Reply #129: The great thing these days is that reviews on sites like TripAdvisor, Yelp, UrbanSpoon make the

[kath]

process of choosing a non-chain restaurant a lot less hit-or-miss.
We avoid chains like the plague. We eat out seldom (kids in college, so try to be as frugal as possible), and are always a bit leery when trying a new place, since you hate to have your one restaurant meal per month or every 6 weeks turn out to be crappy. But the above sites, plus reviews in the local weekly alternative newspaper (and their website) really do decrease the risk.
Hubby and I had a FABULOUS lunch yesterday before the Harry Potter movie at a little family-run Korean place that I'd read about somewhere - I'm still salivating thinking about it.
I would SOOOOO much rather give our money to a local place than some big huge frozen-food conglomerate chain - if I want to eat frozen food that's been microwaved, I'll buy it at the supermarket and nuke it at home, thank you very much!

When traveling, we check out those websites for our vacation city - had some good luck in SF this past spring using this approach.