The Decline of Red Lobster Is the Decline of the Middle Class

[Warpy]

76. I never could eat that stuff, it's all oversalted

and I'm a much better cook than they are.

I prefer hole in the wall, family owned restaurants. It's where you find the best food (and the worst) in this country. I'm always taking out of towners to a Vietnamese restaurant and car inspection station (they remodeled a gas station) for some of the best food in town. I alternate with the Pueblo restaurant for lunch and a hole in the wall New Mexican restaurant.

Only two things will compel me out of the house to eat restaurant food: they have to outcook me or it has to be in the 100s and too damned hot to cook anything.

But yes, mall food is horrible. Hotel food is a bit better, less salty, but still falls into bland sameness after a while.

However, yes, the loss of those upper midrange places is due to the loss of a middle class who could afford them a couple of times a month. Their clientele is now working class, stuck with real prole food like delivery pizza.