In America, chain restaurants get a bad rap. We blame them for the spike in obesity and the death of the family dinner. We demonize them as “the core of what is wrong with our food system.†No wonder our bougie, West Coast friends shun Bloomin’ Onions and Big Macs in favor of meals from farm-to-table gastropubs and “undiscovered†ethnic food joints. And it’s not just them. Food — obscure, locally sourced, painstakingly chef-crafted — has become a defining obsession, a “measuring stick of cool,†as New York magazine put it. Today, a quarter of Americans eat organic products on...
