Why are you doing this???

When I told friends and family that I was giving up chain restaurants in 2009, the response was similar to if I had said I was planning to spend the year in an igloo eating only orange foods. “Good Lord, why?” was the common reaction.

I can’t really blame them. In your average suburb, city or town it’s a whole lot easier to find a Domino’s or Papa John’s than a family-run pizza joint. And you’ll stumble over five Olive Gardens before finding authentic Italian food.

So why avoid them? Am I some kind of hippie who needs everything I eat to be grown on an organic farm? Do I refuse to eat anything cultivated outside of my state unless it’s delivered in an electric car driven by environmentalists scattering seeds along the side of the highway? Am I a food snob who thinks I’m too good for McDonald’s?

For one, I’m far from a hippie; I have a Republican elephant tattoo. For the most part I could care less if my veggies are organic or if the farmer wore fair-trade overalls. While I will always select locally-produced food over imported when given the choice, I live in Colorado and am not willing to give up bananas, chocolate or pretty much anything that grows between November and April. I may be guilty of wanting high-quality, delicious foods, but I don’t believe there exists a correlation between that and cost, and I’m certainly not above hitting up a drive-thru every once in a while.

So why break the chain? Like most of my life, it all comes down to the food. I’ve had one too many disappointing meals at the restaurants you see advertised on TV. There are too many fantastic flavors at your local, independently-owned places to keep eating riblets and pizones. We live in a lazy, uncreative culture that rewards the status quo. Instead of trying out a new Asian restaurant, we fall back on P.F. Chang’s and Panda Express. That mentality made me miss out on Thai food for the first 19 years of my life. I still shudder to think of those years, or as I now call them, the dark ages.

It’s my intense love for food that has led me to this resolution of sorts. I can no longer bear the fact that I’ve never tasted food from Cambodia, Moldova and so many other regions. I’m going to stop wasting my meals at satisfactory (at best) restaurants that I’ve eaten at hundreds of times and instead seek out the exceptional.

I look forward to eating food that was imagined and prepared where I’m eating it. Where the cook makes what he/she thinks will taste best; not what corporate dictates. Where quality control means each and every plate sent out of the kitchen means something. I fully expect to eat the best food of my life.

Supporting my local economy is a positive externality of breaking the chain. The best way to support local businesses is to buy from them. Even if a franchise is owned by a resident, much of the profits will leave your community, as they’ll be sent away to corporate. That franchiser also doesn’t get to decide from where to purchase their food, and odds are they aren’t patronizing local farms and ranchers. Their ingredients come from a uniform, national supplier who ships the product to restaurants around the country. Of course when food is being transported long distances, it’s not fresh by the time it gets to your plate. And to keep it alive and servable longer, the food must be pumped full of chemicals and preservatives – a reason chains have such high sodium levels.

Better-tasting food, healthier food and environmentally and economically friendlier food – what’s not to love? This is going to be a preservative-free, locally-made piece of cake.
I’ll simply stop eating at chains – cut and dry, right? Well, what is a chain? Unfortunately it’s about as clear as Arby’s sauce. Some are obvious – Applebee’s, Denny’s, Red Lobster, etc. – but then there are local chains. Pizza places, delis and even fast food establishments that are based here out of Colorado but have just as many locations as the Cheesecake Factory.

According to a popular encyclopedia-esque website, a chain restaurant is a set of related restaurants with the same name in many different locations that are either under shared corporate ownership or franchising agreements. The site goes on to say that chains are typically built to a standard format and offer a standard menu. They are often found near shopping malls and tourist areas. Nothing like capitalism to incite your hunger for standard (read: bland) food fare (My words, not the website’s).

Since my motivating factor is the quality of the food I’ll be eating, I decided to define non-chains as locally-based restaurants with no more than 4 locations. While 4 is an arbitrary number, I believe that the more locations to oversee, the more likely the original flavors that made that initial restaurant so good will be sacrificed to appeal to the masses. And I don’t trust any mass that made Kentucky Fried Chicken the second most successful restaurant in America (secret recipe: herbs, spices and disdain). I’m also going to restrict non-chain restaurants to a single state. If they cross state lines, it’s a no-go; food extradition can’t possibly promote good eating.

Another reason why this will be harder than it first appeared is because this decision affects more than just me. Every person I eat with will have to avoid chains when dining with me, and for some people this will be a major challenge. One friend of mine won’t eat anywhere except the major American-food chains. Another won’t go to a Mexican restaurant that doesn’t serve Margaritas. So much for taco carts with her.

There are many restaurants I’ll miss, but I think at the end of the year I’ll consider ’09 to be a culinary success. Join me as I track the difficulties I experience, attempt to convert white bread friends to naan and chronicle my new food discoveries!