> They're buying recipes and ingredients from a big nation supplier like Sysco...

One sees so much nostalgia among Americans driving across the heartland for "the traditional diner instead of fast food chains where the food is the same everywhere", when in fact so many of those traditional diners are sourcing all their ingredients from Sysco. You can have the exact same eggs or biscuits, for example, in supposedly mom and pop places in state after state.

I think it was already in the mid 20th century that the US lost the diversity of cooking found in some other regions of the world, and so this latest development with ghost kitchens is only continuing a long trend.

My wife and I used to go to a great little restaurant near us. The owner sold and the food drastically got worse. The previous owner spent every single morning at the market picking out fresh meat and produce. The new owner told us her lawyer said that was a liability. They switched to Sysco because they guaranteed the food was safer then buying directly from the growers.

Which is a sad, but typical example that not everything is getting better.

No risk? No fun!

> so many of those traditional diners are sourcing all their ingredients from Sysco

The question is what level do you source from Sysco?

Source flour, shortening, sugar, etc. and make your own pie or cake. It will still be unique.

Source pie mix or cake mix from Sysco and, yes, you've lost your uniqueness.

The real question: do the eaters care? The continuing existence of places like Applebee's seems answer the question with "Apparently not."

> do the eaters care?

I think those who are aware of the problem definitely do care. Many people just don't think about it, because they're not old enough to remember a time where the local diner baked its own pies, simmered its own soups, etc..

For me, all my perceptions of food changed when I started traveling outside the United States. Basic staples like bread and soup taste so good in places like Germany and Japan by default, but food of the same quality in the United States would cost $20-30 per plate.

This is a big reason I started cooking at home. The quality simply isn't there in the American restaurants that are affordable to most people, especially outside of big cities.

> For me, all my perceptions of food changed when I started traveling outside the United States. Basic staples like bread and soup taste so good in places like Germany and Japan by default, but food of the same quality in the United States would cost $20-30 per plate.

So, what killed these restaurants in the US? They used to exist. Why did they go away?

My theory is cars. Everything is spread so far apart that local businesses can't rely on foot traffic to spur interest, and a 15-minute driving radius doesn't include all that many people. For many people living in suburbs there's no city center to speak of, and they meet all their needs at the local strip mall full of national and multinational restaurant and grocery chains with name recognition.

Well, the real answer of course is that some of the eaters don't care, at least some of the time.

I love good food and I'm a fairly good cook, but that doesn't stop me from picking up dinner at McDonald's when I just don't feel like cooking. I don't think that the existence of Applebee's proves anything other than sometimes people want to "eat a meal that someone else microwaved."

Also, it is my understanding that Sysco has a multitude of levels (of ingredients/products): some are crap, some less crap, and some “gourmet” in the processed, mass packaged sense of the word.

> do the eaters care?

I got Applebee's because I know exactly what I'm getting everywhere on the country. If I got to an independent restaurant and get served something similar to Applebee's I'm probably going to choose Applebee's next time. If you can't differentiate yourself from a national chain with economies of scale you're going to be put out of business.

During an enlistment in the US Navy I had the opportunity to visit many exotic (to me) foriegn ports. My goal was to explore authentic local food and culture, but inevitably, the buzz when I got back to the ship was the location of the nearest McDonald's. Some peple just crave consistiency and a "taste of home". Each to their own. If I've spent months to get half way around the planet, I sure as hell want to revel in the experience!

Different McDonald's around the world have different menu items. It's not so different as to make up for reveling in the experience, but it would be mildly interesting. You can see a version of this by going to https://www.pizzahut.co.in/, https://www.pizzahut.com.hk/en/order, different countries and see what they put on pizza.

Lol yeah! Witnessed this since about 30 years ago in Germany also. Be it pizzeria, greek restaurant or whatever. Have recognized the people shopping in supermarkets with fully loaded shopping carts carrying the largest available packages. In case of the pizzeria it even was Aldi. I remember wondering about how that would make sense, given the existence of wholesale?

That's interesting. I live in Hawaii, and we have a lot of different Thai restaurants. They are almost all family-owned businesses staffed by people who either first- or second-generation Thai immigrants. Those ones are always the best, and they all serve the same types of dishes but they also all have their unique spin on things.

I haven't been to a lot of Thai restaurants on the mainland, but the few I've been to on the East Coast have all been similarly terrible. I've always wondered just where these places are getting their awful recipes from.

My $0.02 for a good Thai restaurant on the East Coast, crazy as it may seem, is to check and see if they have a picture of the late Thai monarch Rama IX displayed prominently near the coat-check/hostess station/bar. I don't know what it is, but the Thai places who have his picture up are invariably better quality than the ones that don't.

But yeah, Thai food on the West Coast was reliably better.

It's amazing how trustworthy/reliable brands have been buried by a torrent of nonsense generic brands on amazon.

Brands in and of themselves are worthless when they can be bought and sold like commodities, or simply slapped on existing or even totally different businesses.

That's the definition of a bad brand. A truly good brand cannot be bought and sold in that way, takes decades to earn the trust of its rabid fan base, and with every slight imperfection creates legions of haters that declare the brand 'over'. E.g. Apple. But at the end of the day, Apple earns its margins with its brand, and entirely its brand.

Well, it's also happening at your local restaurant(s).

Try to attend and "Fancy Food Show" and visit the booths of companies selling to restaurants. You'd be amazed at how streamlined production is from, prepared ingredients, to fully pre-prepared dishes ready-to-be defrosted/heated and served.

I would not be surprised if in the near future 80% of restaurant meals will be ready-to-serve meals.

The future is not what it used to be.

What's interesting is Thai food is actually part of a massive soft-power promotional campaign by the Thai government.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/paxadz/the-surprising-reason...