Just a little off topic, but ABF does deal with more than just baseball. Applebee's might be the worst national chain going. The American way is to take a decent idea, a giant hardware store (Home Depot), the local video store (Blockbuster), make it sterile and bland and mass market it. Listen, I'm not totally opposed to this idea. I have been to Chili's. Its not so bad. Decent bar food, sports on the TV, its not your local bar, but in a pinch it does just fine.
That's why I don't get Applebee's. They take the "fake local bar" to a new level. Of course that level includes destroying everything you might go to a bar for. For example, here in my home city of Philly they put in a new Applebee's near my office. I had a bad experience in the past, (my first Applebee experience consisted of being told that they only cook their burgers "well done". What the fuck is the point of that? If you are that worried about being sued, don't sell burgers), but one day I decided to give it a shot.
Mid-week afternoon lunch, baseball game, just looking for some food, maybe a beer or two while I catch some baseball. I walk in and the place is deserted. Empty. I sit by myself near the bar. Cheerful waitress takes my order, miller lite draft and a chicken sandwich (avoiding the burger for the aforementioned reason). Not too difficult, right?
The bar is huge, but not a single flat screen in sight. One or two old tv's with the sound off. Blaring through the speakers is muzak, not even crappy soft-rock radio, muzak. On the table is one of those inventions that lets you hear the tv, its like a wireless radio, but I have to turn up the volume so loud its annoying.
Ah, here comes the beer. Practically room temp. Not so tasty for miller lite. It tasted like warm, soapy crap. At this point its too late to run because my food has come out in appox. 3 mins. Not a good sign. The chicken is rubbery and almost seems undercooked. The fries have clearly been sitting under a heat lamp most of the day. The killer? The beer is $4 and the sandwich is $8.99!
The strangest thing is the Mgr. comes over, as I am the only customer in the place, and asks how everything is. I didn't have the energy or time to list how pathetic the whole meal was. Anyway, what I don't understand is how a place like Applebee's exists? Are there people who live in places where this is the only option? Is my experience unique? What person with any other options, and I am including a hot dog cart and forty on the street, would ever go there?
1 comment:
We at Carp Notes had high hopes for ABF. A daily dose of snarky comments that we used to have to wait half a season to receive, in a good year, in Contenders/Pretenders. But alas, it turns out ABF is just a soapbox for the Commish to bitch about his bad chicken sandwich at applebees. You know, they call it Crapplebees for a reason. Look, we don't have a problem if the Commish wants to blog about his daily life (we went through a phase), but dammit, we haven't had a line of the day since Sunday.
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