Franchise

During our first few weeks in the Midlands, Bill and I were ensconced in a lovely Comfort Inn and Suites for about a month. Being that we had no kitchen, we ate in nearly every restaurant in town.

One day, Bill had a craving for a good steak. So I went to my smart phone and Googled "Best steak in town". Number one steak in our town? According to Trip Advisor it was at Ruby Tuesday. Second best steak? At Fatz Cafe.

Let's just say that independently owned restaurants are not really, as my students would say, "a thing" down here. Oh, they exist. But they are less visible than that to which I am accustomed.

I remember seeing comedian Henry Cho on the "Half Hour Comedy Hour" on Comedy Central talking about his in-laws and their recent experience at a highly rated Italian restaurant in town. Their reaction? "It ain't no Olive Garden." This punch line has become my catch phrase when describing the restaurants in the area.

It seems that in the south, they love their franchises.

In fact, when my students heard that there was only one chicken franchise in the area where I lived before, they couldn't even fathom it.  There were shouts of absolute disbelief, and exclamations of "What?!"

But the reaction is understandable when you look at the stats:

New Hampshire chicken franchises (that I know of): KFC

South Carolina Chicken Franchises: Popeye's
                                                          Church's
                                                          Chester's
                                                          Chik-Fil-A
                                                          Zaxby's
                                                          Bojangles
                                                          KFC

And there is never just one of these franchises in town. In the state capital, Columbia (population 133,000)  there are 7 Zaxby's,  10 Chik-Fil-A, 7 KFC, 3 Popeye's, 14 Bojangles, 6 Church's Chicken, and then, of course there are the various other restaurants that offer chicken sandwiches.

Thus started the daily morning quiz by my students before school started, which eventually led to the grand comparison of franchises available in South Carolina, and those I knew to exist in NH. I started with the Waffle House, which I compare to Dunkin' Donuts; not because it sells donuts, but because there are several of them in the same town, no matter how small.

Here are restaurant franchises I had never heard of until I arrived:
Captain D's (seafood, much like Long John Silvers)
Fatz Cafe (Ruby Tuesday's type)
Zaxby's, Chester's Chicken, and Bojangles (Chicken places)
Lizard's Thicket ( an ice cream-less Friendly's)
Ryan's (a buffet steak house)
Cookout (a take out burger place)
San Jose (Mexican food)

All of the restaurants listed above are in the town of roughly 13,000 people in which we live, along with Cracker Barrel, Ruby Tuesday, Chik-Fil-A, McDonald's (2), Burger King (2), Wendy's, Sonic,  Waffle House, Subway, Applebee's, Hardee's (2), Arby's (2), Popeye's Church's, IHOP, Pizza Hut (2), Papa John's, Taco Bell, Domino's, Blimpie, Shoney's and Little Ceasar's.

There are independent restaurants as well, and some of them are pretty decent. But it astonishes me that a town the size of Hooksett, NH can sustain this many franchised eateries.

And nobody calls them "chain" restaurants. They are franchises.

During that first month, we ate at a lot of these restaurants and at the end of it all we were very excited to move into a place with a kitchen.

And as for Dunkin' Donuts, wrap your northern New England brains around this: I see only one on my entire forty-minute commute to work.