I have 2 favorite restaurants. The first is King's Buffet in Somerset, KY. It's a Chinese restaurant with a huge buffet with a hundred different choices plus a grill where you can have ingredients of your choice grilled with any sauce (or no sauce) you like. Excellent food at a reasonable price. The second I haven't been to since I moved, but it's in the tiny town of Columbia, KY. I'm not even sure what the real name of it was...everybody just called it the pool room. A "pool room" hamburger was the best and was available all the time. They had 1 special every day and the specials were mouth watering, pot roast with mashed potatoes and gravy, pork chops, catfish, etc. If for some reason you didn't like the special that day, the pool room hamburger was always a good second choice! Oh, and they had 3 pool tables that always had a wait time. On pot roast day there was always a wait for a seat at the counter too. The place was just a hole in the wall but was a goldmine.
I liked lots of restaurant chains about 15-20 years ago. But, like Cracker Barrel, they went under. Loved Big Boy. Arthur Treacher's... I went to Taco Bell a while back and it was awful. So was Burger King. I used to like the Whopper--only bad thing one might have said about it was it was too juicy. Now the meat is pressed and smoke flavoring added; not flame broiled. yuck
Taco Bell was never great food, but it used to be better than it is now. Taco Bell food seems to be mostly all watery now.
Having had jobs that took me and a generous expense account around the country and world, there have been a good number of favorite restaurants, many of which are now gone. Some of these are/were Cafe Budapest in Boston (gone), Mama Leone's in NYC (gone), Anthony's Pier 4 in Boston (gone), La Maison du Cygne in Brussels, Alioto's in San Fran (closed), Charley's Steak House in Orlando, Commander's Palace in New Orleans, etc.. Now long retired with no expense account and no business people to wine and dine, I like places like Jersey Mike's Subs and local diners & eateries.. For a top-flight birthday or anniversary dinner; however, there's only one place. It is a B&B that's open two days a week for dining reservations - Clamber Hill, food shown below. Their food is as good as the best from my expense account years. Cooked to absolute perfection, we try to go there at least one or twice a year. It's pricey, though.
When I lived in North Carolina, there was a Jersey Mikes at one of the pet stores that I was sent to while working for Blue Buffalo, and it was way better than Subway. Near another store, there was a Firehouse Subs (or something like that), neither of which we have around here.
There are 55 in Texas; 3 of them within 10 miles of here. (None of them are my "favorite restaurant.")
Welllll Ken was saying his favorite chain restaurants. Sadly even the one Cracker Barrel is making cut backs to it's menu. My favorite was deep fried chicken livers--no longer on the menu. But I really like their cat fish dinner.
Hah. I told my husband that all the Taco Bell menu items are just the same ingredients in different shapes.