I pondered this question last week as I grabbed lunch at the Medallion Center Applebee’s, which is adorned with all kinds of neighborhood-y memorabilia from schools like Lake Highlands High School. The photos, pendants, etc. were collected and hung before the restaurant opened last year.
At one point, the Applebee’s commercial jingle was "Eatin’ good in the neighborhood", and it clearly likes to bill itself as a down-home gathering place. In the movie "Talladega Nights", it was spoofed as the "fancy" restaurant for the Nascar set, a joke probably appreciated by people on either side of the cuisine spectrum.
But with more than 3,300 restaurants worldwide, I’m just not convinced that it can ever be a "neighborhood" restaurant, no matter how many photos of Lake Highlands students it hangs on its walls.
If we’re just talking food, though, the lunch "pick and pair" menu, with salads, soups and sandwiches for $6.99, is definitely worth a try. And Applebee’s recently introduced dessert shooters, similar to the P.F. Chang’s concept, but about twice the size for the same price. They key lime pie was yummy.
