Comment by babypuncher

At that point you would think they would pivot to using their economies of scale to compete on price. But they're still more expensive than better local alternatives.

My best guess is that the price is inflated by the huge amount of money they spend on national ad campaigns, which I'm convinced at this point do not even work. Any restaurant big enough to buy ad spots during the superbowl is by definition "not cool" to the under-40 crowd. None of the most popular restaurants among my peer-group where I live even run local TV ads, and they don't need to.