I love restaurants and lived the restaurant life. I worked in the industry for a number of years over the past decade, in a handful of restaurants, and I've had roommates who were co-workers. I enjoyed many nights hanging out and having drinks with co-workers after a long tough shift. I've heard all their gripes and complaints over their customers and management, along with their genuine praise of good dishes. There are definitely differences between working in a corporate restaurant and independently owned restaurant, but I would say there's not much of a real difference from a consumer perspective. Corporatization does tend to lead to higher prices and having too many store locations, but there's a greater emphasis on consistency and the quality of the food itself can still be pretty darn good, depending on how much you're willing to pay for the dining experience.
When you dine out, you're really paying for the experience (along with the mundane costs of business). Waiters and waitresses are performers, memorizing every ingredient in every menu item, memorizing descriptions, memorizing the wine list, all the steps of service, and imbuing their performances with their personality and professionalism, in an suitably sociable environment. Restaurants are a communal social ritual. While people can and do cook good meals in their homes for a fraction of the cost, restaurants are fulfilling of people's need to be socially ritualistic animals. Combine this with differences in socioeconomics, whether certain restaurants are overrated is relative to their social class.
Chili's is a one star restaurant (I think). It's at the bottom of the food chain except for zero star restaurants which are mom & pop. So, I would beg to differ with Chili's being 'overrated' since it's ranked at the near bottom of restaurants. The five star ranking system is inversely exponential in such that four and five star restaurants are as rare as a black swan, and three stars is the best most people will ever be able to dine in. Find restaurants which are Zagat rated and you should be reliably satisfied, regardless whether it's independently or corporately owned.
With that said, I personally prefer ethnic foods like Japanese, Greek, Turkish, and ethnic restaurants are generally independently owned.
Julius_Seizeher:
Most of those middle-market sitdown corporate chains have really crappy food.
Exceptions? Texas Roadhouse is all I can think of.
I've never tried Texas Roadhouse but I can think of Brio Tuscan Grille, Bucca di Beppo, PF Changs, and Elephant Bar, which I think are all two star restaurants.