【Karen Foster Archives】

Yelp never lies.

The Karen Foster Archivestruth is in the stars, and they tell us this: suburban chain restaurant franchises are inherently superior to ones located in cities.

As a New Yorker I'm not supposed to admit any affection for the suburbs at all. But I've known this in my heart for as long as I've lived here.

Countless times I've ordered New York Applebee's mozzarella sticks only to be served deep fried glue sticks on a mixed appetizer platter of subway infections, posing as a plate. Never have I ever been in a chain restaurant bathroom with proper ventilation. Only in New York do you wait over two hours to be eat iHOP pancakes, congealed to form a singular fetid blob, in a booth stripped off its padding, with only its hard wooden skeleton -- and your eviscerated hope -- to pad you.

Thankfully, there are causes to this disparity that unverified social scientists like myself are working to identify now.

SEE ALSO: Why wraps are the lowest form of human lunch

Cities like New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco might have the upper hand when it comes to foodie restaurant culture. Suburbs, however, clearly have the competitive advantage when it comes to the almighty chain restaurant. Fact: Olive Garden is better in Paramus, New Jersey, than it is anywhere else in the world.

Take a look at some of the ratings New Yorkers have given their local chain restaurants. And this is when they're being *nice.

*Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

These are the most plausible explanations for the inequity.

1. Higher rents mean higher prices mean 1,000 word Yelp reviews

Urban chain restaurants are typically more expensive than their suburban brethren, and for good reason. The rent is too damn high.

Take a look at average rental costs in New York and its surrounding cities, provided by Costar Market Analytics, which analyzes trends in commercial real estate.

"Just five years ago, NYC retail spaces under 5,000 SF were about $65/square foot, today the rate is closer to $85/square foot, a 30% increase," Lauren Barker, Costar Market Analytics, told Mashable. "Chain restaurants have been leasing retail space for close to $500/square foot in premiere areas of Manhattan."

In Los Angeles, the situation isn't much better. Top of the market neighborhoods (Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Downtown LA) command about $60/square foot. In middle income neighborhoods, that number hovers $26/square foot.

"So the priciest parts of LA command rents more than twice those in the suburbs," Steve Basham, Senior Market Analyst at Costar, told Mashable.

Labor costs are disproportionately higher in wealthy states and cities. In San Francisco in 2016, for example, the average chef made $53,320 a year. Compare that to Atlanta, where it was just $37,400.

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It's a bad combination for consumers. Metropolises where rents and labor costs are highest -- places where chains have to at least pretend they care about their workers -- will often charge consumers higher prices to get the same profit margins. That's especially true in high-traffic tourist areas where rents are the highest and scared tourists are the most desperate.

Shrimp Alfredo at Olive Garden's Times Square location, for example, costs $24.49. Just two hours north in North Haven, Connecticut, the exact same dish is just $17.99 -- with the added bonus of no annoying tourists. In San Francisco, where rents are about at as high as Manhattan's, the dish is $20.99.

One Twitter user went on a date with a man who reportedly managed the Times Square Olive Garden and revealed the truth in a tweetstorm:

Q: National pricing or city pricing?
A: City pricing. It made no sense why the Americans were there. They were paying 3x for the same food.

— Joe Wadlington (@JoeWadlington) April 19, 2017

2. Too many people, not enough booths

Via Giphy

Unless you consider Philadelphia a major city (it is not), restaurants in major American cities with even minimal name recognition are disproportionately overcrowded, regardless of their actual quality. Customers on Yelp will often complain about hours-long lines outside of New York's main middle-of-the-road dining establishments.

While the number of chain restaurants grew in New York City in 2017, their density is poor in comparison to the population. There are less than 20 Applebees in New York City, a city of over 9 million. There are only two Chili's in the city's five boroughs, and one of them in Staten Island. Fuggehdaboutit.

For migrants from suburbia and native New Yorkers who want a taste of that sweet sweet Cheesecake Factory avocado egg roll, the chain restaurant landscape is relatively barren.

3. Exceptionally high demand means people will stand for crap

Via Giphy

You'd be hard pressed to find any Cheesecake Factory in the Chicago area with a rating above three stars. And Chicagoans are some of the most kind, sympathetic, "flexible standards" urbanites we have.

There are over 1,700 reviews for the three total Cheesecake Factories in Chicago, and most of these reviews are new. You'd imagine with all of the one-star reviews people would stop coming. But loyal customers still dine there in hordes.

I get it. I know this food is bad for me, but there have been times I've waited hours just for the chance to chow down 8 servings of noodles drowned in a puddle of fat sauce.

As a Brooklynite, I'm used to sitting on the rusty, Tetanus-infected, child-sized metal stools "hip" restaurants now offer in lieu of actual chairs. Family chain restaurants are one of the last remaining places in cities to offer booths.

We city people are desperate.

4. They're not attached to malls

Part of what makes the suburban chain restaurant experience so memorable is its connection to the mall community. Growing up, I loved nothing more than walking into a windowless Bed Bath & Beyond on a beautiful summer day, impulse buying some Yankee Candles, and then heading to Applebee's to have a screaming fight with my mother.

Free-standing urban chain restaurants are forced to exist outside the realm of the mall. And there's just no magic walking into a TGIFriday's and onto a cold, hard, New York City street. Chili's just doesn't have the same magic without its beautiful capitalist consumerist family.

That's a fact as well as a tragedy.

5. It was all a dream

Via Giphy

I'm also willing to entertain the theory that chain restaurants -- especially for those of us who grew up in the suburbs -- were never that good in the first place. Scientists believe that nostalgia makes food taste better. Maybe suburban chain restaurants aren't that vastly superior to their urban brethren, it's just our fantasies of the good old days that exacerbate the gap.

Bottom line: Chains don't need to work hard to earn your affection. They can serve you $35 expired peas out of a can six hours after you arrive, and you'll still come back each and every time. They know you need that spacious booth. They realize you're dependent on those two-for-one appetizer specials.

All these places need to do to win your loyalty is to exist. That doesn't mean they shouldn't work harder to be better. Our sad, hungry bellies and seat-loving asses deserve so much more.

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