I was flipping thru my latest issue of Entrepreneur (April, 2008) and found this hilarious (to me) advertisement section for Best Restaurants.  Its an eight page spread with the individual restaurants featured being:  Papa John's, Quiznos, Boston's The Gourmet Pizza, Lenny's Sub Shop, Taco Del Mar, and Hurricane Grill & Wings.  Anyways, I find it deeply hilarious that those restaurants consider themselves to be the best in the industry.  My opinions I should note are based purely as a consumer and not as someone interested in owning a restaurant.

Papa John's first of all, I suppose has the reputation of the commercial with the founder speakers and giving the trademark Tourette's-like head twitches while saying the company's slogan.  "Better Ingredients... (up? twitch) Better Pizza... (right? twitch) Papa John's"  (down? twitch)  The directions of the twitches might possibly vary (?) between each pause commercial to commercial, but basically whenever that part of the commercial comes up, its always funny to imitate that part of it. 

Papa John's pizza itself while possibly having higher quality ingredients doesn't really make it taste better.  In my opinion, they are actually some of the worst pizza I have tasted.  As far as chain pizza goes, Pizza Hut and Papa Murphy are way way better than Papa John's.

Quiznos as a sub sandwich shop I always thought was overrated.  The only thing they really had going for them was that they offered Toasted sandwiches.  In their commercials, they make their gimmick clear with the slogan, "Mmm mmm mmm mmm... Toasty".  But again, having their sandwiches Toasted doesn't in my opinion make them taste better.  Besides that, Subway now also offers to have their sandwiches toasted - and it actually does make them taste better when Subway does it - so now the one thing Quiznos had to make them stand out, they no longer have that anymore.  Honestly, anyone that has the choice between Subway, Quiznos, Blimpie, or any other local sandwich deli, I don't see why anyone would actually choose Quiznos, unless maybe they had a coupon or something just for Quiznos.  As far as sandwich chains go?  Yeah, I think Quiznos has the worst sandwiches.

Taco Del Mar is one of those trendier healthy/neo-Mexican burrito places that markets itself as a progressive, independent thinking company.  My opinion, however, tends to be that they are just another nameless/faceless corporate chains that simply tries to cash in, selling to what they believe is the progressive/hipster market.  Much of opinion on Taco Del Mar is based on them attempting to outpurchase the lease and expand into the space occupied by local independent zine/bookstore and cultural landmark, Reading Frenzy.  If you lived in Portland around the mid-90's and followed indy news, then you knew about the huge hit Taco Del Mar took to their indy/progressive rep [by the locals here] due to the Reading Frenzy lease thing.

But aside from politics, the main thing about Taco Del Mar is that their burritos just aren't very good.  Compared to other non-authentic, healthy fast food burrito places, well Taco Del Mar really is one of the worst.

Boston's The Gourmet Pizza is one of those restaurants that is in the casual dining category.  Ha ha ha, that casual dining category name makes me laugh as its just a marketing invention to classify places like that.  Anyways, the company description text I found to be especially hilarious.  Read this:

...the restaurant chain has distinguished itself by offering patrons the unique opportunity of choosing between two separate restaurant experiences - a family-friendly casual dining room complete with creative artwork and color schemes or a state-of-the-art sports bar, customized with multiple flat-screen televisions, local memorabilia and popular bar fare, all under one roof.  Boston's is rapidly introducing this one-of-a-kind concept...

A family-friendly dining room and a sports bar, all in one place.  A unique and one-of-a-kind concept.  Really, it does sound like a fabulous idea and I can't see why any other restaurant would not want to do that.  Actually, wait a minute... that sounds like almost every casual dining place I know.  Far from one-of-a-kind, I'm pretty sure I can think of at least five places that do the family dining/sports bar combo off the top of my head.  Let's see... Old Chicago, Applebees, Chilis, Hooters, Fridays.  Okay that's five.  Give me some time and I'm sure I could come up with ten.

I've been to Boston's once.  When I went there, they asked me if this was my first time.  Being that it looked like all the other places, I could have said yes pretty much.  Side note:  I've always found it amusing when places ask if its my first time there - that is whe the place has a standard traditional restaurant setup, not like a Mongolian grill or anything.  I always think if I say no, then the server may be like, "oh... well this is called a meen yuuu..."

As far as their food goes, it was okay.  Not terrible, but not good enough that I cared to go there again.  Below average I'd say.  The only local in my area has since closed, so I think I can safely presume that everyone else probably shared that same opinion.

Lenny's Sub Shop and Hurricane Grill & Wings I've never heard of or been to.  But being associated with the other places I have been to, can only guess that likely the food (and maybe the service) is horrible.  Let's hope I'm wrong, but just from seeing who they are advertised with, the other places are pretty much the worst in their category.