am I a peasant?

[johncomic]

For years, all I ever knew about IHOP was that it was an apparently easy punchline for standup comics, and “IHOP waitress” was a standup shorthand similar to “trailer trash”. Déclassé would appear to be one of the kinder terms for this place.

Then about a month ago, we went to Buffalo on a shopping trip, and Paisley's fella Kyle suggested we have lunch at IHOP. So I finally got to go there and see for myself.

For basic unpretentious food, we all found the quality perfectly satisfying and the prices very reasonable. Those of us who had never been there before were very pleasantly surprised and glad we had come. And, for the record, our waitress was attractive, personable, witty, and very good at her job.

Yesterday we did Buffalo again, and had pretty much decided on the way down that it would be IHOP for lunch again. This experience was a duplicate of last time, right down to the bright and lovely waitress. For my tastes, I can't see anything so wrong with this place.

In fact, yesterday we noticed that they were playing jazz (how many other places do that anymore, besides *$?), and one of those jazz tunes I caught was Thelonious Monk! I'm sorry, but that right there earns IHOP cool points that no one will ever be able to take away...

So is the problem simply my own tastes? Am I inherently some sort of lowbrow lowlife that can't distinguish trash from treasure? Or am I simply not cynical and elitist enough to pass for “truly cool”? I'm honestly not sure I care, nor really worried about whether I should care. I feel more like “What's supposed to be so wrong with this place? Or, what's wrong with people that need to put it down?”

Comments

[viridescence13]

I like IHOP just fine. No, it's not haute cuisine, but it's generally good, basic food at a decent price. We have one right down the street and we've eaten there plenty of times. Generally breakfast foods only, though; that's what they do best. I don't see much point in getting burgers or other food there, but that's just me. =)

Also...if IHOP is supposedly "white trash" or "peasant", you should visit a Waffle House sometime.

[ginsu.livejournal.com]

I think the main argument against chains/corporations is not really quality -- "the breakfast they offer is crap" -- so much as standardization -- "over time, they eradicate local culture, such as family-owned restaurants and their unique cuisine and decor, mainly through pricing."

So in evaluating the chains, you don't ask yourself if your experience during that hour was good. You ask yourself if, in twenty years, it will be the only available experience.

A rough equivalent in your world would be that all the hand-drawn, hand-written comics created by hundreds of skilled talents disappear... and are replaced by comics generated by a computer algorithm that always yields exactly the same style in both art and writing.

The computer-generated style may satisfy many, but by itself it's a poor substitute for the variety offered by the original model.