Posted on 09/05/2014 8:17:16 PM PDT by gop4lyf
Yes, there are many other themed casual eating restaurant chains that cluster around shopping malls and big-box stores from coast to coast: Rainforest Cafe; Olive Garden; Red Lobster; California Pizza; Bonefish Grill; On The Border; and Cheesecake Factory to name just a few. Then you have your "down-market" chains for the middling classes like Applebees; Buffalo Wild Wings; Ruby Tuesdays; Dennys and Cracker Barrel, just to name a few of those.
Finally you have the "new wave" of trendier casual eating joints that have great appeal to the millennial/Gen X crowd such as P.F. Changs; Noodles; Chipotle; Five Guys; and Panera Bread, just to name a few chains in that particular space. Those chains are characterized by a young urban crowd that usually tote several mobile devices around with them and they are cash-deprived but desire upscale ethnic fare at fast-food prices and a slightly bohemian ambience.
The entire casual eating industry is fascinating to me. When I was growing up in the 1970s, going out to eat was only an occasional experience for the typical American family as they typically ate at home and their meals were usually prepared by a "stay-at-home" mother figure, who dedicated most of her time to maintaining the household. It seems quaint today but many of us here are still old enough to remember coming home (from work or school) to smells of cooking emanating from the kitchen area.
Back in those days, you really only went to restaurants when you were on vacation or for special occasions. Such as a graduation, a birthday, an anniversary or maybe Mother's Day. You had your fast-food joints like McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken but you did not have all these "themed" sit-down restaurant chains back then. Back in those days, the restaurants were mostly privately owned and operated and specialized in "American" dishes like meat and potato dishes, meatloaf, baked chicken or perhaps spaghetti and meatballs. The menus were plain and printed on regular paper. Any dish over $6 or $7 was considered extravagant. Many people ordered a glass of milk with their meals, which you just don't see today.
During the 1980s, all of that began to rapidly change as families had additional disposable income (thank you Ronald Reagan!) and the casual eating industry exploded into the 1990s and beyond.
Today, most families take their meals outside the home 4-5 days a week. Even when they do decided to eat at home, they are typically having pizza delivered or picking up prepared "take-out" foods at the local supermarket or a fast food eatery like Boston Market, Subway, Popeye's Chicken and whatnot. If not, they are usually taking something out of the freezer, like frozen pizza or sandwich wraps, and microwaving it. People simply do not, as a whole, take raw ingredients and assemble a home-cooked meal out of it as they did prior to the 1980s. Most people simply do not have the skill set to do so even if they were so inclined.
So yes, the casual eating industry fascinates me and currently Texas Roadhouse is my object of fascination as modern American culture is summed up within its walls. I like the large waiting area they have where they have a barrel of peanuts and people can just grab handfuls of them and dump the shells to the floor as they wait for their table. Usually there is a television showing a sporting event, either live or a replay.
As you get called to your table, you are taken by a window display of raw beef and allowed to "pick your steak" as if you would know for sure if that particular cut actually made it to your plate.
There is a large bar area in the center of the restaurant with about a zillions TVs showing all conceivable sports event - which is another element of casual restaurants that fascinate me. Many people now go to restaurants to dine alone and the best place to do that is at the bar, where you can grab a spot at the bar and order anything off the menu. You do not feel like you are dining alone because the bartenders are right in front of you, mixing drinks and playing around with the ice bucket and there are single diners or couples all around you at the bar. You can watch TV or pull out your Kindle to read a book and nobody really notices you are dining alone.
Anyway, when you get to your table (at the Texas Roadhouse), there are two pails. One pail for peanuts and another empty pail in which to dump your shells. The menus are located at the end of the table and the portions are astonishingly huge. Not to mention the melt-in-your-mouth rolls they bring to the table before you even get a chance to peruse the menu. Suffice to say, between the peanuts, the rolls, the heaping side dishes and the gigantic steaks, it is going to be a 2,000+ calorie meal for you. Then you have the endless cold glasses of beer on top of that. Or you could order margaritas.
But that is not all you get at the Texas Roadhouse. You get loud music blaring at all time. Mostly uptempo and overplayed country songs from the 1990s like "You Think My Tractor's Sexy", "Achy Breaky Heart", "Watermelon Crawl", and "Boot Scootin' Boogie". They also throw in a little ZZ Top, some Allman Brothers and for some strange reason, that awful "Footloose" song that they play at least once an hour - in which the entire restaurant staff does a line dance and moves kind of conga-style through the restaurant, forcing patrons to move out of their way - or else!
But probably the most annoying part about Texas Roadhouse is the way they celebrate birthdays. Whenever some evil-minded patron whispers to a waiter/waitress that somebody in their party "has a birthday" today, all hell will eventually break loose around that table. Suddenly the table is surrounded by Texas Roadhouse staff and they commence to clapping and chanting. Somehow a box with a saddle gets introduced into the mix and the unfortunate person whose birthday it is is forced to sit upon it and wear an oversized "cowboy" hat while half the restaurant claps and chants and screams "Yee-Hah" at the end as the red-faced birthday person slides off the saddle and slinks back to his/her chair. Meanwhile, all the other people at the table are furiously uploading images of the humiliation to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
This is America in 2014 and what a weirdly fascinating place to be. Texas Roadhouse is currently at the center of it all.
Thanks for the explanation. It's surprising - your being an American living in America - that you have really "registered" the development of this sub-culture.
Recently, my teenage daughter and I flew from our home in Germany to London for a short vacation, and after we "happened" upon a "Hard Rock Cafe" near Hyde Park (incidentally: the original one), she insisted we lunch there. It was there that I encountered some of the same phenomena of which you write (waitstaff "breaking" into song, etc.). I suppose that this is all part of a corporate culture designed, developed, and imposed by the marketing experts at company headquarters in an attempt to create a "brand."
Incidentally: You should consider blogging your observations or otherwise writing about them - you have style!
Regards,
I've always liked to observe people around me. Whether at a the beach, a shopping mall or a casino, the people around me are fascinating to watch. Many of them are unintentionally rude to others, bound and determined to satisfy their own needs at the expense of others. At the Foxwoods casino a few weeks back, I saw a lady playing a slot machine that had a wheelchair behind where she was seated. Another lady came by and I guess the wheelchair was in her way so she pushed it all the way down the alley of slots and up against the wall on the other side of the casino. The other lady playing the slots was obsessed in her gaming and didn't notice. I went and fetched it back for her and put it back behind her chair.
Yep they are normal here too. We call them Ghettobirds.
A very true to life description of a typical day at Texas Roadhouse.
You only missed one thing - the completely ordinary and mostly tasteless food, which I believe is all part of the casual eatery thing you describe. PF Changs, because of its Asian menu, might be the odd man out in tastelessness.
I really do my best to avoid chain restaurants. I’d rather take a chance on an unknown one-off. I know I’m going to get mediocre, overly salted, food at a chain. I might get lucky at a one off.
Your extra apostrophes did not bother me at all.
Don’t feel lonely. We have the choppers circling our neighborhood on a regular basis. At least once or twice a week. Sometimes in the middle of the night.
You have a gift of description. Not familiar with the TR chain, but enjoyed the read.
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