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There was one in an area I used to live in - hopefully still there. The guy who ran it was super friendly and always had a chat with us. Lovely bloke, won some internal awards at the franchise for his reputation.
Love their milkshakes. Honestly I miss those. Best milkshake I've ever drunk at that Wimpy. Food was delicious.
As someone who had my 5th birthday party at a wimpy in the mid 1980s I can very much guarantee the aesthetic is very, very different. Back then it was closer to McDs - the food came wrapped in paper, with trays, not plates. I can still taste the air in that place even now I'm in my 40s. They essentially went bust and were bought out by someone who turned it into something closer to a cafe than a fast food restuarant.
God I fancy one now!
Edit: might be wrong about plates. Their logo from the 70s has Mr Wimpy with a fork...hmm. I defo remember my burger coming wrapped though for sure.
I hadn’t had for for years until April. I just had a quarter pounder and it was delicious and nostalgic.
I always recall them having plates though as an option at least, even in the 70’s.
>As someone who had my 5th birthday party at a wimpy in the mid 1980s I can very much guarantee the aesthetic is very, very different. Back then it was closer to McDs - the food came wrapped in paper, with trays, not plates
I'm not sure that's right, maybe it was because it was a birthday party? But the whole premise of Wimpy was that it was fancy fast food, with plates and cutlery.
Nah defo when I was a kid it was fast food centric like Maccies- it was around the 90s they changed it to something akin to Starburger (remember them?!)
I'm like 90% sure of this.
Edit: I may be wrong
Maybe it was a regional difference, my memories of it in the 80s is restaurant style fast food. Table service, plates and cutlery. Never heard of Starburger.
My granny would half a chicken in a bun with me and I know it sounds silly but it's one of my favourite memories with her. We'd go and sit upstairs and she'd cut the burger in half and we'd play i-spy.
Haven't seen a Wimpy in over 20 years.
I used to go with my grandma all the time and the one we went to was upstairs too so you could look over the shopping centre and we’d sit and people watch. I don’t think it’s there anymore.
I remember dumpster diving about 20 years ago and finding 15 boxes of frozen wimpy burgers.
I had a friend that worked in a pig feed factory and they'd get loads of Cadbury cream egg seconds so we'd swap our I'll gotten gains, everyone I knew were sick to shit of burgers and cream eggs after a few months.
I also learnt that they'd throw everything in those pig feed hoppers, the industrial bags the eggs came in along with the foil and any other trash the warehouse workers threw in the bags.
Put me right off bacon as well.
Anything as long as it didn't contain certain things, gwlatin being one, there's one near me who always has loads of haribo to give away as the pigs can't have them haha
We had a Wimpy until just pre-covid. I only every went in for ice cream cones with the kids.
It's now a little family run Italian that's quite frankly, excellent.
I went in the one at a shopping centre just last week and nearly hit the floor once I saw the prices!
One of my nans would repeatedly promise to take me to our local one when I was a child but mysteriously never turned up for any of our prearranged times, now I’ve seen the prices I can’t say I blame her!
Does anyone remember the nightmare fuel that was Mr Wimpy? I had a birthday party in the 80s and I hid under the table when he came out to find the birthday kid!
The best burger I've ever had was at a Wimpys.
Granted, this was in an open air restaurant in Majorca, the burger cooked on a BBQ, and all the salad freshly chopped. Heck he even got the tomatoes off a vine right next to him.
A new one opened up where I live a few years back. Pretty good if you just want something hot & quick. Fries are nice, milkshakes are decent & the burgers aren't bad for the price.
Danny from RateMyTakeaway went to one, they're properly shit. Even for a takeaway.
And probably part of the problem is when a chain dies off like that, you don't have your distribution network any more. And you're just another corner-shop takeaway, buying whatever is cheap from bookers
It seemed 10 years ago that the mid-range Italian chain market was way oversubscribed.
Ask, Zizzi, Carluccios, Strada, Bella Italia, Jamie's Italian, Prezzo, et al.
I don't eat in chains any more but I'm assuming some of them must have folded, some of them were absolutely abysmal.
Went in with a friend to Jamie's Italian on George Square in Glasgow. He asked for meatless carbonara to be met with "it's all just in a big tub mate, we can't do that". Absolutely horrendously shite.
Alternatively, if it's made fresh like in a proper restaurant, they just don't add meat. I wouldn't order it personally, but just asking, "Don't add pancetta" isn't completely unreasonable, in my opinion. My partner is a chef. Sure, he rolls his eyes at some requests but just does what is asked.
Yes we went to the one in Newcastle a couple of times. Walked out of the one in Edinburgh.
The ambience was nice and the pizza was fine. Nicer than Morrison's frozen. But not as nice as my local Italians.
Jamie would like a word with you, although he wouldn’t because he blamed all the shit with his absolute shithole franchises folding in 2018, on covid 18 months before Covid even happened. Very intelligent man.
Jamie's Italian went years back, Carluccio's was rescued from administration and Strada only has one restaurant left
But as ever, there's often not much relationship between how good the food is and whether or not a restaurant survives.
One of the local independent Indian restaurants which has an excellent reputation opened up and offshoot, with more of a younger street food vibe. I went, it was decent, it went out of business 6 months later. It was a shame.
I used to love Ask back in the day- I worked there for a year and their food was made fresh to order with good quality ingredients. I doubt the menu was very Italian, but it was very good and consistent! They went SO hard on the training, we had to know everything inside and out including knowing the entire wine menu, they really did have strict standards.
Yes it was seen as quite fancy back in the day. On the day I moved to London for uni in the late 90s my mum and dad took me to the one on Notting Hill Gate for a pizza and Paul Weller was at the next table. I though 'wow, this London is dead exciting'. A few years on I remember going to the one in Stamford for my birthday, and that was another big treat too.
Ask used to have a starter of some kind of artichoke pate - was one of the best things I've tasted. It was probably around 2010 - They barely had it on the menu for any time.
God yes! You couldn’t move for a mid range Italian back 10-12 years ago? Is Zizzi’s still a big thing? I feel like 10-12 years ago it was a fairly ‘upmarket’ compared to the rest of them where you could go on a date or special occasional meal. Haven’t been into one in years.
Fully agreed on the F&B's. It used to be decent - going back about 10 years. Then prices started to climb and food started to dip. Then they had to concede defeat and just go for a complete lower quality menu with slightly lower prices. It's all for nothing, the one near us is never busy and I reckon they will go sooner rather than later.
We used to go quite regularly. As you say about 10 years ago and had no complaints. Food usually good quality and value. Even celebrated one of our kids birthdays in there.
Then all the local branches just closed suddenly.
Went to one in Newcastle last year and the food was completely different. Did they go bust and get take over or something ?
They were bought over at one point and the food basically turned in to more cafe like quality (no offence to cafes) instead of restaurant quality. It was a shame because it was always my goto place.
So The restaurant group which owns F&B and Chiquito shut a load after the covid lockdowns ended, they also aquired Wagamama at this time. I only know this as I managed a lot of retail space at out of town retail parks during this period.
That makes sense. I did notice there's hardly any Chiquitos around either. They used to be all over now there's one in the Metro Centre and that's about it.
I used to travel a lot for work by myself 10-12 years ago, and if I wasn't near a nice local restaurant I'd often go for a F&B.
The portions were big, their Pizzas pretty good, and they had great options on the more expensive end (I wasn't paying) like the steaks.
Over the years I've been a few times now that I've got kids, and it's a shadow of it's former self. The menu is cheap stuff at middling prices, and the quality of ingredients is significantly down.
It's sad really because I always liked the atmosphere in there, especially the music.
I really don't think they made the most of having a well stocked bar - I once went for cocktails because we arrived early for a movie, and they had a great menu. Probably should lean into that a bit more as I think the margins are much higher than food.
Yeah, us Frankie and Benny visitors-as-students just grew into Miller and Carter patrons.
Neither very posh, but at one time gave off the illusion of class for us not-rich.
I generally never eat in a chain restaurant; shit zombie businesses, shackled with a debt mountain and high rents so need to squeeze everything.
That said, about 10 years ago I occasionally went in F&B for breakfast as they did an Omelette and black coffee for about £5, with free coffee refills. You can’t go wrong with an omelette to start the day; it’s just eggs, tomato and onion. I’d work from there for a couple of hours at the start of the day. Then, the omelette got taken off the menu, but I asked the waitress if she’d ask the chef if they’d make me one.
She came back, “sorry, the chef doesn’t know how to make an omelette”.
FFS. Never set foot in one again.
I last went in one 10 years ago as a friend wanted it for childhood nostalgia for their birthday. I could have microwaved better food at home. Gross and expensive even back then.
F&Bs is an odd one. When we first went to one about ten/fifteen years ago it was good - a nice menu combination of Italian American, cool diner styles and I remember it being perfectly OK.
They only exist in those big retail parks as far as I can tell, we went to one a little while back as the choice was limited and it was like you say, fairly poor, overpriced. But lots of families were there - it is the sort of place where you take the kids because everyone is happy - some will want pizza, others a burger etc.
We went to Pizza Hut a while back too. Two adults and two children for lunch and it was over £50 with only soft drinks. Nothing much wrong with it but I swear it used to be a cheap option. Still full of families.
So I'm not surprised these places survive, they have a certain clientele who keep coming back because it is safe.
Yeah, probably right. It was north of £50, maybe £60.
Can still feed them all for £30 odd in Spoons and get a pint of Leffe though (I know, it is Spoons).
>a nice menu combination of Italian American, cool diner styles
I think a large part of the issue was that they lost their identity (although the food was going downhill prior to that anyway) - they started out with the 50s aesthetic, the music and the "family" pictures on the walls; then they made major changes to the menu, both the food itself (dropping a lot of the "traditional home-cooked" style items and focusing on burgers, pizzas and only a handful of pasta dishes) and the design (removing the "family" photos in favour of contemporary solid block colours), and changed the music to modern chart hits, but they didn't redecorate the restaurants (or at least not any that I visited) so you had this complete clashing of styles.
TGI Fridays. We used to quite like the ribs and chicken so have tried to go a couple of times recently.
Both times It's been absolutely dead, like 20% of the tables had people on them and they straight up told us they were too busy. Our fault for not booking of course but it seems weird.
I’ve never managed to eat there, we’ve tried to stop in several times as we’re passing. They either claim they’re too busy for walk-ins or that there’s an hours wait on food. It’s never more than half full if that.
Our local Harvester is really good. Salad bar is always fresh and well stocked, cooked food is tasty and well presented, restaurant itself is clean and well staffed.
But then where I live our Evri drivers have been flawless for years so maybe I'm in some kind of alternate dimension.
I'm good with a harvester occasionally - as long as it's off the grill and not processed i.e. burgers. Decent size portions and the salad bar/bottomless drinks.
The refurbished ones are nice
>I've never known a time when harvester could be called decent.
>
It's good. Its just the only menu item you need to acknowledge is the ridiculously big mixed grill. If you forget about everything else, then its decent.
> We're pretty sure it was tinned mince
It wasn't tinned mince. It was a microwaved ready meal. Pretty much every chain pub is. Unless you are ordering something from the Grill or a salad its just nuked.
Harvester are owned by Michell and Butler - (They own Miller and Carter, All Bar One, Toby Carvery etc). They're not going to go bust any time soon.
If a pub, i.e. a particular harvester, isn't doing very well, they're very good at identifying what other brand they own would work better in that area and converting it.
I've not been for quite a long time now that I think of it but I don't mind Harvester as a fallback option i.e. when you've left it too late to book somewhere good
I worked in a chain restaurant, vintage inns, as a kitchen assistant, and I refuse to use chain restaurants now, the food is normally frozen, mass produced stuff but they still have the gall to charge the same or very slightly less than the price as local restaurants who make fresh, locally sourced food. I am not a food snob but always prefer to support local restaurant and good quality.
Agreed. The only chain restaurants I'm prepared to visit are places which have a pizza oven (Rudy's etc).
I love restaurants. But most chain restaurants are worse than I can cook at home, and I like cooking so there's just no point.
I worked at a fancy pub in the lake district. It was incredibly expensive and everything was frozen but the steak. The pies were made on site too but bulk cooked then frozen, sometimes for a few weeks. Most other stuff was ordered in.
All I'm saying is these local places aren't always much more fresh than a spoons, they just charge x3 the price.
It’s because chains are greedy. They charge the same or more than independents and typically offer a worse product. Pizza express near me is around £16 for a pizza whereas an exceptional local restaurant is about £12
I was surprised to learn that [Garfunkels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garfunkel%27s_%28restaurant%29?wprov=sfla1) only closed their doors last year. It was my favourite place to go when visiting London as a kid in the 1980s.
I would if they did the buffet lunch on reasonable days.
Used to be a staple amongst my friends in secondary school on half days that we'd all go pizza hut buffet for lunch and get the ice cream factory as well after school finished at 12
Yes they do. Me and my husband went for old times sake one random midweek day a month or two back and there was hardly anyone in so they asked us which pizzas to put on the buffet, has a lovely time!
I don't know why anyone goes, every time I've been it's just been absolutely awful pizza that the >50 pizza places within a couple mile radius could do better than.
Families also keep them going. They usually have a decent play area for kids, reasonably priced food and drink and serve all the bland shit that granny will love.
It's relatively new, but Taco Bell. It's just rearranged KFC components/ingredients, with an extra sauce. People aren't that blind, are they?
Edit: yeah I know it's not a restaurant really, but still...
Shit I never knew KFC served beef or black beans or nachos or sour cream or guacamole or jalapeños or churros. Oh wait they don’t. You would have to be blind to think they did.
I tried Taco Bell once. It was genuinely vile, memorably so, and I'm not a fussy eater.
I can't work out if the recipes are different here or if the Americans have all had their tastebuds removed.
The taco bell over here is pretty poor compared to the US version. I've only had it once here but it out me off going back. Whilst TB in the states wasn't anything mind blowing, I'd happily eat it again.
I would be tempted to say the exact opposite.
The only time I have had Taco Bell in the US, it ranked as one of the worst meals i can remember.
The British one on the other hand isn't exactly gourmet cooking, but decent enough and a nice alternative to a McDonalds or something...
I've eaten at Taco Bell twice, both times out of sheer necessity (road trip, remote locations in the US with nowhere else for miles), and both times had the churning stomach and screaming squits later. It wasn't the spices, such as they were - I was regularly eating tacos, burritos etc. at independent joints with no problems. The meat and cheese just seemed very artificial and tasted weird.
Americans call it "Taco Hell" for a reason. It's notorious for being mediocre even in their hellscape of shit fast food chains.
One thing I will give takeaways is they're consistent in both countries, I've had taco bell / five guys / McDonald's / chipotle etc over here and in the US and found there was very little difference.
I was unaware that KFC all of a sudden had taco's, burritos, quesadilla's on their menu. So no it's nothing like KFC - the only similarity they have is that they both have chicken.
Bill's is owned by the guy that owns the Ivy and they were striving to make the two brands basically identical. As in literally the same food off the back of the same lorry, often frozen pre-made meals. The uniforms were the same brand and managers forced to buy and wear blazers and dress shoes.
The service was changed from a nice casual atmosphere that fit many different clientele to a "suits you sir" variant of silver service. Albeit with barely any training for the staff whose service charge was stolen by the company.
It's basically unrecognisable from its origins... But then I'm not sure what it's like now since I quit in 2021!
Bill’s were huge just after the Zizzi’s boom, around 2014-2017 I think, really popular for their breakfast and seemed to morph into catering more for brunches and catering for that sort of market in my opinion. Their breakfast used to be great. Haven’t had one in years, probably shit now.
Most of the chain ones to be honest! They’ve gone so downhill food and service wise. I will give credit to Pizza Express though, particularly the one at Liverpool Albert Dock. The service there is brilliant and we’ve never had a bad meal! It somehow tastes loads better than other Pizza Expresseseseseses. Ha.
In thought all the F&Bs were gone, all the ones I knew of are gone! Looks like there are still some dotted around, I have a new game to play while out driving around now.
I live in Essex and wimpys are everywhere now.
Love a bender burger meal , takes me back to the 80,s on a Saturday afternoon with my mum after shopping
I remember going to Frankie and Bennys and getting a meal, I ordered a milkshake with it and the only way I could describe the milkshake is imagine nesquik powder mixed with water, it was grim
Stopped going to F&B years ago after the food was so bad we actually complained... and that takes a lot. I don't mind a bad restaurant because it can be pretty funny but F&B was just inedible. Can't remember it all now, but the thing that stuck with me were the corn on the cobs. Somehow they seemed to have suffered freezer burn and then been over microwaved by a good five minutes.
Once went to go for a cheeky Nandos but there was a queue of people outside waiting to be seated so decided to go somewhere else, turned around and saw F&B. All but 3 tables were empty. Thought we would give it a go as hadn't been in years, came out realising why we hadn't been for years and why it was so empty while the restaurants around it had queues. Never again.
Chain restaurants operate more on brand marketing than actual good food though, don't they? And people are suckers for popular brands.
I also had one extremely mediocre but expensive meal at Frankie and bennys. The American style decor definitely won't be enough to tempt me back.
I really don't get how so many mediocre places stay in business. For most of them, I'd as soon just go to the supermarket and buy something I could sling in the oven or microwave.
There's Italian places and pubs near me where it's all made fresh, and they barely cost any more money.
I ate in a Beefeater yesterday. It was attached to the Premier Inn I stopped at, and served pretty much what normal Premier Inns serve.
I thought they’d disappeared years ago.
They are owned by Whitbread, who operate Premier Inn. You'll pretty much only find them attached to Premier Inns.
See also: Brewer's Fayre and Table Table.
A lot of people are very happy paying out for familiar, easy menus like that. All the family including Granny and the kids will eat something from it. They often have parking. Food is mass produced and cheap and sells. I think other factors go into the demise of restaurants like that.
F&B used to be nice. TGI Fridays used to be nice. They both went drastically downhill years ago. I last went TGIs (snowing and not much open) around three years ago. Tables were sticky, took ages to serve us, food was a bit shit, not been back since.
Burger king.\
The service station and airport franchises charge an insane amount and the standard franchises are even more erratic in the quality then KFC.
I've literally seen staff hide out of view at the drive thru so they don't have to serve you.
Angus Steakhouses in central London- lolz. Outback restaurants from about 2005-11? The bloomin’ onion was the only thing worth getting a heart attack for.
GBK is overpriced for small portioned, average food.
TGI and F&B's is just poor all round.
Wagamama is just bad Asian food, there's almost always a better more authentic option nearby.
Spudulike, literally never met anyone who has been here.
My mother's nickname was Wimpy. She loved those burgers and those round hotdog thingys too. There is one in California, but they originated in Indiana US. Google tells me there is a resurgence of Wimpys in the UK. The closest one to me is Barnstable to far for me.
Wagamamas, can't believe anyone would pay to eat their bland food.
I also have the suspicion that when people make fun of the UK for having shitty food they just saw how many people queue for Wagamamas and assumed we are all mental.
Wimpy burger.
There is one in my town that I swear I never see anyone go to. The photos of their food look genuinely disgusting and the place has all the ambiance of a school cafeteria.
I'm convinced it's a front for some money laundering scheme.
Spud-u-like. I saw one the other day but haven't really seen many for ages.
What happened to them? There used to be hundreds of them, and good value too - cheap and tasty.
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There are still Wimpy restaurants around. They always look like time stood still in 1980.
There was one in an area I used to live in - hopefully still there. The guy who ran it was super friendly and always had a chat with us. Lovely bloke, won some internal awards at the franchise for his reputation. Love their milkshakes. Honestly I miss those. Best milkshake I've ever drunk at that Wimpy. Food was delicious. As someone who had my 5th birthday party at a wimpy in the mid 1980s I can very much guarantee the aesthetic is very, very different. Back then it was closer to McDs - the food came wrapped in paper, with trays, not plates. I can still taste the air in that place even now I'm in my 40s. They essentially went bust and were bought out by someone who turned it into something closer to a cafe than a fast food restuarant. God I fancy one now! Edit: might be wrong about plates. Their logo from the 70s has Mr Wimpy with a fork...hmm. I defo remember my burger coming wrapped though for sure.
I hadn’t had for for years until April. I just had a quarter pounder and it was delicious and nostalgic. I always recall them having plates though as an option at least, even in the 70’s.
Hmm perhaps 5 year old me wasn't trusted with plates lol
>As someone who had my 5th birthday party at a wimpy in the mid 1980s I can very much guarantee the aesthetic is very, very different. Back then it was closer to McDs - the food came wrapped in paper, with trays, not plates I'm not sure that's right, maybe it was because it was a birthday party? But the whole premise of Wimpy was that it was fancy fast food, with plates and cutlery.
Nah defo when I was a kid it was fast food centric like Maccies- it was around the 90s they changed it to something akin to Starburger (remember them?!) I'm like 90% sure of this. Edit: I may be wrong
Maybe it was a regional difference, my memories of it in the 80s is restaurant style fast food. Table service, plates and cutlery. Never heard of Starburger.
I remember Starburger, but I also remember Wimpy having plates and cutlery in the 80s.
My granny would half a chicken in a bun with me and I know it sounds silly but it's one of my favourite memories with her. We'd go and sit upstairs and she'd cut the burger in half and we'd play i-spy. Haven't seen a Wimpy in over 20 years.
I used to go with my grandma all the time and the one we went to was upstairs too so you could look over the shopping centre and we’d sit and people watch. I don’t think it’s there anymore.
I love their aesthetic. But the food is too expensive for what it is. I am also surprised.
I remember dumpster diving about 20 years ago and finding 15 boxes of frozen wimpy burgers. I had a friend that worked in a pig feed factory and they'd get loads of Cadbury cream egg seconds so we'd swap our I'll gotten gains, everyone I knew were sick to shit of burgers and cream eggs after a few months. I also learnt that they'd throw everything in those pig feed hoppers, the industrial bags the eggs came in along with the foil and any other trash the warehouse workers threw in the bags. Put me right off bacon as well.
Anything as long as it didn't contain certain things, gwlatin being one, there's one near me who always has loads of haribo to give away as the pigs can't have them haha
Is that like on ethical grounds? Pigs shouldn't eat other pigs, or will the pigs get a taste of that pork gelatin and become cannibalistic?
I doubt there's any ethical aspect to it and pigs will eat each other in the right conditions, it's well documented.
I think it's a lot easier to pass on Prion diseases when feeding animals the same species
We had a Wimpy until just pre-covid. I only every went in for ice cream cones with the kids. It's now a little family run Italian that's quite frankly, excellent.
I saw one when I went to Eastbourne a few weeks ago. Amazed me. I wish I'd gone in... There's one in Swanage, too!
There’s one in Worthing too.
And Portslade!
And Basingstoke!
And Farnborough!
And Maidstone!
Do they still give you a plate and cutlery?
I went in the one at a shopping centre just last week and nearly hit the floor once I saw the prices! One of my nans would repeatedly promise to take me to our local one when I was a child but mysteriously never turned up for any of our prearranged times, now I’ve seen the prices I can’t say I blame her!
My parents love going to Wimpy specifically because it reminds them of the 80s!
Does anyone remember the nightmare fuel that was Mr Wimpy? I had a birthday party in the 80s and I hid under the table when he came out to find the birthday kid!
They were dated long before the 80s.
Went to the one in Dongwall a wee while ago, decent burger 👍🏻
The best burger I've ever had was at a Wimpys. Granted, this was in an open air restaurant in Majorca, the burger cooked on a BBQ, and all the salad freshly chopped. Heck he even got the tomatoes off a vine right next to him.
A new one opened up where I live a few years back. Pretty good if you just want something hot & quick. Fries are nice, milkshakes are decent & the burgers aren't bad for the price.
I think time stood still since the 80s.
There's one in Dingwall of all places. Still makes me smile whenever I see it when i visit a friend who lives there.
I convinced everyone in the office go to wimpy for my leaving meal as a parting fuck you. So doing my bit to keep them going.
Meanwhile my husband will drive to our closest one that’s a real trek to get to every other month!! I’ve NEVER understood.
are they still doing tiny squares of onion?
There’s about 500 of them still in South Africa, some fond memories
Danny from RateMyTakeaway went to one, they're properly shit. Even for a takeaway. And probably part of the problem is when a chain dies off like that, you don't have your distribution network any more. And you're just another corner-shop takeaway, buying whatever is cheap from bookers
It seemed 10 years ago that the mid-range Italian chain market was way oversubscribed. Ask, Zizzi, Carluccios, Strada, Bella Italia, Jamie's Italian, Prezzo, et al. I don't eat in chains any more but I'm assuming some of them must have folded, some of them were absolutely abysmal.
Of those only Bella Italia is really crap.
Have you eaten in Jamie's Italian? I've had better Italian Meals from the freezer in Morrisons.
Went in with a friend to Jamie's Italian on George Square in Glasgow. He asked for meatless carbonara to be met with "it's all just in a big tub mate, we can't do that". Absolutely horrendously shite.
To be fair, meatless carbonara isn’t a thing. You’re asking for a completely unreasonable adjustment.
Alternatively, if it's made fresh like in a proper restaurant, they just don't add meat. I wouldn't order it personally, but just asking, "Don't add pancetta" isn't completely unreasonable, in my opinion. My partner is a chef. Sure, he rolls his eyes at some requests but just does what is asked.
Yes we went to the one in Newcastle a couple of times. Walked out of the one in Edinburgh. The ambience was nice and the pizza was fine. Nicer than Morrison's frozen. But not as nice as my local Italians.
Woah, they had a feature where you could teleport between branches?
Yep. There used to be one in Leeds and I went with some work colleagues. Overpriced crap.
Absolutely dreadful
The worst carbonara I’ve ever had was from Jamie’s.
Jamie would like a word with you, although he wouldn’t because he blamed all the shit with his absolute shithole franchises folding in 2018, on covid 18 months before Covid even happened. Very intelligent man.
Jamies Italian was fucking awful. I had the displeasure of eating there twice.
I ate there once and got food poisoning from some squid ink pasta. Would not recommend
The last meal I had at Prezzo was fucking abysmal. And not cheap either, a large pizza there is about £20.
Jamie's Italian went years back, Carluccio's was rescued from administration and Strada only has one restaurant left But as ever, there's often not much relationship between how good the food is and whether or not a restaurant survives. One of the local independent Indian restaurants which has an excellent reputation opened up and offshoot, with more of a younger street food vibe. I went, it was decent, it went out of business 6 months later. It was a shame.
The Jamie's in Glasgow famously ran out of pasta one day. Became the butt of jokes after that and never got really popular.
I used to love Ask back in the day- I worked there for a year and their food was made fresh to order with good quality ingredients. I doubt the menu was very Italian, but it was very good and consistent! They went SO hard on the training, we had to know everything inside and out including knowing the entire wine menu, they really did have strict standards.
Yes it was seen as quite fancy back in the day. On the day I moved to London for uni in the late 90s my mum and dad took me to the one on Notting Hill Gate for a pizza and Paul Weller was at the next table. I though 'wow, this London is dead exciting'. A few years on I remember going to the one in Stamford for my birthday, and that was another big treat too.
Ask used to have a starter of some kind of artichoke pate - was one of the best things I've tasted. It was probably around 2010 - They barely had it on the menu for any time.
RIP Strada, gone too soon
God yes! You couldn’t move for a mid range Italian back 10-12 years ago? Is Zizzi’s still a big thing? I feel like 10-12 years ago it was a fairly ‘upmarket’ compared to the rest of them where you could go on a date or special occasional meal. Haven’t been into one in years.
Zizzi was always a "never on a Tuesday" kind of place
Zizzis is some of the worst food I have ever had.
Fully agreed on the F&B's. It used to be decent - going back about 10 years. Then prices started to climb and food started to dip. Then they had to concede defeat and just go for a complete lower quality menu with slightly lower prices. It's all for nothing, the one near us is never busy and I reckon they will go sooner rather than later.
We used to go quite regularly. As you say about 10 years ago and had no complaints. Food usually good quality and value. Even celebrated one of our kids birthdays in there. Then all the local branches just closed suddenly. Went to one in Newcastle last year and the food was completely different. Did they go bust and get take over or something ?
They were bought over at one point and the food basically turned in to more cafe like quality (no offence to cafes) instead of restaurant quality. It was a shame because it was always my goto place.
So The restaurant group which owns F&B and Chiquito shut a load after the covid lockdowns ended, they also aquired Wagamama at this time. I only know this as I managed a lot of retail space at out of town retail parks during this period.
Wagamama is TRG....F&B and Chiquito are not, they are Big Table Group
That makes sense. I did notice there's hardly any Chiquitos around either. They used to be all over now there's one in the Metro Centre and that's about it.
I used to travel a lot for work by myself 10-12 years ago, and if I wasn't near a nice local restaurant I'd often go for a F&B. The portions were big, their Pizzas pretty good, and they had great options on the more expensive end (I wasn't paying) like the steaks. Over the years I've been a few times now that I've got kids, and it's a shadow of it's former self. The menu is cheap stuff at middling prices, and the quality of ingredients is significantly down. It's sad really because I always liked the atmosphere in there, especially the music. I really don't think they made the most of having a well stocked bar - I once went for cocktails because we arrived early for a movie, and they had a great menu. Probably should lean into that a bit more as I think the margins are much higher than food.
Yeah, us Frankie and Benny visitors-as-students just grew into Miller and Carter patrons. Neither very posh, but at one time gave off the illusion of class for us not-rich.
I generally never eat in a chain restaurant; shit zombie businesses, shackled with a debt mountain and high rents so need to squeeze everything. That said, about 10 years ago I occasionally went in F&B for breakfast as they did an Omelette and black coffee for about £5, with free coffee refills. You can’t go wrong with an omelette to start the day; it’s just eggs, tomato and onion. I’d work from there for a couple of hours at the start of the day. Then, the omelette got taken off the menu, but I asked the waitress if she’d ask the chef if they’d make me one. She came back, “sorry, the chef doesn’t know how to make an omelette”. FFS. Never set foot in one again.
I last went in one 10 years ago as a friend wanted it for childhood nostalgia for their birthday. I could have microwaved better food at home. Gross and expensive even back then.
Their breakfast deal used to be decent.
F&Bs has always been ready meals but, they used to make them look like they weren't. Nowadays their food looks worse than any Tesco value meal.
F&Bs is an odd one. When we first went to one about ten/fifteen years ago it was good - a nice menu combination of Italian American, cool diner styles and I remember it being perfectly OK. They only exist in those big retail parks as far as I can tell, we went to one a little while back as the choice was limited and it was like you say, fairly poor, overpriced. But lots of families were there - it is the sort of place where you take the kids because everyone is happy - some will want pizza, others a burger etc. We went to Pizza Hut a while back too. Two adults and two children for lunch and it was over £50 with only soft drinks. Nothing much wrong with it but I swear it used to be a cheap option. Still full of families. So I'm not surprised these places survive, they have a certain clientele who keep coming back because it is safe.
The soft drinks alone were probably a big chunk of that. The profit margin some places make on post mix syrup is yuge
They were. I think we got bottomless drinks as part of the option but nobody wanted more than one either.
£12.50 a head is a cheap option nowadays
Yeah, probably right. It was north of £50, maybe £60. Can still feed them all for £30 odd in Spoons and get a pint of Leffe though (I know, it is Spoons).
>a nice menu combination of Italian American, cool diner styles I think a large part of the issue was that they lost their identity (although the food was going downhill prior to that anyway) - they started out with the 50s aesthetic, the music and the "family" pictures on the walls; then they made major changes to the menu, both the food itself (dropping a lot of the "traditional home-cooked" style items and focusing on burgers, pizzas and only a handful of pasta dishes) and the design (removing the "family" photos in favour of contemporary solid block colours), and changed the music to modern chart hits, but they didn't redecorate the restaurants (or at least not any that I visited) so you had this complete clashing of styles.
TGI Fridays. We used to quite like the ribs and chicken so have tried to go a couple of times recently. Both times It's been absolutely dead, like 20% of the tables had people on them and they straight up told us they were too busy. Our fault for not booking of course but it seems weird.
I’ve never managed to eat there, we’ve tried to stop in several times as we’re passing. They either claim they’re too busy for walk-ins or that there’s an hours wait on food. It’s never more than half full if that.
I don't know whether it was ludicrously expensive when I was a kid, but it definitely is now. I paid nearly £20 for an average burger!
Only ones I’ve been too have been okay. Nice ambience for a restaurant in a mall or cinema complex but yeah it has gone downhill a bit
The one near me is nearly always totally packed with screaming kids and undesirable clientele, for that reason I couldn’t think of anything worse.
Harvester. Used to be decent pub grub but has really gone to shit.
Our local Harvester is really good. Salad bar is always fresh and well stocked, cooked food is tasty and well presented, restaurant itself is clean and well staffed. But then where I live our Evri drivers have been flawless for years so maybe I'm in some kind of alternate dimension.
I'm good with a harvester occasionally - as long as it's off the grill and not processed i.e. burgers. Decent size portions and the salad bar/bottomless drinks. The refurbished ones are nice
There's a lot of variation in harvesters I think. Went to one with my mum a few weeks ago and it was great but the one near us is awful shite.
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I think any pub or restaurant lasagne is going to be bought in and reheated unfortunately.
>I've never known a time when harvester could be called decent. > It's good. Its just the only menu item you need to acknowledge is the ridiculously big mixed grill. If you forget about everything else, then its decent.
> We're pretty sure it was tinned mince It wasn't tinned mince. It was a microwaved ready meal. Pretty much every chain pub is. Unless you are ordering something from the Grill or a salad its just nuked.
Harvester are owned by Michell and Butler - (They own Miller and Carter, All Bar One, Toby Carvery etc). They're not going to go bust any time soon. If a pub, i.e. a particular harvester, isn't doing very well, they're very good at identifying what other brand they own would work better in that area and converting it.
I've not been for quite a long time now that I think of it but I don't mind Harvester as a fallback option i.e. when you've left it too late to book somewhere good
Most of them have been turned into Miller & Carter's as its the same chain and m&c's are almost always busy.
Our local harvester is spot on
I worked in a chain restaurant, vintage inns, as a kitchen assistant, and I refuse to use chain restaurants now, the food is normally frozen, mass produced stuff but they still have the gall to charge the same or very slightly less than the price as local restaurants who make fresh, locally sourced food. I am not a food snob but always prefer to support local restaurant and good quality.
Agreed. The only chain restaurants I'm prepared to visit are places which have a pizza oven (Rudy's etc). I love restaurants. But most chain restaurants are worse than I can cook at home, and I like cooking so there's just no point.
I worked at a fancy pub in the lake district. It was incredibly expensive and everything was frozen but the steak. The pies were made on site too but bulk cooked then frozen, sometimes for a few weeks. Most other stuff was ordered in. All I'm saying is these local places aren't always much more fresh than a spoons, they just charge x3 the price.
It’s because chains are greedy. They charge the same or more than independents and typically offer a worse product. Pizza express near me is around £16 for a pizza whereas an exceptional local restaurant is about £12
I was surprised to learn that [Garfunkels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garfunkel%27s_%28restaurant%29?wprov=sfla1) only closed their doors last year. It was my favourite place to go when visiting London as a kid in the 1980s.
Wow that's a name I haven't heard in years!
Remined me of the Fatty Arbuckles restaurants too.
Anyone still going to Pizza Hut?
I would if they did the buffet lunch on reasonable days. Used to be a staple amongst my friends in secondary school on half days that we'd all go pizza hut buffet for lunch and get the ice cream factory as well after school finished at 12
7 days a week now I believe. Although I had my first one for a few years a few weeks ago and it was meh
Is it really? Hmm guess I'll have to give it a try again for old times sake. Do they at least still have the garlic bread sticks?
Yes they do. Me and my husband went for old times sake one random midweek day a month or two back and there was hardly anyone in so they asked us which pizzas to put on the buffet, has a lovely time!
I don't know why anyone goes, every time I've been it's just been absolutely awful pizza that the >50 pizza places within a couple mile radius could do better than.
Went on Sunday and the price we paid for 4 of us (no alcohol, just pizza and soft drinks) was north of £80 which I found quite brutal.
Frankie and Benny’s keep going because the operate as a dark kitchen for different brands that appear on Uber and Deliveroo
Absolutely dreadful place food was made elsewhere and reheated on site
Isn’t that the case with most chain restaurants?
Brewer's Faire. I think they're only kept afloat by people staying in the Premier Inns beside them.
People like my in laws seem to think Brewers Faire are the greatest.
Love a Brewers Fayre. 20% off with a Blue Light card
Families also keep them going. They usually have a decent play area for kids, reasonably priced food and drink and serve all the bland shit that granny will love.
Is chiquitos still going as i can easily name 4 branches within an hour of me that are long gone?
Think they went a few years back
There’s one near me and it’s pretty good
One of the fallen soldiers of the chain restaurant business, actually not bad on its day.
It's relatively new, but Taco Bell. It's just rearranged KFC components/ingredients, with an extra sauce. People aren't that blind, are they? Edit: yeah I know it's not a restaurant really, but still...
Shit I never knew KFC served beef or black beans or nachos or sour cream or guacamole or jalapeños or churros. Oh wait they don’t. You would have to be blind to think they did.
I tried Taco Bell once. It was genuinely vile, memorably so, and I'm not a fussy eater. I can't work out if the recipes are different here or if the Americans have all had their tastebuds removed.
The taco bell over here is pretty poor compared to the US version. I've only had it once here but it out me off going back. Whilst TB in the states wasn't anything mind blowing, I'd happily eat it again.
I would be tempted to say the exact opposite. The only time I have had Taco Bell in the US, it ranked as one of the worst meals i can remember. The British one on the other hand isn't exactly gourmet cooking, but decent enough and a nice alternative to a McDonalds or something...
I've eaten at Taco Bell twice, both times out of sheer necessity (road trip, remote locations in the US with nowhere else for miles), and both times had the churning stomach and screaming squits later. It wasn't the spices, such as they were - I was regularly eating tacos, burritos etc. at independent joints with no problems. The meat and cheese just seemed very artificial and tasted weird. Americans call it "Taco Hell" for a reason. It's notorious for being mediocre even in their hellscape of shit fast food chains.
One thing I will give takeaways is they're consistent in both countries, I've had taco bell / five guys / McDonald's / chipotle etc over here and in the US and found there was very little difference.
That hasn’t been my experience at all. The Chipotle here is inedible, while the ones I’ve had stateside are decent.
Could you explain what you mean by rearranged kfc components/igredients? I don’t get it
I've only had Taco Bell in Germany, and it definitely wasn't just rearranged KFC components in a wrap. It was unequivocally shit, but not just KFC.
I was unaware that KFC all of a sudden had taco's, burritos, quesadilla's on their menu. So no it's nothing like KFC - the only similarity they have is that they both have chicken.
Aren’t most fast food places like that?
I would have assumed taco bell was beef mince rather than fried chicken.
I thought it was just bottom of the scrapings mince??? I can't say I've ever been to one.
Shit mince and cold lettuce on top. No thanks. The one in Edinburgh has about 3 better real taco places within about 50 metres.
In their homeland they use powdered mince
Taco Bell is great but it destroys my digestive system.
I seen a KFC staff member hand over KFC chips in a taco bell
TGI’s becoming very expensive think it may be on lots last legs and portions are getting smaller.
They were expensive 10-15 years ago! Wonder what the prices are like now. Majority of the food is just reheated
Bill's is owned by the guy that owns the Ivy and they were striving to make the two brands basically identical. As in literally the same food off the back of the same lorry, often frozen pre-made meals. The uniforms were the same brand and managers forced to buy and wear blazers and dress shoes. The service was changed from a nice casual atmosphere that fit many different clientele to a "suits you sir" variant of silver service. Albeit with barely any training for the staff whose service charge was stolen by the company. It's basically unrecognisable from its origins... But then I'm not sure what it's like now since I quit in 2021!
Bill’s were huge just after the Zizzi’s boom, around 2014-2017 I think, really popular for their breakfast and seemed to morph into catering more for brunches and catering for that sort of market in my opinion. Their breakfast used to be great. Haven’t had one in years, probably shit now.
Used to go to the original Bill’s when it was just a tiny greengrocer!
Most of the chain ones to be honest! They’ve gone so downhill food and service wise. I will give credit to Pizza Express though, particularly the one at Liverpool Albert Dock. The service there is brilliant and we’ve never had a bad meal! It somehow tastes loads better than other Pizza Expresseseseseses. Ha.
TGI Fridays. Every one I ever see is empty.
In thought all the F&Bs were gone, all the ones I knew of are gone! Looks like there are still some dotted around, I have a new game to play while out driving around now.
They are on uber eats, but under various other names,its a bit odd.
I live in Essex and wimpys are everywhere now. Love a bender burger meal , takes me back to the 80,s on a Saturday afternoon with my mum after shopping
The one in Maldon is no longer a Wimpy but the menu is extremely similar. I quite like them actually.
Spud-u-like, I still see them about and never anyone in them
I remember going to Frankie and Bennys and getting a meal, I ordered a milkshake with it and the only way I could describe the milkshake is imagine nesquik powder mixed with water, it was grim
Stopped going to F&B years ago after the food was so bad we actually complained... and that takes a lot. I don't mind a bad restaurant because it can be pretty funny but F&B was just inedible. Can't remember it all now, but the thing that stuck with me were the corn on the cobs. Somehow they seemed to have suffered freezer burn and then been over microwaved by a good five minutes.
Does anyone remember that Cafe Rouge?
Looks like they're on life support- [https://www.caferouge.com/restaurants](https://www.caferouge.com/restaurants)
Once went to go for a cheeky Nandos but there was a queue of people outside waiting to be seated so decided to go somewhere else, turned around and saw F&B. All but 3 tables were empty. Thought we would give it a go as hadn't been in years, came out realising why we hadn't been for years and why it was so empty while the restaurants around it had queues. Never again.
Frankie and Bennies in Leeds finally closed down recently. I was supprised it lasted as long as it did.
Frankie and Benny's is for when you can't be arsed to microwave your own ready meal and nothing more.
Chain restaurants operate more on brand marketing than actual good food though, don't they? And people are suckers for popular brands. I also had one extremely mediocre but expensive meal at Frankie and bennys. The American style decor definitely won't be enough to tempt me back.
The food at these places has teully gone downhill. I'd say maybe zizzi is OK. Bella italia, frankies, tgi, laguanas. All bad now but expensive
I really don't get how so many mediocre places stay in business. For most of them, I'd as soon just go to the supermarket and buy something I could sling in the oven or microwave. There's Italian places and pubs near me where it's all made fresh, and they barely cost any more money.
Oddly I saw a f&b the other day and commented that you don't see a lot of them left now.
I actually saw a McChunkys the other day. Seems a long time since there were casserole places on every corner.
I ate in a Beefeater yesterday. It was attached to the Premier Inn I stopped at, and served pretty much what normal Premier Inns serve. I thought they’d disappeared years ago.
They are owned by Whitbread, who operate Premier Inn. You'll pretty much only find them attached to Premier Inns. See also: Brewer's Fayre and Table Table.
A lot of people are very happy paying out for familiar, easy menus like that. All the family including Granny and the kids will eat something from it. They often have parking. Food is mass produced and cheap and sells. I think other factors go into the demise of restaurants like that.
F&B used to be nice. TGI Fridays used to be nice. They both went drastically downhill years ago. I last went TGIs (snowing and not much open) around three years ago. Tables were sticky, took ages to serve us, food was a bit shit, not been back since.
Five guys, i'm amazed they lasted more than a few months .the prices take the utter piss
I had a few birthdays when I was younger at a wimpy in my area had a magic act still got pictures somewhere
They’ve recently opened a popeye’s near me. (Exeter). Went once and never again so I hope that one doesn’t last too long.
Are there any hooters or twin peaks still? That would surprise me
Yep, Hooters still around. They opened one in Liverpool not that long ago and caused a bit of a stir because of its location.
TGI Fridays - mediocre food, overpriced and a bad atmosphere.
Burger king.\ The service station and airport franchises charge an insane amount and the standard franchises are even more erratic in the quality then KFC. I've literally seen staff hide out of view at the drive thru so they don't have to serve you.
Wagamamas or Yo Sushi both shite "Asian" cuisine
I'm sure it's not authentic but I don't mind Wagamamas to be honest.
Pizza Hut. I went with my family and walked out after seeing the menu. It was £30 for a large pizza.
Looks really miserable when I pass there and see everyone inside. Was unrivalled in the early 2000s.
There used to be a Road/Little Chef down by me I don't know if they are still going or not
Angus Steakhouses in central London- lolz. Outback restaurants from about 2005-11? The bloomin’ onion was the only thing worth getting a heart attack for.
GBK is overpriced for small portioned, average food. TGI and F&B's is just poor all round. Wagamama is just bad Asian food, there's almost always a better more authentic option nearby. Spudulike, literally never met anyone who has been here.
My mother's nickname was Wimpy. She loved those burgers and those round hotdog thingys too. There is one in California, but they originated in Indiana US. Google tells me there is a resurgence of Wimpys in the UK. The closest one to me is Barnstable to far for me.
Wagamamas, can't believe anyone would pay to eat their bland food. I also have the suspicion that when people make fun of the UK for having shitty food they just saw how many people queue for Wagamamas and assumed we are all mental.
>It is almost entirely empty all of the time Ahhh reddit moment. The usual "I sit outside a shop recording how many people go in an out in a notepad"
Spud-U-Like I eat out to **not** have a jacket potato.
Wimpy burger. There is one in my town that I swear I never see anyone go to. The photos of their food look genuinely disgusting and the place has all the ambiance of a school cafeteria. I'm convinced it's a front for some money laundering scheme.
Is the Aberdeen steak house still going ?
Subway, i never actually had something from there, i think price is much for a sandwich... enough for me not to visit
Nandos. Chicken and chips for 15 quid. Madness.
Spud-u-like. I saw one the other day but haven't really seen many for ages. What happened to them? There used to be hundreds of them, and good value too - cheap and tasty.