I doubt more people are cooking, it's just that the largest chain restaurants have gradually let themselves go to shit and left themselves in a position with no demand.

There are more options than ever for good, casual food. And there are as many options as we've always had for not-so-good cheap food, like McDonald's.

The problem Friday's has isn't that everyone suddenly loves to cook. It's that they suck, everyone now knows they suck, the prices are unreasonable for how much they suck, and there are obvious choices that suck less.

> everyone now knows they suck Not necessarily suck, but tools like Yelp and Google Reviews just made it easier to view opinions and find more options.

They've always been shit, are you saying they're worse now? Hard to believe.

You may find it hard to believe, but the only reason these chains were ever viable businesses is that middle-class people would go there, by choice. Yes, they got worse.

Sticking with the example of Friday's, it used to be a reasonable place to go out with people. Not an amazing culinary experience, but comfort food of a sort. Now there is nothing comforting about it. The last Friday's I was unwittingly led to was more like Urban Decay: The Restaurant.

My thoughts exactly. I went to Chilli's like 10 years ago because there was nothing else on the freeway and we were hungry.

What a large dumped pile of garbage. I was hungry but even hunger could not entice me to plough through a fraction that.

Awful, awful stuff. Make the plates half the size, a third the size and give ne something I'm willing to taste and eat.

I'll stop by a Chick filler if there's nothing else.