chains, chains, chains
 

Inspired by the Corporations you love/hate thread, I decided to share.

I am moving in a month from Chapel Hill, NC to Champaign-Urbana, IL. Both cities are home to major universities.

Chapel Hill is a really quirky place - a liberal refuge in the bible belt. Lots of unique botiques, locally own restaurants and a great downtown that runs right next to the UNC campus. Focusing more on the food, you can get a great gourmet meal just about anywhere in town - my favorite being Crook's Corner (www.crookscorner.com). Even the restaurants located on Franklin Street that cater to the college crowd (ie cheap eats) are unique and locally owned. Chapel Hill has very few franchise/chain restaurants. There is an Applebee's, your typical pizza places, and fast food restaurants - but not a lot. The town abhors chains... so it's surprising that we even have what we have.

Champaign-Urbana, on the other hand, is home to practically every chain restaurant/store I know. Even on the main street through the college town, most of the restaurants are chain restaurants. Absolutely no origniality. While it was funny to see all of these chain restaurants, it also made me a bit sad.

It seems that a town now gauges it's success by the presence of all of these chains. Come visit CITY X, we now have a Chili's, Bennigans and a Red Lobster. It just makes me really sad. Local restaurants are something that can truly make a place unique and you will always remember what you had to eat before you can remember anything else about a place you visited.

There's a place in Brantford, Ontario that makes a back bacon sandwich that you would kill your family for.

The bacon comes from a pig farm down the road, and it is the sweetest, most tender pork you can possibly imagine. Raised the old way, not the same shitty pork you find in supermarkets now that is "white" and flavourless for marketing purposes...

Six or seven bucks, and you get two inches thick of the stuff. I've driven to Brantford explicitly for that damn sandwich.

And Waterloo, there's a Greek place that does things the old fashioned way, with the best gyros you will ever eat. Two for five bucks. Homemade tzatziki, shit, makes you want to live in the restaurant. I chat soccer with the owner all the time.

And I went to Harveys the other day. They've gotten rid of the "Big Harv", which was a slab of decent beef on an egg bun, because it took more than the maximum 2 moments or whatever they deemed was most economical for burger cooking. Everything you buy is weighed, proportioned, prepackaged, soaked in grease, and prepared by a dude who hates his job. A chain restaurant is (with few exceptions) nothing more than the precedent for automated dinner vending machines.

I want to eat at a place where, if I slap the owner with a massive tip and tell him I just ate the best Goddamn sandwich of my whole life, it'll make his day, and he'll remember me next time.

I'm glad the chains are so popular, I really am. It keeps the ruffage out of the really good joints.

Champaign's not that bad. You just need to get off of Mattis. Every town has its chain restaurant row. There's lots to do in Champaign. Lots of neat places right around the college for the young and single. If you have kids, check out the castle park - not the official name, but what everyone calls it.

What takes you to Champaign?

My husband is going to be a post-doc at UofI and I'm going to be an unemployed lawyer amongst the chains... Champaign isn't that bad, but it's not the best place for someone who is a city person :). Oh well, it's just a 2 year stint and chicago is close enough that I can get away.

There's a place in Warrensburg, MO that has the BEST barbeque pulled pork sandwich I've ever had, served with sweet potato fries. It's called Perry Foster's BBQ, and I've been known to drive three hours one-way just to eat there.

A couple of years in Champaign and you won't want to leave. -- Aside from the lack of jobs, that is.

Yeah. We were good friends with another couple doing something similar. He had a law degree and had passed the bar. Then decided to go back for an advanced degree in ... trombone.

Ok. Maybe not that similar. :o

As of right now, I'm not even going to bother with the bar exam - it's an expensive investment for such a short time in a state - I'd rather have the money to spend at IKEA :).

I'm thinking about getting my LLM in Intellectual Property Law from John Marshall in Chicago, so I could be looking at a daily 2 hour commute.

I'll want to leave Champaign... I was never a big fan of U of I - it has an ugly campus and I hate that nasty orange. :p :lol: :o

damn it, after reading the title of this thread, I have Aretha Franklin's song stuck in my head..."chain chain chaaaaain, chain of fooools..."

Where about in Warrensburg is this place? Sounds like a joint I'd like to try when I go to visit my grandparents for their 50th anniversary this summer (they live in Troy, MO about 15 minutes from Warrensburg).

Holy Sheeeit! I just registered so I can heartily recommend the above recommendation. Perry's GEORGIA style BBQ is simply the best I've ever had. He's one character, too. Regularly in trouble with the law for drinking and brawling on Pine street, regularly busted for cleanliness violations - but he makes the best goddam barbeque in the state, beating out the "famous" KC bbq joints by miles. I've never gotten sick eating his food, but I know people who have. It's the chance you take eating the best BBQ of your life.

It's located at the corner of DD hwy and hwy 13 (hwy 13 is the main street in Warrensburg), on the south side of town. It is definitely worth a long drive to pig out on his crap!!!!

BTW, I'm luckily enough to be a native

I'm so there. If people are willing to endure food poisoning for the food you know it's good.

There is one good bbq joint I've found in NY State and it's in Syracuse -- several hours from where I live.

http://www.dinosaurbarbque.com/

I lived in champaign from when I should have gone to kindergarten until 3rd grade, nice place from what I recall... and yeah Chapel Hill is a cool place, kinda like Lawrence.. sorry braindead today.. whiskey and chess can be a dangerous combination..


and as far as chain resturaunts go? the only two I frequent are Jimmy Jons and Subway.

and how do mutt? nice to see yet another mid-westerner on this thing :)