Edmonton Eats Blog

Choosing a restaurant can sometimes be tricky business. You have the picky eaters, the food snobs, not to mention those bothersome vegetarians.

And then there’s me, the chain snob. I don’t like going to chain restaurants. While I’m not going to throw a tantrum and choose to sit at home instead of eating at a chain restaurant, I will definitely try to suggest an independent restaurant. To me, it just makes a lot more sense. Read on for my thrilling analysis.

1. Local Ingredients

Independent restaurants are much more likely to support local growers and farmers. Many chain restaurants have supply chains and distribution networks already set up leaving little incentive to buy local. Trucks arrive carrying pails of tomato sauce and ingredients from who knows where that are readily available in Alberta. It’s very possible non-chain restaurants source potentially local ingredients from cheaper sources thousands of miles away, however they are much more likely to be looking for a local source. I can’t think of one example of a chain restaurant promoting something local on its menu. This bring me to my next point…

2. Locally Inspired Menu

One of the biggest problems I have with chain restaurants is that they have a corporate test kitchen dictating what will be on the next menu. For example, Boston Pizza, seemingly everyone’s favorite fallback option in Edmonton, has a test kitchen in Dallas, Texas along with a culinary council overseeing it. Call me crazy but it bothers me when I eat at restaurant where the food and menu literally have no connection to the local area. As a side note, it’s also interesting that the very first Boston Pizza was established in Edmonton in 1964 as “Boston Pizza and Spaghetti House.” Trivia like this makes you an instant hit at parties.

Have you ever been to a chain and had a hard time finding something you wanted because everything seems so pedestrian and uninspired? I think this is primarily due to the fact that chains have to construct menus to appeal to the widest demographic of people and hence creativity and originality give way to the typical fare that will sell to the average restaurant goer. Now there’s nothing wrong with this at all, everyone loves to make money. I would just rather eat somewhere that didn’t require me to board a plane to see where the menu was created.

3. Same old song and dance

With chains you know what you’re going to get. You know you will see the slick professionally designed interior, the nice dark woods, the familiar table centers and the massive menus that are as long as the table is wide that always result in a menu fight with the person across from you. It’s all very standard and very predictable and I think this is a big reason why chains can be so successful. If you are going to spend your hard earned money on a meal out, it’s nice to know the food will taste good and the service will be consistent. But to me it’s boring.

I would much rather try something new in hopes of discovering a gem of a restaurant than going for reliable and consistent. For me, most of the fun of eating out is getting to try new foods and discovering that the local bistro down the street with the fading sign and 4 different types of chairs at a single table has the best crab cakes I’ve ever tasted. If I have to eat at a few Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares candidates then so be it.

Tags: chain restaurant, eating out, independent restaurant, menu

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