Ah, American classism, where crap like McDonalds is OK, but pissing on Olive Garden and Applebees is a signal for "I'm not working class, I have taste".

> Perhaps because the latter are associated with aspirational working class, which is to be mocked.

No, what’s being mocked is the quality of the food. The “aspirational working class” in Europe has much better food options for even better prices—has nothing to do with classism and everything to do with the development of an American culture that ruined food in this country.

My grandparents grew up in rural Appalachia and what they prepared themselves and ate back then was much tastier and fresher than Olive Garden.

>No, what’s being mocked is the quality of the food

If that was the case the "quality of the food" would be mocked elsewhere, in tons of brands with crap quality. But those seem to be particular targets in the way that say McDonalds and other fast food or higher tier but still crappy brands are not.

Besides, most references/parodies I've seen (like online, on SNL, movies, and so on) always seem to mock the working class in that context (or the ignorant lower middle class), in some "lol, these people think they're eating fancy" - usually with stereotypes about their appereance and mannerisms to match.

Olive Garden is hardly cheap. Eating there costs my family just as much as many local restaurants that have better food. It's not a class thing as much as a culture thing.

What world do you live in where Olive Garden is attacked for its food quality more than McDonalds

McDonalds is constantly mocked for low quality food. Olive Garden is much higher prices, but not much better in quality.

Note, but quality what we really mean is either health or taste. Both McDonalds and Olive Garden are extremely high quality in that everything is exactly the same and so you can go into any one around the country (and most of the world) and order something and be unable to tell the difference from any other.

I mean, if McDonald's along with every restaurant in SoDoSoPa wanted to join Olive Garden and Applebees on a voyage into the sun, that wouldn't be a bad thing.

The fundamental problem is that all of these businesses are devoid of soul, and the majority of the profits don't go to the people working them.

>The fundamental problem is that all of these businesses are devoid of soul, and the majority of the profits don't go to the people working them.

That however is a problem of capitalism in general, not Olive Garden in particular.

And I'd say class snobbism against lower class "taste" (independent of unhealthy fast food vs fine cuisine, since for example something like In and Out is totally acceptable by the same people) is also a problem of capitalism.

>That however is a problem of capitalism in general, not Olive Garden in particular.

Sure, but the lengths Olive Garden's marketing goes to present the facade of a soul is so cringe that they deserve to be emblematic of said problem.

>And I'd say class snobbism against lower class "taste" (independent of unhealthy fast food vs fine cuisine, since for example something like In and Out is totally acceptable by the same people) is also a problem of capitalism.

Not to burst your class snobbism bubble, but as a former poor person I have to say the Dollar Menu kicks Olive Garden's ass all day long. For one (dollar), it isn't reheated cardboard!

I don't think fast food somehow being comparatively acceptable is a problem in and of itself, because fast food isn't pretentious. If anything, narratives that make it seem as if the "lower class" has no choice but to eat cardboard at Olive Garden if they want a dining experience, and that doing so is just a taste that's forced upon them, is laughable.

Right. My local non-chain Mexican restaurant charges far less than Olive Garden, or any other nearby chain for that matter, and manages to put out large quantities of very tasty food. Not surprising, the place is usually very busy.

Your McDonald's still has a Dollar Menu? Over here it's the "1-2-3 Dollar Menu" and there's nothing on it that costs less than $1.79 (a plain hamburger).

Don't conflate class with quality. Chain restaurants serve mass-produced, low quality fare. They have to.

Ruth's Chris is a chain. I don't think they're serving low quality food.

There are chain restaurants that serve high quality food. They cost a lot to eat at though, and so rarely have more than one location in a large city.

> the majority of the profits don't go to the people working them

False. A well run restaurant might make 10% profit. But they pay double or triple that to the staff and managers.

Staff and management don't get paid with profits, by definition. They get paid with revenue.

Business profits, if any, accrue to owners.

In-n-Out is cheaper than McDonald's. A preference for McDonald's isn't a class issue, it's a taste issue.

The popular disdain for family dining comes from people who don't want to sacrifice food quality for table service. Olive Garden isn't competing against fine dining, it's competing against fast casual restaurants. And that's far less of a class divide than a generational divide: restaurant dining as widely available phenomenon is a relatively new concept, with it being a relatively rare luxury for the Greatest Generation. This put a level of perceived prestige on being served, which the family dining restaurants managed to reduce the cost of substantially the latter half of the century.

With ubiquity, though, the novelty wore off. Young people who grew up regularly eating restaurant fare aren't particularly impressed by table service, and thus for a given price point, on average, Millenials and younger tend to choose a fast-casual restaurant with better food quality over a family dining establishment that has to cut into their food quality to pay for table service.

What you're perceiving as a class divide is a urban/rural divide, where trends of all sorts (including this one) lag a decade or two behind in rural areas relative to urban ones.

I'm classist I guess but McDonalds is really not OK unless I need some fries on a long drive.

But people can eat whatever they like/can afford/find convenient.

You keep your hands off Olive Garden.

Olive Garden is garbage, why would I want to put my hands on it?

Only Olive Garden and Chipotle have managed to give me a stomach ache.

Someone in New Orleans (a town with a large Italian and specifically Sicilian population), left a one-line Yelp review of the one Olive Garden in the metro area (by the airport). "The 9/11 of Italian food"

Too late. How much worse can they get at this point?

The really sad thing is that both of those used to be not so bad. Not good, mind you, but at least palatable. Now they're just nasty.