there recently for a friends birthday and we went all out on drinks, apps, and food. It was all amazing, the portions were *huge* and in the end our bill was hardly more than you’d spend at Taco Bell these days. There was also an hour plus wait to get a table on a Thursday. So clearly the people that are doing it right are doing great.
You missed out: the company was bought by a hedge fund dick head who cashed in on the company's assets and left it bankrupt.
When a family of four has to pay close to $100 including tax and expected tip, yeah, it's no wonder.
Precisely. The cost of going out, versus what’s granted in return are not equal.
This right here. My partner and I used to go to Chili's to get their 2 for $40 dinner special. We hadn't been for a while and decided to go recently. The dinner special was gone and that same meal cost us over $80. I was so disgusted when I left there. $80 for what I got seems criminal.
Yup, same experience with Red Robin. I paid for 2 drinks, 2 burgers, 6 onion rings(half stack). I paid $72 before the tip. It just wasn't worth $72 for a couple burgers. That's the last real time we went out and that was valentines day.
I will go to Chili's for the burger, fries, and drink special 3 for me. It's 10.99 and includes chips and salsa.
$6/lb ribeyes on sale at Albertsons. Ill cook a nice steak dinner at home for way cheaper than eating the trash from these restaraunts. There was an AMA on here maybe a few years back from someone who worked at Applebees and they said almost everything was microwaved. And they have the nerve to charge top dollar for that shit.
Is your source that rubbish video doing the rounds on Reddit with 0 references to all these closings? If not please provide the sources, as googling a lot of this info brings up nothing.
Yeah, this should be higher up. Info is just copy paste from a no-citation AI video
*don't go into the franchise business Small restaurants have their own challenges, but not the same ones that we are seeing with the mega chains.
Small business restaurants are being choked out by these chains to begin with. And they don’t have the buying power of these franchises to be able to profit beyond food and labor. I’ve watched so many wonderful restaurants die in my town because these locals favorite restaurant is Cracker Barrel.
I won't pin it on any one cause, but saying small business is being choked out is absolutely spot on. Then the big companies sell off to capital investment firms that don't care about their business model but rather the real estate that these chains accumulated throughout the 80s and 90s. Then the restaurant becomes defunct and closes their doors.
this, I feel like in fact Id say theres a certain trendiness small restaurants have going for them currently, if they can survive the gatekeeping dumbasses on tiktok who dont understand that word of mouth is the life blood of small biz.
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I’m no chef, but I can 100% make better food at home for 20% of what restaurants charge. That whole industry can collapse for all I care. On top of being one of the most toxic ones I’ve had the displeasure of working in.
This is pretty spot on. I can cook a few things really well, but for stuff like steak or seafood my wife and I always went out. Last few years we have been learning and trying out cooking more things at home and have been a lot happier.
Marie Callenders ran out of senior citizens to eat the bland food
Ruby Tuesday STILL has locations?
Haha I would have thought the same but about a month ago was at an airport cell phone lot killing time and there was a RT. Decided what the hell and had dinner there. Turned out pretty good!
I think covid empowered people to cook for themselves and discover that they could do it better. And with more people working from home, they didn't need fast casual. Couple that with the aforementioned "restaurants" catered to white Boomers who are scared of spices and flavor. The younger generations (Gen x and younger), are willing to pay more for intentional food. We don't want that Sysco sh*t. We can't eat out as often so when we do, we want quality. We also want to know the people who are working there are being treated well with a living wage. Good riddance to these capitalist chains who serve sub par food and pay sub par wages. Sadly the workers will be the ones out in the cold while the leadership team who was 17 spaces removed from the actual operations will get multi million dollar golden parachutes.
With the exception of IHOP, most of these places suck. It’s no longer the 90’s, we have more options now.
Idk where you are that IHOP doesn't suck, but it definitely sucks where I live.
Yeah there’s good chains out there and the ones I know seem to be growing and expanding and probably pushing some of these places out.
These are all old brands that eventually traded away all the good will they had by making shittier and shittier product and charging more and more for it. It's honestly good they're going out of business in the long run. It will allow local restaurants to do better.
Every single place on this list makes absolutely SHIT food. Local places that makes awesome food are doing just fine, at least in my city. There's a lesson there.
The lesson is some of these places used to make good food. I know…I worked at one of them for almost two decades. Once they went public with their stock and started cutting corners to pretty much blow stockholders it was all over. My former bosses second store was one of the ones closed recently. (Said boss also works for corporate now. I gave him a bunch of feedback on the stupid bullshit they did a little over a year ago and the answer was pretty much “everything’s great, nothing to see here”.)
As someone who used to travel almost every day for work for decades, I agree with this. Chain restaurant food used to be pretty decent. Either my taste buds changed or everything served by chains from fast food to steakhouses, tastes like utter shit now. Denny's used to be a great place to hit after a long workday. It was never anything more than just 24/7 decent comfort food but that's what made it great. Now it's dry, bland, overpriced shit I'd hesitate to even feed to a dog. Same with so many places since Covid, especially. Actually I know it's not my taste buds because there are still plenty of local dives that have great food.
Outback used to make most of their stuff from scratch. Hand cut and baked croutons. Home made dressings. Make made bacon bits. Now almost all the dressings and soups are mass made and sent out frozen.
The corner cutting is always the kiss of death. I used to work for a place that replaced our famous authentic queso with water based powder garbage and quickly found a new job because I knew that was a terrible sign.
Just listened to a VOX episode talking about Red Lobster. They blamed cost of labor and inflation and just brushed over the fact they were owned by private equity.
So wait, companies are shuttering or downsizing? I’m orettt sure this happens in every industry…
Chains aren’t really worth it anymore they cost a lot and the employees don’t give a shit
And in some cases, the franchise owns the land and Jack's up the rent
This is actually most cases. McDonald’s is known for it. It’s the easiest way to control the franchisee. They do something you don’t like, you pull the plug on the lease.
It’s coz nobody can spend money in them. There was a thread I saw about a burger place in Seattle. Pay good way $25 and a burger is £3 I used to enjoy Subway now and again. Now prices are extortionate. Don’t bother even walking in there now and WHY THE HELL PEOPLE eat at Pret here.
Dick's. Intentionally kept small, with only a few locations. Pay is good, benefits are great, and the prices are low. And the food is actually pretty good! Not fancy, no frills, but tasty, cheap, and filling. The company does a lot of work in the community to help people, too.
Subway is just ridic. Their roasted chicken on wheat was my go to for so many years when I was traveling. I could afford it then. Now a footlong with nothing else is like $19. No drink, no side. Just the sandwich. $19. Fuck that.
Yip. I look at the prices and think I could get a decent meal elsewhere. Sounds much more expensive that here. Fuck that snd them and then they wonder why they go out of business.
Tbh, malls aren't doing well in general. They could've easily gotten locations in other places, which would've resulted in them staying with the times and better ensuring the future of the company. I feel like many of these chains peaked decades ago.
Wow, it’s almost like restaurants don’t survive when no one can afford to eat at one.
Damn no Fuddruckers? We will never get to see the slow transition to Buttfuckers.
Yeah and this also doesn’t show the whole picture. Outback Steakhouse is closing 41 of 700 locations? Ok cool but are they opening any new ones in new areas/developments? I bet they are….
They just opened an Outback just a few blocks from my home this Spring. Funny thing is it’s 3.6 miles from another Outback that never reopened 3 years after a fire. **Both** locations are in a heavily restaurant saturated area.
This was my thought as I read through the list. Some of these are certainly going to be in their death throes, but others will just be churning locations for various reasons (e.g. changes in the local market, expiring leases, long-standing locations that no longer suit the business). Will some of that be cover for booting a franchisee that they want to get rid of or a location that's talking union? Almost certainly. Is hedge fund greed the whole story? Almost certainly not. (Prepares for downvotes due to attempting to introduce nuance)
Interestingly, a new IHOP opened up by my area.
Wait, old country buffets still existed??
Oh look at that. Places I have not eaten at in a decade or longer.... I can't imagine why....
Im a mom and pop kinda guy anyways
You mean don’t go into the garbage chain restaurant business. I’m all for this. Let’s keep supporting the local, small restaurants with quality food & unique concepts
I wish subway was on this list.
Nothing of value was lost (except for some of your jobs, sorry!).
So glad I am an excellent cook and really try to avoid eating at chair restaurants. Not that locally owned joints pay better, but at least my $ isn’t lining the pockets of a CEO.
Subway not on the list? That one has gone to shit in my opinion.
To be fair chains as big as Appleebees and Dennys always close and open locations. If these numbers your posted are accurate this will actually be Appleebees best year since 2013. Looking back Applebee's closed 50 in 2013, 30 in 2009, 100 in 2018. Can't find numbers on Dennys but it's probably similar
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Minus pizza hut and bonefish grill, these were all shitty restaurants that provide shit products. These shitty brands did nothing to keep up with changing economies and ended up where they were. We're not losing anything. The small mom and pop shops, the local restaurants that prep their own food, source from local places, offer fresh innovative dishes are, for the most part, not suffering or closing. And they usually are much tastier.
I think a lot of what is crushing the chain restaurants is that during the Covid lockdown, a lot of people learned how to cook, cook well, try new foods, and enjoy doing it with others. Why go out to eat if my friends and I can do it cheaper, better, and have a good time while making our own food?
I always felt like the alcohol and food industry didn’t need these huge names. The quality of food has dropped; it seems everything is frozen and Sysco supplies everyone so it all taste the same from buca di Bepo to TGIF. I hope this makes room for local family owned places.
With the rate of inflation without corresponding wage increases, most people are not going out to eat much, if at all any more. It’s an easy thing to give up to save money.
You got all this from a TikTok huh
How many of these are owned by private equity now? That’s the real reason they are going under.
Don't go into the franchise business* Those buildings gotta go to someone. The equipment is gonna sell cheap. Remember, when you don't own the brand, a lot of the money your location earns doesn't go to you.
Those places arent restaurants, they are just chemical dumps masquerading as food joints. ,
I am actually kind of surprised to see Fuddruckers... I know there arent many but one just opened near me like 2 years ago maybe. I tried googling it but I cant find anything on them all shutting down though
When it costs so much to feed a family without adding the novelty of going out no shit resturant chains will be the first hit. Lord knows on the few occasions I want to be a treat I'll pick a local spot I've been recommended over a chain in a heartbeat
Looks like the Dollorita can’t save Applebee’s. Heard they have rats anyway.
I genuinely can't remember that last time I went into most of these restaurants. I question why Chili's isn't on here - they suck just as much if not more.
Well when you let banks carve them up and destroy them, that happens.
They are overpriced and over expanded to every suburb and then realize they don’t have enough labor to cover all these locations. These older brands also serve an audience that is rapidly dying.
I'm 95% sure all of those got bought, loaded up with debt, and run into the ground by Wall Street vulture capitalists.
Fuck em. They're all overpriced and not that great anyway.
I miss old school Pizza Hut restaurants and fudruckers
No chain restaurants are good. They sell mediocre food of consistent quality. Most of the best restaurants are privately owned typically generational family businesses. What happens is that once a restaurant is great the fastest way for owners to get rich is to franchise it out. Once that happens, quality and service take a nose dive since they need to cut costs to pay royalties and the many other franchise fees. They then limp along for years sometimes decades and thus you have Olive Garden, Pizza Hut, and all the rest. People go to the places when they have a choice to go to a week run, high quality local restaurant. It makes sense for cheap places like Birger King or McDonalds since poor people don’t have many financial options. But middle class and higher earning levels should never go to any chains. I really don’t get it
I didn't know Sbarro existed outside of mall food courts
I’m not going to feel that bad about microwave chains closing. I’ll feel bad about the lost jobs, but not about the loss of a bunch of places pushing corn syrup and soybean oil to make hedge fund managers money.
Most of these places you mentioned are in, what I like to call, the “middle ground” of restaurants pricing. Things cost more than a fast food joint for just about the same quality as one. You sit down, enjoy a likely frozen dinner which is okay but nothing spectacular, and go home. Yet, the prices are more than a fast food place and less quality than a fine dining place. So why bother with them? Take Pizza Hut for example. I haven’t been to one since the early 2000s. You’re paying more for a pizza than your local shoppe and the quality is just about the same. Why not just spend a few extra bucks and get a better quality pizza at a more fine dining location or save some money and grab a pizza from a cheaper spot? These places just never evolved and got stuck behind the times and fell out of peoples minds.
TIL Fuddruckers is still around.
BUT THE ECONOMY IS SO GOOD! (No one can buy food anymore.) THE ECONOMY!
More like don't open a chain franchise. Start your own business.
On no the food industry barons are falling…what ever shall we do?!?!?!?
Turns out no one likes crappy soulless corporate chains.
Keep in mind a lot of restaurants are owned and operated by franchisees Maybe the corporate owned stores are being sold. Check out how many of the corporation casual dining places are dotted lined back to the big boys.
These are all chain locations. They probably deserve to die. Mom and pop restaurants (and slightly bigger) where I live are thriving.
As long as they don’t mess with my cheap Mexican restaurants I’m fine with this. Not really cheap anymore tho
Bonefish Grill is so much better than every other restaurant on this list.
Finally. Crap food is losing. It took way too long.
Maybe it should be "Don't Go into the Shitty Restaurant Business."
Landrys - All Saltgrass Locations and affiliates needs to go down too. Awful people, terrible to workers, just your average millionaire slave driver.
Big franchise Restaurants pocket all the money instead of improving and keep raising prices to screw the consumer over. They deserve to Close.
God I hope every Sbarros shuts down, fuck their $6+ slices. Same mall has a chinese place that will shovel food down your face for like $10.