America's Best and Worst Restaurants

[Smokey]

In 2009, 49 percent of the money the average American spent on food went toward dining out—that's about nine times what we spent in 1975.

And that's where this list comes in. MSN fitness web site naming the best restaurant chains, the ones that make scoring a healthy meal a deliciously easy task. They're also exposing the worst ones, where finding a decent entree is an achievement worthy of a bloodhound.

Seafood Place

Best: Red Lobster
Red Lobster not only ranks highest in the seafood category, but our nutritional analysis also taps Red Lobster as the best all-around sit-down restaurant.

Worst: Long John Silver's
Long John is perhaps the biggest villain in the restaurant industry. Why? Because of the restaurant's preferred method of cooking seafood: boiling nearly everything in a hot bath of partially hydrogenated soybean oil.

Sandwich Shop

Best: Subway
Walk into any Subway and you'll find at least ten 6-inch subs that come in under 400 calories—and that includes the cheese toll. Plus, you can embellish your sub with as much produce as you like.

Worst: Quiznos
In this case, Q stands for queasy. That's how the Quiznos menu—bloated with mayonnaise-spiked salads, oily dressings, briny bacon, and other waistline-threatening accoutrements—makes us feel.

Chicken Chain

Best: Chick-fil-A
Chick-fil-A manages to pull off one feat that no other fast-food chain can match: Not a single entree on the menu—not the Spicy Chicken Deluxe nor the Sausage Breakfast Burrito—packs more than 600 calories.

Worst: Church's Chicken
Shockingly, Church's is one of the few remaining fast-food purveyors still pumping partially hydrogenated oil into its fryers, a fact that's even more unsettling when you consider the chain's specialty— fried chicken.

Italian Restaurant

Best: Romano's Macaroni Grill
Things took a sharp turn for the better when the company followed was a multiphase plan to improve the nutritional quality of the entrees, and the chain has since become the caloric conscience of the red-sauce restaurants.

Worst: Olive Garden
The U.S. obesity rate is more than three times that of Italy's. And why is that? Perhaps because of restaurants like Olive Garden, which combine the richness of Italian food with oversized American portions.

Pizza Parlor

Best: Domino's
The pizza industry's ingredient-sourcing policies aren't worthy of praise, but when it comes to nutritional considerations, Domino's reigns supreme. Its plain pie ranks among the leanest available, and it boasts far more vegetable-topping varieties than the competition.

Worst: California Pizza Kitchen
While CPK's pies all have a relatively thin crust, their awkward sizing makes it difficult to eat a healthy portion. A 10-inch pie isn't enough for two people, and ordering one for yourself means a 1,000-calorie meal.

Breakfast Diner

Best: Bob Evans
Even though the breakfast at Bob Evans is fattier and brinier than anything you'd make at home, it still beats out the other chains.

Worst: IHOP
Nearly every combo encourages you to order bacon or sausage, every regular order of pancakes comes crowned with a scoop of butter big enough to plug the mouth of an ice-cream cone, and nearly every omelet is packed with meat and cheese and often garnished with rich toppings like sour cream or hollandaise sauce.

Mexican Chain

Best: Chipotle
Think of Chipotle as Subway for Mexican food. The chain's customizable approach puts you in charge of your meal, helping you avoid a surreptitious load of fat.

Worst: On the Border
Grilled meat, beans, and salsa make for a healthy Mexican meal. That's why it's such a shame that On the Border tends to favor breaded fish, fried tortillas, and creamy sauces instead.

Family Restaurant

Best: Ruby Tuesday
Ruby Tuesday boasts the most numerous healthy options with its Fit & Trim menu—more than a dozen entrees come in under 700 calories.

Worst: Cheesecake Factory
No restaurant chain exemplifies America's portion problem more than Cheesecake Factory. One of the leanest regular dinner items is a hulking cheeseburger called the Factory Burger, which delivers just about as many calories as a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese.

Chinese Restaurant

Best: Panda Express
Given Panda's penchant for blanketing breaded meats with syrupy sauces, it's surprising to note how many entrees are under 300 calories. And since you can put together your own meal, it's easy to eat healthy.

Worst: P.F. Chang's
The entrees at this higher-end Chinese restaurant will cost you twice: Once when the check arrives, and again when your body deals with the high-calorie payload. It's hard to find an entree under 600 calories.

Burger Joint

Best: Wendy's
The Wendy's menu is built on the same bedrock foods as every other burger joint: beef, cheese, and fat-fried potatoes. But the chain trounces the competition by offering several of its burgers, including the Double Stack and nearly the entire line of Jr. Burgers, fall below the 400-calorie threshold.

Worst: Dairy Queen
DQ is the only fast-food chain that specializes in both burgers and ice cream, and both sides of the menu are driven by the same excess that gives fast food a bad name. There's no reason they need to inject each food item with egregious amounts of sodium and spike the desserts with trans fats.

America's Best and Worst Restaurants | Fitbie

[RoyY51]

Shouldn't this be "America's Healthiest and Non-healthiest Restaurants"? To me, "Best" and "Worst" refer more to taste than anything else...and with Domino's topping the pizza ratings, taste was obviously not a factor.

[bobsticks]

Quite simply, August...maybe the French Laundry...

[ForeverAutumn]

Shouldn't this be "America's Healthiest and Non-healthiest Restaurants"? To me, "Best" and "Worst" refer more to taste than anything else...and with Domino's topping the pizza ratings, taste was obviously not a factor.

Even that criteria of healthiest and non-healthiest falls short. This list lost me with the very first entry being Red Lobster as the best Seafood restaurant. Not only is Red Lobster sub-par quality (I call it the McDonalds of seafood), I challenge you to find anything on their printed menu that is not deep fried or soaked in butter or a cream sauce.

[Hyfi]

I challenge you to find anything on their printed menu that is not deep fried or soaked in butter or a cream sauce.

But isn't that exactly why people go out to these places, so they don't mess the whole kitchen up frying things?

Just last week My wife and I went to Goodfellows and enjoyed the Twin Deep Fried Lobster dinner they are known for. MMmmmmmm Butter!

[ForeverAutumn]

But isn't that exactly why people go out to these places, so they don't mess the whole kitchen up frying things?

Just last week My wife and I went to Goodfellows and enjoyed the Twin Deep Fried Lobster dinner they are known for. MMmmmmmm Butter!

Perhaps that's why some people go for dinner, but the article says, "Red Lobster not only ranks highest in the seafood category, but our nutritional analysis also taps Red Lobster as the best all-around sit-down restaurant". I'd like to see what they compared it to that makes it the best sit-down restaurant from a nutritional standpoint. If Red Lobster is the best that they can do even from a taste and quality standpoint, then this list has absolutely no credibility in my eyes. But as someone else pointed out, enjoyment is subjective. YMMV.

[Hyfi]

They compared RL to LJsilver, which is not good either.

I don't like any of the winners listed in the original post, but then most people don't know good food to begin with.

[Smokey]

I challenge you to find anything on their printed menu that is not deep fried or soaked in butter or a cream sauce.

They actually got quite few items on the menu that is not fried or butter soaked, including their Lighthouse "light" menu.

Items like:

Broiled Seafood Trio


Live Maine Lobster: Steamed, or roasted with crab-and-seafood stuffing.


Rock Lobster Tail: Oven-roasted


Snow Crab Legs: 1 pound of steamed North American snow crab legs


Wood-Grilled Fresh Salmon


Wood-Grilled Fresh Tilapia or Rainbow

Rock Lobster Tail