Actually Eating Good In The Neighborhood

The Illadelph points to a Philadelphia Business Journal story last week that should let all Philadelphians breathe a sigh of relief: Chain restaurants are largely avoiding Center City.

While Center City does have some chain restaurants, particularly steak houses, most of the big casual dining chains have swarmed to the suburbs. To the point, the nation’s two largest owners of casual dining restaurants — Darden Restaurants Inc. of Orlando and OSI Restaurant Partners LLC of Tampa, Fla. — have a combined 48 restaurants in the eight-county Philadelphia market, but only three are in Center City.

Yeah, there are some chains, but there is a difference between, say, Morton’s and the Olive Garden. Even Fado and Fox & Hound are on a different level than the Big Four (Applebee’s, the Olive Garden, T.G.I. Friday’s and Chili’s — did I miss anything?).

Anyway, apparently we have old people (who have enough money to eat at nice places or are grizzled enough to hate chain restaurants) and young people (who would rather drink at McGlinchey’s on the cheap) but not enough suburbanites. Imagine that, not enough suburbanites in the city! (But who’s living in all these condos?)

“Center City has a strong residential population,” some consulting firm president told the PBJ. “It’s mostly young and old, but not the middle, which is the market for casual dining.”

Somebody remind me when I’m 40 if I want to go to Applebee’s all the time that I’m a big sellout or whatever.

Tastes of Center City denizens prove, thankfully, to be far too refined for the likes of artless national chain restaurants [The Illadelph]
Chain restaurants expand in the suburbs, not in city [PBJ]