I get a bad feeling about this restaurant chain. If you aren't familiar it's officially called The Hillstone Group, and I knew it growing up as "Houston's" and I think that may have been the original name but they have like 20 different names for them to sort of make it sound like a "real" restaurant and possibly also to dodge taxes or menu nutrition labeling rules for large chains, but the concept doesn't vary. It's sort of like Applebee's but more upscale and usually found in nice suburbs and not really so much in strip malls. The food is sort of non-threatening safe Americana with a mildly gourmet twist but overall very conservative and the menu is mostly the same at all of them .What's creepy is they are known for this sort of enforced sameness not just on the menu but on policing the appearance of female waitresses and I suspect they are run by whacky Christian conservatives, but I cannot explicitly prove this and their leadership is very secretive and doesn't really explain a lot about them. I remember thinking they were creepy growing up - my family took me to our local one a couple times for special occasions and it just had an off vibe about it, something forced or artificial like they were trying too hard to smile all the time. I never went there on my own initiative. They also have weird rules like they aren't especially accommodating to kids and they don't do reservations for parties over 4 or something like that. I feel like it's run by creepy Christian cultists and just is a font of evil but there's no way to get into their underpinnings and see what's really going on.
sample menu
it just all feels like sort of bland corporate enforced mediocrity
me too
>>21693459never heard of it
>>21693685https://hillstone.com/locations/oh that's why
I thought you were being schizo but yeah this place looks like it was designed for overbearing karen boomers, is it a restaurant or a fuckin HOA? It's like an applebees trying to cosplay as le bernardin, what the fuck.
are the whacky christians in the room with us now? you've been to a restaurant that didn't allow screaming kids and football parties before right? I take it you're one of those "I'm proud of being poor" heckin reddit atheists?
>>21693803You sound like the kind of aspiring upper middle class that this restaurant is designed for. A fantasy evening away from your kind, what a dream!
>>21693803just admit the owners are more than likely weirdo bigots
>rombauer>orrin swift>cakebreadprobably looks like a classy place, if you're a j6er
>>21693459Tl;drNever heard of it. If you don't like it then don't eat there. Or do. I don't really give a fuck, nerd.
>>21693459>A restaurant with nice wait staff who don't allow niglets to run everywhere is freaking uncanny and probably means they're secretly run by a religious white maga cultists just like in my le heckin award winning a24 horror kinos Get Out and Midsommar!
>>21694138You say that like I'm desperately searching for a defense against a clearly accurate assertion, when all Im doing is calling you a retard.
nice restaurants tend to naturally filter out their customers so making a bunch of weirdly specific rules is superfluous. if this is something that even requires explaining, you have much more in common with the bad kind of customer than you're willing to admit
>>21694138>bigotsYou need to go back
>>21693461>>21693693Its a country club menu for people too broke to be members of a country club.
>>21694342its ok to be gay
>>21693693>>21694425Threadly reminder that having a posted dress code means one of two things:>low class larping as high class>formerly high class, but should have moved to a different zip code 20 years agoIdeally speaking, the "wrong clientele" doesn't even know you exist. You already lost the game long before your restaurant appears on a rapper's Instagram.
>>21694446threadly reminder that you're on /ck/, where the average poster can't imagine a restaurant nicer than ruth's chris
This doesn't look even middle upper class, it looks like a restaurant for poors (but not browns) who want to feel like upper class. Is this thread just an excuse to try and express your insecurities with Christians and project how your delusions of thinking any kind and happy Christian must be secretly evil because you are not kind or happy yourself?
>>21694446>low class larping as high classIts a rebranded chain restaurant selling sysco crabcakes bud.
>>21694449I'm that anon and I can barely imagine a restaurant nicer than McDonald's. But at least my lack of class is honest, and after I finally win the lottery playing scratch-off tickets, you won't catch me eating gold-foiled buffalo wings with Salt Bae on Tiktok. No, all of my winnings will go straight into Bitcoin and crystal meth, as befits a man of my station in life.
>>21694463Porschefags btfo
>>21694470if you win the lottery you owe it to /ck/ to marry a horse face middle aged white woman and open a vanity restaurant cum money laundering front and develop an obnoxious reputation with the locals such that the angry british chav chef gets summoned and does a lolcow episode on you and then you threaten him with a knife and get shut down by the health department
>>21694479I'll... keep that in mind anon
>>21693459This place is the worst. They have all these absurd standards to appear like a high end restaurant but their food is not high end food. Their high end appearance is fake and gay. You can get better food at less pretentious restaurants.
>>21694278t. railer trash
>>21694555I'm not into railing trash (your mother)
>>21694451christians are just evil in general
Houston's is good as fuck. Very consistent.
>>21695996yeah its applebee's at a higher price point
>>21693459The best part about the Hillstone in my town is that seaplanes land on the lake and dock at the restaurant. Now that, anon, is upper class
>>21693459This place is notorious for only being kind to white customers
yeh homie, theres a lot of slimey people out there. I think the trick is to admit that you are also a bit slimey and then work on reducing your slime levels rather than just accusing other's of being slimey.ya feel me, slime?
