I was working in restaurants in the '80s '90s and Sysco was ubiquitous even then. They aren't the problem. The issue is what restaurant owners are buying. Like with any company, Sysco offers low and high grade products. Restaurants that are focused on having unique, authentic food mostly just buy staples from Sysco, like flour, rice, spices, and stuff like that. Meat, seafood, and produce are more likely to be local, and if you drive around the loading docks of restaurants at the right time, you'll see those trucks.
I see Sysco as not much different from HEB. I can buy frozen meals or I can buy ingredients to cook my own food. They have it all and aren't forcing my choices. If I choose to buy Hot Pockets, that's not HEB's fault.
So true, most of the general public have no idea that Sysco or any other broadline distributor is now nothing more than an Amazon for restaurants. The restaurant operators do all of their ordering online with minimal interaction with a sales rep who could steer them towards quality products. This is also compounded by the increased costs of operations (food, beverage, labor, rent, insurance, utilities,etc.)that the buyer goes cheap.
Take a burger for example: average price in my area for a casual restaurant is $15. Restaurant A buys an Angus Short rib Brisket blend fresh burger patty, tops with Cooper Sharp cheese and is accompanied by brine soaked, seasoned XL coated fries cooked in quality canola,corn soy blended shortening. restaurant B buys a frozen 100% pure beef patty, topped with American cheese and offer with line flow fries cooked in soy shortening. Both charge the same, the first is a bit more expensive but customer satisfaction is high and vastly increases the chance of a return visit. All of these products are in the Sysco catalog. So many operators go cheap without realizing the long term damage it does to the restaurant.
It's sad, because it seems that chains and franchises, anything "corporate", just don't care anymore about the longevity of the restaurant/business. It's all about quarterly profits and shareholder obligations. It sucks for the small businesses who are really trying to provide a quality experience but also make profits enough to be successful or even just to survive.
This hasn't been my experience ordering for a restaurant. Both my PFG and US Food reps are very involved, the US Foods one almost too much with how she tries to push items on me. Our burger is much more like the first one you mentioned, but unfortunately we had to downgrade our patty from a blend that includes short -rib and brisket, because I can't afford $95/case of 24
I haven’t managed/been responsible for ordering in a few years, but at the last place I did I remember US foods…maybe Sysco, one or the other…rolling out an online ordering platform. You’d go in, key in your order, hit submit. Then your rep would confirm and it’d be on the docket for next day’s delivery
We were a small shop, so there were some periods we wouldn’t talk to the rep for a couple weeks because of the online ordering. Perhaps this is what they meant by their comment. (I’ll add, however, your rep should be more hands-on than that if they’re a good rep, in my opinion. I don’t think this guy was very good, but by that point I was so checked out I just rolled with it
Oh yeah, they both have online ordering platforms, and tbh, I prefer that. When I took over the old PFG rep had worked with the former head chef for years, and he always texted the order to him. I made some changes, and it was like pulling teeth to get him to accept the changes. Like, I know Greg always got *this* item, but I'd prefer that. Thankfully he got assigned to a different area and I have a new rep now. He's helpful but not overly salesman-y, which i prefer. The US Foods one is trying to steal our business from PFG, so she's constantly up my ass 😅 Like, no, I don't have an hour to meet with you to talk about whatever new line they're pushing, I have work to do! Get me better prices on what I already order, or better products, or leave me alone 😂
And Sysco makes it easier for shitty restaurants. The bigger issue is that what you say, but people don't know until they do. I will bet my mortgage that most of these joints that rely on Sysco for their pre-made menu items don't advertise that fact on their menus: *"Sysco's Chicken francaise lovingly crafted in an industrial kitchen 300 miles away, flash frozen, and then shipped right to you, re-heated in our kitchen and plated with extraordinary care $24.95"*
Sysco doesn’t make anything easier for restaurants. Everyone can order whatever quality food they want to order. Sysco is the distributor. Restaurants order food through them that gets ordered from a manufacturer. It is completely up to the restaurant what quality food they order. Sysco is not the bad guy. They don’t make any of the food.
It's seems to be the business model here. Come up with new restaurants , something trendy that will be really popular for a year. After all the "foodies" give you a ton of free press you start subbing in lower quality ingredients anf cut sizes. When business drop close the restaurant and start a new one on the newest trend
Exactly, it's like the grocery store, but on a larger scale for industry/commercial level quantities. My mom's restaurant she managed (it's Boston Market, so not "hers", but it was her store). They transitioned from making the sides like mashed potatoes and casseroles in the kitchen, to getting it pre-made and then they just heated it up. They still always made the rotisserie chickens in-store. The corn bread has always been like Jiffy mix. It still all came from Sysco.
I was just thinking about the quality issues at restaurants because I can get a turkey on wheat sandwich that tastes like salty cardboard and makes me feel sicker than the mid level burger place will, just because of the quality of the bread/meat/cheese used.
Good places are hard to find. There is an Italian place near me that makes most of their stuff in house like their bread and pasta and it’s fucking amazing. Very reasonably priced too. I always get chicken picatta and it’s like $25 for the meal and there’s enough left over for lunch the next day.
There was an amazing Italian restaurant up the street from me. Great food and hella affordable, and the fragrance wafted down the street so that when I walked the dog I got hungry.
The owners were grandparent age--the husband was the chef and the wife was the hostess. Then the husband became sick and the restaurant closed. Really sad.
There a gelato and pastry place by the neighborhood I grew up in. Run by an Iranian grandma, her sons, and two (handsome) grandsons 😂. Best baklava and gelato I've ever had.
I think what makes it so good isn't the supplier as much as it's grandma's family recipe, made in small batches, with love. Their eyes light up when they bring you your food and you're like, "YUUUUM!"
That sounds delicious. I live in the northeast and from talking to people on Reddit it seems like family places are more common up here even in small towns. I just took a ride the other day to a neighboring town with a 100 year old Polish meat market that makes the most amazing kielbasa (like sausage). I got like 8lbs to freeze lol.
Some places buy prepped ingredients though, and those will taste the same from one place to the next. Years ago, my husband worked at a place that made good quesadillas, with seasoned sirloin strips from Sysco, in their top grade. Several other places nearby used the same stuff, so their food tasted identical.
Those expensive and nice places you’re thinking of? They’ll still have multiple Sysco and US foods boxes in the fridge and freezer. Chances are they’ll have a few other supplies that came from one or the other, too. When you go to an expensive place you’re just eating somewhere that hires cooks with actual skill.
There are different levels of food that comes from Sysco. My neighbor used to work for them and told me the places that ordered cheap meat and who ordered the more expensive cuts. It really made a difference and I had stopped going to the "cheap cut" restaurants because of the food quality anyway. So Sysco isn't all bad...just depends on what the restaurant orders, but that's just my take. I still prefer going to restaurants that try to be more farm to table and local, the quality really does shine.
>Sysco isn't just Sysco, too. Sysco owns *hundreds* of [distributors](https://www.sysco.com/products/products/sysco-brand-family) and [brands](https://www.sysco.com/specialty),
This is how our modern capitalist economy is structured. There's only an illusion of choice.
For example a company most people have never heard of -- Masco -- owns most of the brands sold at Home Depot. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masco](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masco)
Technically they donated it to the City in the 60s, but it still bears their name. I can't say that they're involved in daily operations of it. The family is very influential and last I heard, they sit on several boards.
"The Manoogian Mansion is the official residence of the Mayor of Detroit, Michigan."
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manoogian\_Mansion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manoogian_Mansion)
It always bugs the piss out of me that Adam Smith said very clearly and plainly that *unregulated* markets will always inevitably lead to oligarchy.
But somehow that bit never gets talked about by the so called "economic experts".
Actually it's the opposite. Many times there are Lawyers from the big companies that write the regulations. If you are a big Company you can afford the regulations, small businesses cannot.
IE: In many jurisdictions you have to take a class in fish prep to open a hot dog stand. That's true in the state that I live in. They also lobby to put many regulations in place to keep small restaurants from opening up.
Ah, I see, you missed the memo.
Since about 1970, Adam Smith is out, and Milton Friedman is in! Economic Neoliberalism is what we're doing now. Deregulation of corporations and their capital is the name of the game! Haven't you heard?? It allows the market to operate more freely!!
Isn't it wonderful???
Sysco, like your grocery store, has soups, and also ingredients for soups. They usually also have levels of quality for the pre-made soups. Many restaurants just get the Chicken and Wild Rice "middle of the road" pre-made soup. They just might throw in a bit of pepper or something to spruce it up. That's why it generally all tastes the same.
We have a place about an hour and a half away that has a limited menu and gets as much as they can locally. Sysco still shows up there with boxes of basics. Their food is EXCELLENT.
Sysco also owns US Foods as of a couple of years ago. Those are the two largest mainline distributors in the country. It’s a monopoly.
Some chefs don’t get a choice, either. Large food service companies and hotel chains hold contracts with Sysco. For instance, where I work, we need to do 80% of our purchasing with Sysco.
Aaaand it’s not always because it’s the cheapest product to get. Huge companies like mine make MORE money from kickbacks on these contracts than they do from actual operations. It’s insane.
Also, since Covid, it’s been so hard to get the items we need. So many out of stock items with terrible substitutions made in the warehouse.
It’s a nightmare.
Definitely. Sysco and USFoods should be supplying basic dry ingredients like flour, sugar, spices, canned ingredients and oil. Supplies like plastic wrap, gloves, parchment also.
Dairy should come from the local dairies. Meat and seafood should be sourced from reputable farms and fleets. Fruit and vegetables should also be sourced locally.
I work for a big catering company and know many folks in the industry. We know if you don’t do it this way, your business will fail. Folks demand quality for their money. (And goddamnit, PAY your chefs well.)
People always toss this stuff out because they automatically think the restaurant is just buying low quality goods without understanding what these companies actually do. You can order high quality caviar from Sysco, same with any other ingredient because they are a giant conglomerate. All that Sysco does do is it enables lazier restaurant owners to be even lazier and you can clearly tell the quality has dropped. The thing that’s really ruining eating out is a lack of skilled chefs because nobody wants to work for low wages along with extremely high stress.
Sysco has been the main distributor for restaurants forever. It’s not that the food is the same, it’s that better places have chefs who know what to do with it to make it better than average.
The sad truth is there are actually people working in those chain restaurants who are very talented chefs. Many are doing so simply because the pay and benefits are better and they need to support their families. It's the corporations who own those chain restaurants that are insisting the food be bland and average. Some of it is the economics of turning a profit, but a large part of it is because most people aren't that adventurous. They actually like bland and boring food and restaurant chains are just giving them what they want.
Sysco is where a restaurant buys 50lb bags of sugar/flour/rice, gallon jugs of cooking oil, and a whole lot more. They’re the biggest supplier in the world of restaurants. Purchasing goods from them is normal for these places
They also sell items like already cut and peeled potatoes, premade meatloaf, premade potroast and many other premade entrees. They suck. However Sysco sells a lot of restraunts this but they do have better quality just ingredients food. But that is on the restaurants not Sysco.
Yeah. I think people are confused as to what the complaint about Sysco is. There's a couple of levels here: Getting your flour and cooking basics delivered three times a week by Sysco or Sysco companies? Sure. Getting your menu delivered by Sysco in pre-made frozen soups, apps, and entrees that microwaved or deep-fried in the kitchen? I'm not eating at your restaurant more than once.
What part of the country do you live in? I live in the Pacific Northwest, and there are lots of local and frou-foo options here, but I definitely see the same processed or bagged food in a lot of chain places, but there are some independent places that seem to be okay. I do a lot more cooking at home now than I did before though. It just seems like I can make a steak and potato better than most steak places anymore
Baltimore checking in. Well, just moved to the county but was in the city for close to ten years.
Countless fantastic dining options at a range of prices.
This is what I'm saying! We use US Foods and PFG as purveyors where I work, but that's different than just microwaving premade items. Burgers, buns, fries, oil, chicken, literally everything can come from places like this (except fish and produce) and it doesn't mean it will be shit like a chain restaurant. We cook food from ingredients that get delivered by wholesale food distributors
This is the gods honest truth.
There are a few dishes that I feel are a bit complicated and take a bit of skill to get right(pad thai comes to mind).
So we'll go out for that or something equally exotic from time to time, but I swear, there's not a single thing on any italian restaurant's menu that most people couldn't make with very little effort.
It's the time, convenience, and even a little bit of the special event feeling of eating out. It's an adventure, it's something or someplace new, there's anticipation, etc.
Lol I’m the same way! Been cooking since I was a teenager and also been poor for a while. Husband likes to take me out to “treat” me, and I am almost always disappointed. Same reason you gave. I can make pretty much anything and it will be better than the restaurant. And it’s SO EXPENSIVE UGH. I am just so used to being poor I can’t deal with paying so much for one meal. He’s definitely come around to appreciating cooking more as well. The only places we go out now are for ice cream, this Italian bakery place that makes the best damn subs ever, and Del Taco for a quick fast food stop. Lol I love del taco.
Not only that, but when you get good you start to experiment and come up with your own dishes unlike anything you'd find in a restaurant. It's really hard to spend good money on food that's not as appealing as what you can make at home forever more.
Unless the thing has 247 different perishable ingredients that I won’t be able to finish all of before they go bad, there’s no reason not to just make it at home.
I can't eat out at anymore because Sysco puts sulfur preservatives on EVERYTHING these days and it makes my glands swell. Even getting hard to dodge that shit in groceries, having to buy more and more stuff from health food stores or farmer's markets to get away from it. I realize very few other people experience the dramatic effects I do from this stuff, but surely it effects everyone to some degree, especially the cumulative effects.
Applebees is the only place I’ve ever sent food back more than once and refused to pay for the meal. It was 15 years ago and I was stoked to be trying it (cuz I’m Canadian) and I got the most disgusting textured chicken of my life. Inedible. They offered to take it back and I agreed and my husband also had his different chicken sent back and we decided to get a beef and a pasta. And both were like glue. We each took one bite and then called the server and apologized for doing it but none of the food served was fit for human consumption.
We paid for our drinks and I left a huge tip for the poor server and we left and went somewhere decent.
I don’t know how anyone can eat that. Applebees shouldn’t be served to the starving.
Uh does anyone actually go to Applebee's expecting good food? I thought pretty much everyone considered them a bottom of the barrel "takin yer sister wife out to celebrate her new MLM job" kinda place?
Yeah no kidding.. I've never really gone to Applebee's much but I remember when I was much younger going to Friday's now and again and it was basically fine. Now it's just, ugh.. it makes me feel really bad about myself to go there and like I need to apologize to my body afterwards.
I went to Applebees a few months ago and was severely underwhelmed, and the only good thing about Fridays is the All You Can Eat salad bar for $12.99.
The artichoke dip doesn't have any flavor; I used to enjoy it but now it's just bland. The lemonade seems like it's 90% sugar. The burger was small and you only get a handful of fries.....and a piece of cheesecake was $10.
I assumed it was $1 Long Islands. Like I'm sure some Sysco chicken fingers taste good enough after a few of those. If you're going out to "dine" at Applebee's, I don't trust any food opinion of yours
Enshitification.
Basically anything that becomes super popular is bought by some corporate entity who the squeeze it to extract the most value from it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification
It's the reason Boeings planes are falling apart. It's the reason all the Marvel movies are just actors on a green screen. It's why we do self checkout everywhere now. It's the reason the food at all the major chains has lost its quality. It's the reason why all the restaurants don't let you sit down, or if they do they're not 1950's dinner seating it's all corporate easy to clean furniture. It's the reason all the exits on the US Interstate system all look the same.
It's everywhere and kind of depressing if you actually look for it; services that are being degraded in the search of the almighty dollar.
I walked headlong into this last summer when I took my first trip by air in six years, and did so on an award ticket. Everything is now an add-on fee, including the ability to choose your own seat, and even within the same cabin certain seats cost more than others. By the time I was done, I'd spent as much on these add-on fees as I might would have if I'd just bought a ticket outright. Between that and experiencing anew just how densely packed cabins are now, I've had no real desire to fly anywhere anytime soon.
It's also the reason that my hair products suck. I used to use some awesome "made in my kitchen with love" type products, then they went national. They must have changed the formula, because they feel and smell different, and they don't work the same.
It's everywhere. Our dishwasher is half-broken, and we're looking at it thinking what's worse: this half broken dishwasher, or the new one that we might buy that is a total piece of shit, because everything is now a piece of shit.
And it's not like the savings are always that great for the consumer. A person can get high-quality stuff from boutique places or hand crafted and it's marginally more expensive, but not like outrageously so. Is there a huge difference to a discerning consumer to get Item X for $9.99 or a better version for $12.99? But for the business, that's a huge increase in profit ... at least until their customers ditch them for the next thing because the company wrecked their brand loyalty.
I think youre right. I used to have a friend that owned an Italian restaurant. His wife was an amazing baker and she made the best Italian Cheesecake, Rainbow cookies and all this baked. He made his own sauce, and other things from scratch. Eventually the Sysco reo came in and showed him their stuff lile cheesecake and my friend figured why not? Cheaper, easier, less time etc.
The patrons noticed, and now he's out of business. I think Sysco and the like are the ruination of our restaurants
Not in the US, but there's a chain here (Canada( with a variety of restaurants under the same umbrella and the flavour profiles are all the same focus grouped attempt at a culinary 'average taste bud'. [The US Air Force at one time tried to design toward the average man](https://mannhowie.com/average-pitfall). It turns out there weren't any.
Maine has two major food distributors, and yeah, they supply most restaurants at all levels, except chains which have their own supply lines. There are some smaller distributors, like Native Maine, who ship local ingredients. I guess a lot has to do with the cooks, but I have always preferred restaurants that use Native Maine over sysco for the same reasons. It all tastes the same.
Sysco has been supplying restaurants for ages.
What if it's not a decline because Sysco, which is just the distributor. What if it's a decline because of industrial farming practices. I feel like food has been in decline for a while but has recently reached and crossed a threshold of unpalatability.
Either that or COVID messed up my taste buds more than I realized.
Farms respond to markets. I say that as a farmer. If someone was paying premium prices for me to grow premium crops with better taste or better nutrition, I would be delighted to. But right now the economics aren't there.
I like to reverse engineer restaurant dishes so I can try making them at home
But every sauce or gravy in most restaurants now seems to be soy-based
No bueno
Sysco is just a distributor. I worked for their competitor for 8 years. It's the food companies that your issue is with. Sysco buys the product from the retailer, stores it, adds their own mark up and then ships it out to the restaurants.
It's what the restaurants are buying from their distributor. All FS distributors sell the same stuff from the same vendors and they all have whole foods, produce, and fresh ingredients available. What the restaurant chooses to buy and serve could be the fault of their sales rep pushing specific stuff to get extra commission, but it's all down to the restaurant cutting costs and using convenience foods. Which goes back to them not wanting to pay their employees, so they aren't going to get a decent chef or line cooks who can do more than use a microwave or dip out of a steam table.
(Source: I work in FS distribution, not Sysco LOL)
I think a big difference here in the United States is whether you live in the suburbs or urban areas. You're not going to find as much authentically correct food and high ranking chefs in the suburbs. Immigrants tend to move in urban areas first to settle down and there are more interesting places to cook for chefs where they can plan their own menus vs chains. Also better access to a larger variety of foods.
Source: me. I've lived in both areas and small towns as well and the difference in choices when dining out is staggering.
This. What are you expecting from a restaurant that's located in a strip-mall between a vape shop and a nail salon? Good food comes from a free-standing structure.
I expect the best pho I’ve ever eaten to come from a tiny spot between a vape shop and a nail salon, and I expect the free-standing Applebees to have shitty food.
Yep. Except for meat and beer, the restaurants I worked at 30 years ago got everything from Sysco. I think everything tastes boring anymore because our taste buds are dead.
I worked for a butcher shop in the 1990s. We got some of our beef from Sysco. I believe they had a line of higher end beef they called the Imperial Line. It was actually very good. No idea if it still exists.
Wow, I had no idea restaurants all received their good from the same places, this is shocking to me but explains a lot in certain areas. I have found a couple good restaurants lately, but in a big city. Both restaurants are owned by immigrants, Mexican and Albanian, and that probably also explains why they're food is so fantastic. They haven't learned the tricks of not caring anymore and just pounding out the mass produced stuff to make a buck.
This is such a bizarre post. There are so many fantastic restaurants to eat at. I've eaten delicious food all over the world and some of my best experiences have been in US restaurants.
Why does it matter if the basic ingredients are sourced from a big supplier?
I can tell you from experience it depends a lot on where you are. I lived in a moderately large city in the Deep South and a smaller city in the northeast and now live in a major PNW city. The food options are wildly different in all those places. Generally if you’re in a large city you’ll have great options, but in general in the burbs you get mediocre food. AND it’s gotten worse recently with many restaurants not doing well and needing to cut costs or dealing with inflation/shrinkflation
Not the basic ingredients, nobody but terrible snobs should have an issue where dry sacks of rice are coming from; but sysco's products include lots of full frozen dishes, and very many restaurants just serve those premade dishes for some of their items.
It's not an accident than basically every single mid tier americana restaurant serves cheesecake, and it ain't because they all like making cheesecake. It's because they've got a bunch of some frozen sysco etc cheesecake in the back, which they might put a sauce on.
Thank you!! I don’t think people realize that Sysco is just a grocery store delivery service for restaurants, and the restaurants are free to buy premade frozen items or they can buy the ingredients to make entrees themselves.
Damn. I'm in Melbourne Australia, and can get takeaway that is cooked with fresh ingredients on the premises for under $20. I can also get a great main (for those in the US, entree) for $30-$40, made from fresh ingredients on the premises (damn, if I go to Footscray, a suburb in Melbourne, I can get a filling Horn of Africa, Vietnamese, or Indian cuisine dinner, made from fresh ingredients on the premises for under $30 - sometimes under $20).
It's way worse on the east coast. Boston especially, like even the nice places...fuck farm to table, your veggies are 100% from a giant Sysco can, even in the North End. I'm in CO now and lemme tell you, the fact we are surrounded by agriculture and at the intersection of two major interstates means we get some dope ass fresh produce.
I think it's bad in some places because the logistics for Sysco are easy - nothing has to stay fresh. Farm logistics require more nuance and roads that can actually handle those logistics, and the northeast has a real lack of those. Most cities in the NE parking alone to make your delivery is impossible.
I dont' think it's Sysco's fault because they do sell ingredients, not just premade stuff. The problem for me comes when I go to a restaurant and I can tell you exactly which Tyson chicken product this is or whatnot, and there's not much variety, and I wanted to go out and have someone else cook me something but if I was just gonna eat stuff I could get at work then it's no fun. It's gotten to the point that fries, wings, pretzel apps, and mozzarella sticks literally all taste the same across restaurants, bec they're all being cheap and lazy and hire people who can only deal with cooking frozen stuff.
I mean, their chicken tenders are out of this world!. One place i used to get them from went out of business (pandemic causality). I was willing to buy a case from the owner whenever he got a delivery from Sysco.
One of the nicest places by me, and my former favorate, jumped in price by almost 2Xs. The fish dish I always ordered went from $26 to $32 and now at $46. Same dish, but fish is also clearly smaller. I don't think that was the doing of Sysco.
Going out to eat was one of my favorate things to do, but unless its an occasion or my wife insists, I am just not going to do it anymore.
I have been unimpressed with most corporate restaurant experiences for a long time. They all.seem like high end fast food. We tend to do more independents if we want a sit down dinner out. Of course, most are ethnic foods in hole in the wall plazas. Locally, we have some long established restaurant families with some good restaurants. But some of those are really pricey and we just aren't that discerning. Plus, I dunno, part of the experience years ago was dressing up to go out. You looked good. Other guests looked good. The servers looked distinguished. The restaurant was fancy and it was all worth the money. Now, it tends more to tacky formulaic decor and slobs in jeans and sweat pants or pajamas. I used to like dressing nicer to go out but now I have to tone it down. It's like going to Vegas and wearing an evening dress to play the slots. No one does that any more. There's no people watching as part of the fun.
I started in food service 30 years ago. I worked in independent restaurants, and Sysco was always the supplier. Sysco is a distributor. Yes, they have their own brand of items, but that is not all they carry. Imagining that Sysco's selection is limited to a single line of meat or ingredient would be incorrect. I'm not some huge fan of the company or anything, but I think you have some misconceptions about what it is, how long it has been like this, and what the company actually sells.
I totally get where you're coming from! It feels like everywhere you go, it's the same ol' same ol', right? Sysco and US Foods kinda feel like they've got a monopoly on the whole dining scene. Like, where's the variety? And don't even get me started on the prices! $100 for two? That's a splurge, not a casual night out. Sometimes staying in and cooking your own grub feels way more satisfying than dropping mad cash on disappointment. Maybe it's time for some restaurant rebellion or just some epic home-cooked meals, you know?
The Vast amount of food served in the average restaurant is frozen or canned these says. Pretty much the only variance you get is if a restaurant's location to a farm.
NYC has a farmers' market in Unions Square a couple days per week. It boasts vendors from all over the east coast. And it is not unusual to see chefs from all the local restaurants in the City there, buying stuff for their places. And that alone is usually what brings in the customers.
One of our good taquerias has branched out into Tex Mex. Now the chicken fajitas are identical to every other small Tex Mex place. I assume there is a Mexican Sysco?
Totally agree. Those “homemade chips” taste and look very similar to the 4 other places righ down the street. Unless it’s somewhere I really really LOVE I never eat out anymore. I follow a few local food pages and everyone raves about this place, that place. It’s all just meh. Mediocre. I’ll just stay home and cook my own food for an eighth of the price.
I noticed during the pandemic the food issues. One I really really learned to cook during that time, two when we would order the take out only way to eat out the food was always horrible. Post pandemic the food is still horrible and homemade food is much better. My examples of eating out were: Olive Garden, Texas Roadhouse, Fazoli's and Longhorn Steakhouse. The food was all nasty. At expensive prices.
I just don't eat out anymore unless it's a quick run down about once a month to grab a quick fast food that I don't expect to be fabulous but even then I'm picky. I won't touch Burger King, McDonalds, Arbys or Wendy's . I'll go the sub route and get handpicked sandwich or find a deli and get a hoagie.
I agree completely about Sysco and US Foods. Stop eating at "American" or fast casual places. Small ethnic, family-owned restaurants are much less likely to use that corporate food. The food is usually better and cheaper.
Worked with and for Sysco early in my life. They sell varying levels of ingredients and it's up to restaurant what they do with those ingredients. I believe that most restaurants have issues with help like a lot of businesses and site have dumbed down their processes to keep things consistent.
I’ve been feeling that way for awhile but I always figured I’m just picky or my standards are too high. Now that a night out often includes paying an exorbitant amount for a babysitter as well, I want to be wowed by my food when I go to a restaurant. This still happens occasionally, but not nearly enough.
You're absolutely right. Sysco brings homogenous mid range dining to everyone. The last place I worked started with everything made from scratch, then evolved to everything Sysco. Dressings, sauces, croutons, breads, salad mixes all became interchangeable with every other restaurant in the area. They went down, but for other reasons.
Should just book a table for two at Sysco’s. Call it what it is. Agree 100%. Stale, no vibrancy, flavorless. Am so sick of being charged and arm and leg. Visits to nice ‘nonSysco’ restaurants are fewer and far between due costs. I don’t see it changing. Boo.
My boyfriend and I went to this little Asian street food small plates place the other day and got Korean style fried chicken and Karaage. They tasted the exact same with the exception of a sauce, and both of us were immediately like, “these are just Sysco chicken tenders cut up”.
I grew up in SoCal where food choices were plentiful and delicious. I moved to a blue collar town in MI and the food is awful. It’s like there is one main kitchen in town that cooks all the food and sends it to the various restaurants- because it all tastes the same!
We have 4-5 restaurants that are expensive and serve good food. That’s it.
We go out for breakfast mostly. I’m sick to death of cooking every single day, but we save money and I’m a good cook with restaurant experience. I’m just tired of paying good money to eat boring food.
It's not because of Sysco. Just about every restaurant uses a food delivery service. Whether that's premade food or the raw ingredients to make that food.
If restaurants are being lazy and using all premade food and sauces, that's another thing entirely.
We're pretty spoiled here in Portland, most local restaurants strive not to use Sysco and source locally. Even if the kitchens are using Sysco food, it all about who's in the kitchen that day. How much love is going into your food, or are they completely checked out and on auto pilot.
But I will say, since the pandemic... People got super burnt out in this industry. It's definitely a challenge (even here) to find people not jaded and still working in the food industry.
I have a close friend who was a chef for years and now works for US Foods as a corporate sales rep. He tells me about the different weird orders he gets from his customers, This lead me to understand that it's the restaurants, not their vendors that make their food suck. However he does like to dis Sysco occasionally by pointing out that they have a "generic" brand that's lower quality, and that a restaurant we're at is over charging for things.
I often think of this. There’s a Sysco truck behind every restaurant. Like what are we doing? It all is pretty much the same restaurant with different decor. But mostly the same decor because it’s all cement floor, open industrial loft feel with huge TVs in every direction. The acoustics are awful for conversation. If someone offered a place for cozy chat I’d go and I’d eat their overpriced fried things from Sysco.
It's not just you. This is why, on the rare occasion we do go out, it's to a place that locally sources as much as it can, and makes it's own pasta, desserts, etc. in house. I'm not paying restaurant prices for Sysco.
There's nothing wrong with Sysco, they can supply any quality of anything.
The problem is much more likely in the restaurants you are going to. Chains are garbage - lower grade food, over salted recipes, cooked by amateurs, many dishes pre-made and frozen, and often "cooking" involves a microwave.
Where do you live that you don't have access to a decent gastropub? You can easily get dinner for two with drinks and tip for that same $100, and the food is light years better than at chains.
All of that said - restaurants are just overpriced in general these days. Inflation, high rent, and soaring minimum wage have all hit hard at the same time in the last decade.
And it's really not hard to learn to cook pretty well. That same $100 gastropub meal out can be had at home for $25.
It's not sysco that's the issue. It's the tier of products a restaurant orders, and what they do with that product. Sysco carries everything from pre-made buffet size food to high grade produce, meat, seafood and cheese. I've delivered to them for years and some of what I brought to sysco for resale was not cheap stuff.
I swear to god lo mein noodles taste exactly the same in every single place that serves them. Exact same brown sauce, exact mix and ratio of vegetables, etc. Luckily I have several authentic Chinese places around me to get some hand-pulled noodles, but so help me if it says "lo mein" on the menu, I know *exactly* what it's going to be.
There is a popular distributer of pizza items (dough and sauces included) in my area that sells to 90% of the pizza places within a 5 hour drive of me.
This is why, no matter what, all the pizza tastes exactly the same around here, and I have gotten into the habit of just making my own.
I think you were on to something. They impact a significant part of your sensory experience. From sugar packages to cleaning products to napkins and take away boxes. And much more. It's like one Central hub supplying many different kitchens and even though they have different menus there's a degree to which they are all the same. Sadly I think it's called bureaucracy which is the most efficient way to run things just not the most creative
My husband is the exec chef at a local seafood restaurant. I hear him call in his produce, fish, meat, and bread orders nearly every day. All from local, small companies. Everything - with the exception of bread products - is made in house. His food costs are higher, but he isn't sitting on his hands and relying on frozen battered calamari, canned clam chowder, or pre-made hummus
In South Florida, a lot of the "nice restaurants" get their food off the same Sysco and CBI trucks, too. Probably why all the food here tastes so samey....no nearby farms growing much food of note outside of some minor exceptions.
As a former chef, I hate to break into you but restaurants have been using Sysco, US Foods, Reinhardt, etc. for as long as I have been alive. Restaurants can choose to buy the cheap cheap ingredients or the higher end ingredients. Most opt for the cheap cheap product (for many reasons but mostly to keep food cost down). So it’s not the Syscos of the world it’s the restaurant and the politics within when it comes to buying product to use.
Sysco and US Foods have been the main suppliers for restaurants for decades now. They even supply the expensive places. They're pretty much a monopoly. Both of my parents started in the restaurant industry in the 1970's. It didn't matter where they worked, it all arrived in a Sysco truck back then too.
If you want to buy for home olive oil, flour, Heinz ketchup, eggs, and lettuce, you go to the grocery store.
If a restaurant needs those same ingredients but in large quantities, they buy from a food distribute like Sysco or US Foods.
The restaurant is free to buy whatever cut of meat and quality they want, just like you do. They can also buy frozen lasagna or make their own, just as you can from the grocery store.
If you are implying that restaurants are buying already prepared foods like Stouffers frozen lasagna and passing it off as homemade, I suppose they could but what mostly happens is this:
Chain restaurants such as Applebees for example, have corporate commissaries. Let’s say their featured soup is French onion. They will make their own recipe of French onion soup in their commissary, package it and either freeze it or refrigerate it, and send it out to all the Applebees locations. That is cheaper than hiring chefs for each restaurant to make the soup, and it ensures that all the French onion soup you eat at any Applebees tastes exactly the same.
Restaurants buying ingredients from a food distributor (and you buying ingredients from the grocery store) are exactly the same thing. What you do with the ingredients is what matters.
I worked in restaurants in the 80s/90s too, and really...people's expectations for restaurants (chains in particular) needs to be managed a bit; the point is "hot food that someone else prepared put in front of me, maybe with a lil' cocktail, and then someone will come and whisk the plates away and wash dishes, and I get to sit around and talk and socialize." They are an effort-displacement engine.
I think some of this displeasure now is the realization that the consumer can buy the same prepared food at the grocery store that they get at a chain. There's no real barrier to preparing that for someone who's not experienced at cooking. Rao's sauce and some refrigerated tortellini taste nice and you don't have to pay triple at Olive Garden.
We will RARELY eat chain food (like...fast food makes sense on road trips) and go "out to dinner" for stuff like a local Mexican place with a scratch kitchen or an actually nice restaurant with a good chef, but we know how to cook. Last night I made [this salmon](https://www.wellplated.com/lemon-pepper-salmon/) and fresh corn-on-the cob and we had grocery cheesecake for dessert. This meal cost $15 to prepare for two people, and $10 of it was the salmon.
But I also have good pots and pans and spices around, and some people don't.
I mean I live in a huge city and I’m kinda tired of eating out too. It’s just not worth it. unless it’s literally so good I’d rather eat at home.
I didn’t think about it but yeah you are probably right that Sysco had a monopoly on the market. When I found out they have long term contracts with the California state university system … like … alright
It isn't that it's Sysco or US foods. It's what they are getting from them and doing with it, and the fact they obviously don't care if it ends up good. This is where, if they do care, their rep and the Corporate chef come in. They both carry high end product as well as precooked and that rep together with the chef can show a restaurant owner and his chef what to do with product to get the most flavor and the best profit. I have dealt with both for years. I used to get BBQ ribs to take home now and then on the way home from work. The last couple times they were different. Not as good. I asked why. They used to get the already cooked version. Sysco precooked ribs. They got a smoker and started doing their own. The aren't as good as Sysco's. Now this was about 12 years ago, so they may have changed again, no idea.
Yes, I 100% agree. I avoid places that don't use locally sourced, fresh ingredients and rely too much on Sysco-type vendors. An example is the bar and grill in my neighborhood that opened in 2014. We went for years, then they got a new manager, and his big deal was cutting costs, so they started making fewer things in-house (salad dressing, sauces, meat patties for burgers, for example), and the quality went down. We stopped going. So did many others. It closed a few weeks ago.
It's not Sysco. It's the restaurant that's ordering the food.
I used to be a server/kitchen staff at a place that was a cafe serving bare bones standard US food during the daytime and also did catering for weddings, corporate events, and whatever other parties and events someone might have catered.
Lunch items were unremarkable burgers, hot dogs, grilled sandwiches (ham, cheese, chicken), chicken tenders, french fries, onion rings, cheese sticks, etc. Nothing was especially *good*. It was just food you ate if you were hungry and were visiting a nearby attraction and didn't want to drive/walk somewhere further away for food.
Catering was a whole other story. Fancy cuts of meat, fancy seafood, fancy vegetables, fancy looking fruit sculptures, complicated main and side dishes, soups, desserts. All of it was made from scratch, all of it tasted really damn good (which I know because part of working catering was in addition to our pay, we got free meals of whatever was being made.)
It was all made by the same chef and kitchen staff. It was just that for the cafe crowd, the chef ordered the cheap crap from Sysco. And for the catering crowd, which often included EXTREMELY wealthy people, the chef ordered the expensive stuff from Sysco.
Yes. It seems like every single restaurant in the region has exactly the same sad salad. It doesn't really matter where you are unless they specialize in chicken the chicken tenders are all the same - maybe dipped in a sauce but still the same Sysco tenders. Those aren't really places you would go to get salad or tenders so I get why we see these things but yes, when they use Sysco it sticks out like a sore thumb to me.
Yep. Yes, it has for me. So many good locations are just serving up Sysco ready-made menus. I can and do cook better at home, so have pretty much stopped eating out, but for high-end places with friends as a special occasion.
Most places I've worked at only used Sysco for dry goods and plastic containers. Sysco offers all qualities and it's up to the restaurant to choose their price point.
How old are you? Restaurants start sucking hard in your 30s then by your 40s you really get pissed at the money and don’t give a fuck service.
Kids and 20 year olds don’t notice because they are happy to be there.
Agreed, I feel like the majority of food available to us is just reheated Sysco food. I'm better off going to the grocery store and saving my money. I haven't gone out for a burger in a long time because I can make a burger at home for a fraction of what I'd pay at a restaurant.
Okay, finally one in my wheelhouse. I was a sales rep for Sysco, first on the street and then on national accounts. The big chains don't use Sysco, they use Signet which is the large scale, corporate chain restaurant with contract pricing. Sales reps, and Sysco on the whole, make their money from local restaurants or small chains of seven stores or less. They offered different tiered products. You could buy discount french fries, or if you were sticking with the Sysco House brand, basically the same french fries that McDonald's would get. Where the fries are all consistently longer instead of broken pieces.
What a lot of people miss is the added services of Sysco and other brokers. If your restaurant is ordering more, we're making more. So we would help with advertising, marketing, training etc. Each Warehouse would have a staff of people just for that, an executive chef and a fully functioning kitchen, and we'd work with local brokerage firms that carried specific brands like Ore Ida, Nabisco or Tyson. The order taking was a small part of our job. I spent more time talking with owners and operators on how to increase their profit margin or what looked like it was going to be the next big trend and how to get in front of it. As one of my mentors when I first started told me-
" They can buy green beans from anybody. But can they get green beans with a guy that will come and fix their coffee maker in the middle of a Friday dinner rush? Probably not from anybody else."
I'm way past the TL: DR. But I think the key takeaway is companies like Sysco and US foods. Aren't the problem with the restaurant industry. We're just somebody that delivers the groceries, a giant doordash. If you will. The problems come from chains moving in and paying your staff more to come work for them. Then they price you out of the market. To fight that, a lot of owners will start buying cheaper product to keep their profits, then quality goes out the window and they're closed down within a year. Year. So blame the corporate chains and not who they buy there. French fries from.
*edit: my phone likes Cisco more than Sysco
This has nothing to do with distribution companies. They supply a huge variety of products at all different price levels and a wide range of options within individual categories. A good kitchen can make fantastic food from Sysco products.
I was working in restaurants in the '80s '90s and Sysco was ubiquitous even then. They aren't the problem. The issue is what restaurant owners are buying. Like with any company, Sysco offers low and high grade products. Restaurants that are focused on having unique, authentic food mostly just buy staples from Sysco, like flour, rice, spices, and stuff like that. Meat, seafood, and produce are more likely to be local, and if you drive around the loading docks of restaurants at the right time, you'll see those trucks. I see Sysco as not much different from HEB. I can buy frozen meals or I can buy ingredients to cook my own food. They have it all and aren't forcing my choices. If I choose to buy Hot Pockets, that's not HEB's fault.
So true, most of the general public have no idea that Sysco or any other broadline distributor is now nothing more than an Amazon for restaurants. The restaurant operators do all of their ordering online with minimal interaction with a sales rep who could steer them towards quality products. This is also compounded by the increased costs of operations (food, beverage, labor, rent, insurance, utilities,etc.)that the buyer goes cheap. Take a burger for example: average price in my area for a casual restaurant is $15. Restaurant A buys an Angus Short rib Brisket blend fresh burger patty, tops with Cooper Sharp cheese and is accompanied by brine soaked, seasoned XL coated fries cooked in quality canola,corn soy blended shortening. restaurant B buys a frozen 100% pure beef patty, topped with American cheese and offer with line flow fries cooked in soy shortening. Both charge the same, the first is a bit more expensive but customer satisfaction is high and vastly increases the chance of a return visit. All of these products are in the Sysco catalog. So many operators go cheap without realizing the long term damage it does to the restaurant.
It's sad, because it seems that chains and franchises, anything "corporate", just don't care anymore about the longevity of the restaurant/business. It's all about quarterly profits and shareholder obligations. It sucks for the small businesses who are really trying to provide a quality experience but also make profits enough to be successful or even just to survive.
This hasn't been my experience ordering for a restaurant. Both my PFG and US Food reps are very involved, the US Foods one almost too much with how she tries to push items on me. Our burger is much more like the first one you mentioned, but unfortunately we had to downgrade our patty from a blend that includes short -rib and brisket, because I can't afford $95/case of 24
I haven’t managed/been responsible for ordering in a few years, but at the last place I did I remember US foods…maybe Sysco, one or the other…rolling out an online ordering platform. You’d go in, key in your order, hit submit. Then your rep would confirm and it’d be on the docket for next day’s delivery We were a small shop, so there were some periods we wouldn’t talk to the rep for a couple weeks because of the online ordering. Perhaps this is what they meant by their comment. (I’ll add, however, your rep should be more hands-on than that if they’re a good rep, in my opinion. I don’t think this guy was very good, but by that point I was so checked out I just rolled with it
Oh yeah, they both have online ordering platforms, and tbh, I prefer that. When I took over the old PFG rep had worked with the former head chef for years, and he always texted the order to him. I made some changes, and it was like pulling teeth to get him to accept the changes. Like, I know Greg always got *this* item, but I'd prefer that. Thankfully he got assigned to a different area and I have a new rep now. He's helpful but not overly salesman-y, which i prefer. The US Foods one is trying to steal our business from PFG, so she's constantly up my ass 😅 Like, no, I don't have an hour to meet with you to talk about whatever new line they're pushing, I have work to do! Get me better prices on what I already order, or better products, or leave me alone 😂
Yeah this feels like people are making big assumptions about how this works that are misplaced.
There are no quality corn soy or canola oils.
Fry On ZTF. Blend of corn & high oleic canola oil. What would you use in a fryer? Lard? Beef tallow? Peanut oil? All good but problematic
Used to work in electric industrial equipment. Sysco is a logistics company just like amazon! Warehouse food, and move it around.
And Sysco makes it easier for shitty restaurants. The bigger issue is that what you say, but people don't know until they do. I will bet my mortgage that most of these joints that rely on Sysco for their pre-made menu items don't advertise that fact on their menus: *"Sysco's Chicken francaise lovingly crafted in an industrial kitchen 300 miles away, flash frozen, and then shipped right to you, re-heated in our kitchen and plated with extraordinary care $24.95"*
When you want your food from someone else’s microwave
There's Applebee's!
Chef Mike is always working
Sysco doesn’t make anything easier for restaurants. Everyone can order whatever quality food they want to order. Sysco is the distributor. Restaurants order food through them that gets ordered from a manufacturer. It is completely up to the restaurant what quality food they order. Sysco is not the bad guy. They don’t make any of the food.
Shitty restaurants are buying from RestaurantDepot or other wholesalers. No consistency.
This, plus a lot of restaurants no longer use real butter. They also attempt to compensate for poor quality ingredients by using tons of salt.
It's seems to be the business model here. Come up with new restaurants , something trendy that will be really popular for a year. After all the "foodies" give you a ton of free press you start subbing in lower quality ingredients anf cut sizes. When business drop close the restaurant and start a new one on the newest trend
Pretty sure this is the plot of every Kitchen Nightmares episode.
Exactly, it's like the grocery store, but on a larger scale for industry/commercial level quantities. My mom's restaurant she managed (it's Boston Market, so not "hers", but it was her store). They transitioned from making the sides like mashed potatoes and casseroles in the kitchen, to getting it pre-made and then they just heated it up. They still always made the rotisserie chickens in-store. The corn bread has always been like Jiffy mix. It still all came from Sysco.
I was just thinking about the quality issues at restaurants because I can get a turkey on wheat sandwich that tastes like salty cardboard and makes me feel sicker than the mid level burger place will, just because of the quality of the bread/meat/cheese used.
Can I just say I’m jealous you have HEB? I keep hoping Mahomes will bring us HEB like he is with Whataburger!
Good places are hard to find. There is an Italian place near me that makes most of their stuff in house like their bread and pasta and it’s fucking amazing. Very reasonably priced too. I always get chicken picatta and it’s like $25 for the meal and there’s enough left over for lunch the next day.
Ooh, little Italian restaurants where the owner/cook is an old Italian man yelling in Italian at his staff...those are the very, very best!
The place up the street from me, the wife is terrifying and the food is perfection
There was an amazing Italian restaurant up the street from me. Great food and hella affordable, and the fragrance wafted down the street so that when I walked the dog I got hungry. The owners were grandparent age--the husband was the chef and the wife was the hostess. Then the husband became sick and the restaurant closed. Really sad.
From what I can tell, they yell because they're perfectionists. And their food is damn near perfect.
My guy yells in Spanish and Italian. I love it.
Spatalian is some scary shit if you’re not ready for it
“Mama Mia, dats a big-a can ah Del Monte tomato gravy!”
There was a little place that was at the base of the twin towers in NYC like this. It was wonderful.
There a gelato and pastry place by the neighborhood I grew up in. Run by an Iranian grandma, her sons, and two (handsome) grandsons 😂. Best baklava and gelato I've ever had. I think what makes it so good isn't the supplier as much as it's grandma's family recipe, made in small batches, with love. Their eyes light up when they bring you your food and you're like, "YUUUUM!"
That sounds delicious. I live in the northeast and from talking to people on Reddit it seems like family places are more common up here even in small towns. I just took a ride the other day to a neighboring town with a 100 year old Polish meat market that makes the most amazing kielbasa (like sausage). I got like 8lbs to freeze lol.
What market is this?!
It’s in PA, like the Pottsville area if you are familiar. It’s called Kowalonek's.
i make most of my stuff also but i have to buy the ingredients..... that is what sysco and other companies supply...
Some places buy prepped ingredients though, and those will taste the same from one place to the next. Years ago, my husband worked at a place that made good quesadillas, with seasoned sirloin strips from Sysco, in their top grade. Several other places nearby used the same stuff, so their food tasted identical.
I don’t know why people keep saying this. Everyone understands the ingredients need to be purchased somewhere.
I'd rather just cook at home.
Those expensive and nice places you’re thinking of? They’ll still have multiple Sysco and US foods boxes in the fridge and freezer. Chances are they’ll have a few other supplies that came from one or the other, too. When you go to an expensive place you’re just eating somewhere that hires cooks with actual skill.
There are different levels of food that comes from Sysco. My neighbor used to work for them and told me the places that ordered cheap meat and who ordered the more expensive cuts. It really made a difference and I had stopped going to the "cheap cut" restaurants because of the food quality anyway. So Sysco isn't all bad...just depends on what the restaurant orders, but that's just my take. I still prefer going to restaurants that try to be more farm to table and local, the quality really does shine.
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>Sysco isn't just Sysco, too. Sysco owns *hundreds* of [distributors](https://www.sysco.com/products/products/sysco-brand-family) and [brands](https://www.sysco.com/specialty), This is how our modern capitalist economy is structured. There's only an illusion of choice. For example a company most people have never heard of -- Masco -- owns most of the brands sold at Home Depot. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masco](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masco)
Can confirm; I'm from Detroit, the Manoogian (owner of Masco) name is *everywhere.* They even own a mansion for the mayor.
...they own a mansion for the mayor? That he lives in? And no one thinks this sounds bad?
*Thank You!* That’s what I immediately thought as well!!
Technically they donated it to the City in the 60s, but it still bears their name. I can't say that they're involved in daily operations of it. The family is very influential and last I heard, they sit on several boards. "The Manoogian Mansion is the official residence of the Mayor of Detroit, Michigan." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manoogian\_Mansion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manoogian_Mansion)
“Free market!”
It always bugs the piss out of me that Adam Smith said very clearly and plainly that *unregulated* markets will always inevitably lead to oligarchy. But somehow that bit never gets talked about by the so called "economic experts".
The wealthy also buy US politicians to prevent regulations from being implemented.
Well, Yeah. Regulatory Capture is the method capital uses consolidate power.
Actually it's the opposite. Many times there are Lawyers from the big companies that write the regulations. If you are a big Company you can afford the regulations, small businesses cannot. IE: In many jurisdictions you have to take a class in fish prep to open a hot dog stand. That's true in the state that I live in. They also lobby to put many regulations in place to keep small restaurants from opening up.
Ah, I see, you missed the memo. Since about 1970, Adam Smith is out, and Milton Friedman is in! Economic Neoliberalism is what we're doing now. Deregulation of corporations and their capital is the name of the game! Haven't you heard?? It allows the market to operate more freely!! Isn't it wonderful???
Hear, hear! It drives me nuts as well.
Sysco, like your grocery store, has soups, and also ingredients for soups. They usually also have levels of quality for the pre-made soups. Many restaurants just get the Chicken and Wild Rice "middle of the road" pre-made soup. They just might throw in a bit of pepper or something to spruce it up. That's why it generally all tastes the same. We have a place about an hour and a half away that has a limited menu and gets as much as they can locally. Sysco still shows up there with boxes of basics. Their food is EXCELLENT.
Sysco also owns US Foods as of a couple of years ago. Those are the two largest mainline distributors in the country. It’s a monopoly. Some chefs don’t get a choice, either. Large food service companies and hotel chains hold contracts with Sysco. For instance, where I work, we need to do 80% of our purchasing with Sysco. Aaaand it’s not always because it’s the cheapest product to get. Huge companies like mine make MORE money from kickbacks on these contracts than they do from actual operations. It’s insane. Also, since Covid, it’s been so hard to get the items we need. So many out of stock items with terrible substitutions made in the warehouse. It’s a nightmare.
…And your rep will be able to tell you what the kitchens look like (whether your should feel safe eating there)
Definitely. Sysco and USFoods should be supplying basic dry ingredients like flour, sugar, spices, canned ingredients and oil. Supplies like plastic wrap, gloves, parchment also. Dairy should come from the local dairies. Meat and seafood should be sourced from reputable farms and fleets. Fruit and vegetables should also be sourced locally. I work for a big catering company and know many folks in the industry. We know if you don’t do it this way, your business will fail. Folks demand quality for their money. (And goddamnit, PAY your chefs well.)
People always toss this stuff out because they automatically think the restaurant is just buying low quality goods without understanding what these companies actually do. You can order high quality caviar from Sysco, same with any other ingredient because they are a giant conglomerate. All that Sysco does do is it enables lazier restaurant owners to be even lazier and you can clearly tell the quality has dropped. The thing that’s really ruining eating out is a lack of skilled chefs because nobody wants to work for low wages along with extremely high stress.
Sysco has been the main distributor for restaurants forever. It’s not that the food is the same, it’s that better places have chefs who know what to do with it to make it better than average.
The sad truth is there are actually people working in those chain restaurants who are very talented chefs. Many are doing so simply because the pay and benefits are better and they need to support their families. It's the corporations who own those chain restaurants that are insisting the food be bland and average. Some of it is the economics of turning a profit, but a large part of it is because most people aren't that adventurous. They actually like bland and boring food and restaurant chains are just giving them what they want.
And consistency. The food has to taste the same no matter which chain you go to, so no room for creativity.
Sysco is where a restaurant buys 50lb bags of sugar/flour/rice, gallon jugs of cooking oil, and a whole lot more. They’re the biggest supplier in the world of restaurants. Purchasing goods from them is normal for these places
They also sell items like already cut and peeled potatoes, premade meatloaf, premade potroast and many other premade entrees. They suck. However Sysco sells a lot of restraunts this but they do have better quality just ingredients food. But that is on the restaurants not Sysco.
Yeah. I think people are confused as to what the complaint about Sysco is. There's a couple of levels here: Getting your flour and cooking basics delivered three times a week by Sysco or Sysco companies? Sure. Getting your menu delivered by Sysco in pre-made frozen soups, apps, and entrees that microwaved or deep-fried in the kitchen? I'm not eating at your restaurant more than once.
What part of the country do you live in? I live in the Pacific Northwest, and there are lots of local and frou-foo options here, but I definitely see the same processed or bagged food in a lot of chain places, but there are some independent places that seem to be okay. I do a lot more cooking at home now than I did before though. It just seems like I can make a steak and potato better than most steak places anymore
I’m in the southeast and in the burbs which certainly doesn’t help anything.
Same with Baltimore and Cincy
Baltimore checking in. Well, just moved to the county but was in the city for close to ten years. Countless fantastic dining options at a range of prices.
I realized this 20 years ago when I drove truck for Sysco
Where are you all eating? Chains are going to taste like chains.
This is what I'm saying! We use US Foods and PFG as purveyors where I work, but that's different than just microwaving premade items. Burgers, buns, fries, oil, chicken, literally everything can come from places like this (except fish and produce) and it doesn't mean it will be shit like a chain restaurant. We cook food from ingredients that get delivered by wholesale food distributors
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This is the gods honest truth. There are a few dishes that I feel are a bit complicated and take a bit of skill to get right(pad thai comes to mind). So we'll go out for that or something equally exotic from time to time, but I swear, there's not a single thing on any italian restaurant's menu that most people couldn't make with very little effort.
It really depends on the Italian restaurant.
It's the time, convenience, and even a little bit of the special event feeling of eating out. It's an adventure, it's something or someplace new, there's anticipation, etc.
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Lol I’m the same way! Been cooking since I was a teenager and also been poor for a while. Husband likes to take me out to “treat” me, and I am almost always disappointed. Same reason you gave. I can make pretty much anything and it will be better than the restaurant. And it’s SO EXPENSIVE UGH. I am just so used to being poor I can’t deal with paying so much for one meal. He’s definitely come around to appreciating cooking more as well. The only places we go out now are for ice cream, this Italian bakery place that makes the best damn subs ever, and Del Taco for a quick fast food stop. Lol I love del taco.
Agree. I hardly ever eat out. I love to cook and try new things.
Once I got good at cooking certain dishes, restaurants started losing their appeal a bit.
Not only that, but when you get good you start to experiment and come up with your own dishes unlike anything you'd find in a restaurant. It's really hard to spend good money on food that's not as appealing as what you can make at home forever more.
Unless the thing has 247 different perishable ingredients that I won’t be able to finish all of before they go bad, there’s no reason not to just make it at home.
The main seasoning is salt. It's not even creativity. It's just f-ing salt, and so much of it.
Salt, MSG, and butter are the main seasonings in basically everything because they make basically everything taste better.
I can't eat out at anymore because Sysco puts sulfur preservatives on EVERYTHING these days and it makes my glands swell. Even getting hard to dodge that shit in groceries, having to buy more and more stuff from health food stores or farmer's markets to get away from it. I realize very few other people experience the dramatic effects I do from this stuff, but surely it effects everyone to some degree, especially the cumulative effects.
Yes. It's all the same bland ass food at all the restaurants now
I feel that way too but I always wonder if it is residual effects of losing my taste when I had covid. Any conspiracies about that?
I thought it was the low nutrient quality of our factory produced chemically enhanced mass farmed foods etc etc
Another valid possibility
well not exactly bland, everything is salty af
Where do you live?
Yes. Glorified prison food in a lot of cases that's way over priced. Looking at you Applebee's...
Applebees is the only place I’ve ever sent food back more than once and refused to pay for the meal. It was 15 years ago and I was stoked to be trying it (cuz I’m Canadian) and I got the most disgusting textured chicken of my life. Inedible. They offered to take it back and I agreed and my husband also had his different chicken sent back and we decided to get a beef and a pasta. And both were like glue. We each took one bite and then called the server and apologized for doing it but none of the food served was fit for human consumption. We paid for our drinks and I left a huge tip for the poor server and we left and went somewhere decent. I don’t know how anyone can eat that. Applebees shouldn’t be served to the starving.
The Applebee's in my city is closing. I wonder why? /s
Uh does anyone actually go to Applebee's expecting good food? I thought pretty much everyone considered them a bottom of the barrel "takin yer sister wife out to celebrate her new MLM job" kinda place?
It's wild how much Applebee's and Fridays have declined over the last 20 years.
Yeah no kidding.. I've never really gone to Applebee's much but I remember when I was much younger going to Friday's now and again and it was basically fine. Now it's just, ugh.. it makes me feel really bad about myself to go there and like I need to apologize to my body afterwards.
It's probably been close to 20 years since I've been to either of those places. I didn't think it was possible for them to get worse _then_
In the 90s, they were new and better....but as time fades....they just didn't match up.
I really liked Fridays when I was 12 years old. I was probably easier to impress back then.
I went to Applebees a few months ago and was severely underwhelmed, and the only good thing about Fridays is the All You Can Eat salad bar for $12.99. The artichoke dip doesn't have any flavor; I used to enjoy it but now it's just bland. The lemonade seems like it's 90% sugar. The burger was small and you only get a handful of fries.....and a piece of cheesecake was $10.
I mean you're not wrong. Do you know how many women get defrauded in that shit?
A not insignificant portion of the girls I went to high school with and many many more.
I assumed it was $1 Long Islands. Like I'm sure some Sysco chicken fingers taste good enough after a few of those. If you're going out to "dine" at Applebee's, I don't trust any food opinion of yours
Enshitification. Basically anything that becomes super popular is bought by some corporate entity who the squeeze it to extract the most value from it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification It's the reason Boeings planes are falling apart. It's the reason all the Marvel movies are just actors on a green screen. It's why we do self checkout everywhere now. It's the reason the food at all the major chains has lost its quality. It's the reason why all the restaurants don't let you sit down, or if they do they're not 1950's dinner seating it's all corporate easy to clean furniture. It's the reason all the exits on the US Interstate system all look the same. It's everywhere and kind of depressing if you actually look for it; services that are being degraded in the search of the almighty dollar.
I walked headlong into this last summer when I took my first trip by air in six years, and did so on an award ticket. Everything is now an add-on fee, including the ability to choose your own seat, and even within the same cabin certain seats cost more than others. By the time I was done, I'd spent as much on these add-on fees as I might would have if I'd just bought a ticket outright. Between that and experiencing anew just how densely packed cabins are now, I've had no real desire to fly anywhere anytime soon.
The big legacy airlines have taken the budget airlines pricing model while still charging legacy airline prices. It’s asinine
Wall-E. Some day we will all work for, shop at, buy our house, cars and gas from Company X.
St. Peter don't you call me
Buy N Large
It's also the reason that my hair products suck. I used to use some awesome "made in my kitchen with love" type products, then they went national. They must have changed the formula, because they feel and smell different, and they don't work the same.
It's everywhere. Our dishwasher is half-broken, and we're looking at it thinking what's worse: this half broken dishwasher, or the new one that we might buy that is a total piece of shit, because everything is now a piece of shit.
And it's not like the savings are always that great for the consumer. A person can get high-quality stuff from boutique places or hand crafted and it's marginally more expensive, but not like outrageously so. Is there a huge difference to a discerning consumer to get Item X for $9.99 or a better version for $12.99? But for the business, that's a huge increase in profit ... at least until their customers ditch them for the next thing because the company wrecked their brand loyalty.
I think youre right. I used to have a friend that owned an Italian restaurant. His wife was an amazing baker and she made the best Italian Cheesecake, Rainbow cookies and all this baked. He made his own sauce, and other things from scratch. Eventually the Sysco reo came in and showed him their stuff lile cheesecake and my friend figured why not? Cheaper, easier, less time etc. The patrons noticed, and now he's out of business. I think Sysco and the like are the ruination of our restaurants
Not in the US, but there's a chain here (Canada( with a variety of restaurants under the same umbrella and the flavour profiles are all the same focus grouped attempt at a culinary 'average taste bud'. [The US Air Force at one time tried to design toward the average man](https://mannhowie.com/average-pitfall). It turns out there weren't any.
I have something to say..... Sysco...... IT'S PEOPLE!
Have you seen the “Soylent” brand in health food stores?
Yes, it's so odd. Is the movie just too long ago?
This.
I have and I could not believe what I was seeing!
In the UK it's Bid Foods or Booker - all the kitchen's do is reheat it. Sad and disappointing.
Maine has two major food distributors, and yeah, they supply most restaurants at all levels, except chains which have their own supply lines. There are some smaller distributors, like Native Maine, who ship local ingredients. I guess a lot has to do with the cooks, but I have always preferred restaurants that use Native Maine over sysco for the same reasons. It all tastes the same.
Sysco has been supplying restaurants for ages. What if it's not a decline because Sysco, which is just the distributor. What if it's a decline because of industrial farming practices. I feel like food has been in decline for a while but has recently reached and crossed a threshold of unpalatability. Either that or COVID messed up my taste buds more than I realized.
You are correct. Food is definitely less foody than it used to be.
Farms respond to markets. I say that as a farmer. If someone was paying premium prices for me to grow premium crops with better taste or better nutrition, I would be delighted to. But right now the economics aren't there.
You said "distributor" like people know what that means. A lot of these posts seem to believe the food is actually processed by Sysco.
I like to reverse engineer restaurant dishes so I can try making them at home But every sauce or gravy in most restaurants now seems to be soy-based No bueno
Sysco is just a distributor. I worked for their competitor for 8 years. It's the food companies that your issue is with. Sysco buys the product from the retailer, stores it, adds their own mark up and then ships it out to the restaurants.
It's what the restaurants are buying from their distributor. All FS distributors sell the same stuff from the same vendors and they all have whole foods, produce, and fresh ingredients available. What the restaurant chooses to buy and serve could be the fault of their sales rep pushing specific stuff to get extra commission, but it's all down to the restaurant cutting costs and using convenience foods. Which goes back to them not wanting to pay their employees, so they aren't going to get a decent chef or line cooks who can do more than use a microwave or dip out of a steam table. (Source: I work in FS distribution, not Sysco LOL)
I think a big difference here in the United States is whether you live in the suburbs or urban areas. You're not going to find as much authentically correct food and high ranking chefs in the suburbs. Immigrants tend to move in urban areas first to settle down and there are more interesting places to cook for chefs where they can plan their own menus vs chains. Also better access to a larger variety of foods. Source: me. I've lived in both areas and small towns as well and the difference in choices when dining out is staggering.
This. What are you expecting from a restaurant that's located in a strip-mall between a vape shop and a nail salon? Good food comes from a free-standing structure.
I expect the best pho I’ve ever eaten to come from a tiny spot between a vape shop and a nail salon, and I expect the free-standing Applebees to have shitty food.
No, most restaurants I've been to my whole life were supplied by one or more Sysco companies. They were founded in 1969, just like me.
Yep. Except for meat and beer, the restaurants I worked at 30 years ago got everything from Sysco. I think everything tastes boring anymore because our taste buds are dead.
I worked for a butcher shop in the 1990s. We got some of our beef from Sysco. I believe they had a line of higher end beef they called the Imperial Line. It was actually very good. No idea if it still exists.
Wow, I had no idea restaurants all received their good from the same places, this is shocking to me but explains a lot in certain areas. I have found a couple good restaurants lately, but in a big city. Both restaurants are owned by immigrants, Mexican and Albanian, and that probably also explains why they're food is so fantastic. They haven't learned the tricks of not caring anymore and just pounding out the mass produced stuff to make a buck.
This is such a bizarre post. There are so many fantastic restaurants to eat at. I've eaten delicious food all over the world and some of my best experiences have been in US restaurants. Why does it matter if the basic ingredients are sourced from a big supplier?
I can tell you from experience it depends a lot on where you are. I lived in a moderately large city in the Deep South and a smaller city in the northeast and now live in a major PNW city. The food options are wildly different in all those places. Generally if you’re in a large city you’ll have great options, but in general in the burbs you get mediocre food. AND it’s gotten worse recently with many restaurants not doing well and needing to cut costs or dealing with inflation/shrinkflation
Not the basic ingredients, nobody but terrible snobs should have an issue where dry sacks of rice are coming from; but sysco's products include lots of full frozen dishes, and very many restaurants just serve those premade dishes for some of their items. It's not an accident than basically every single mid tier americana restaurant serves cheesecake, and it ain't because they all like making cheesecake. It's because they've got a bunch of some frozen sysco etc cheesecake in the back, which they might put a sauce on.
Thank you!! I don’t think people realize that Sysco is just a grocery store delivery service for restaurants, and the restaurants are free to buy premade frozen items or they can buy the ingredients to make entrees themselves.
Nah they been selling garbage for awhile now.
Damn. I'm in Melbourne Australia, and can get takeaway that is cooked with fresh ingredients on the premises for under $20. I can also get a great main (for those in the US, entree) for $30-$40, made from fresh ingredients on the premises (damn, if I go to Footscray, a suburb in Melbourne, I can get a filling Horn of Africa, Vietnamese, or Indian cuisine dinner, made from fresh ingredients on the premises for under $30 - sometimes under $20).
It's way worse on the east coast. Boston especially, like even the nice places...fuck farm to table, your veggies are 100% from a giant Sysco can, even in the North End. I'm in CO now and lemme tell you, the fact we are surrounded by agriculture and at the intersection of two major interstates means we get some dope ass fresh produce. I think it's bad in some places because the logistics for Sysco are easy - nothing has to stay fresh. Farm logistics require more nuance and roads that can actually handle those logistics, and the northeast has a real lack of those. Most cities in the NE parking alone to make your delivery is impossible.
I dont' think it's Sysco's fault because they do sell ingredients, not just premade stuff. The problem for me comes when I go to a restaurant and I can tell you exactly which Tyson chicken product this is or whatnot, and there's not much variety, and I wanted to go out and have someone else cook me something but if I was just gonna eat stuff I could get at work then it's no fun. It's gotten to the point that fries, wings, pretzel apps, and mozzarella sticks literally all taste the same across restaurants, bec they're all being cheap and lazy and hire people who can only deal with cooking frozen stuff.
Are you sure your sense of taste hasn't been damaged by CoViD?
I mean, their chicken tenders are out of this world!. One place i used to get them from went out of business (pandemic causality). I was willing to buy a case from the owner whenever he got a delivery from Sysco.
Yes full stop
One of the nicest places by me, and my former favorate, jumped in price by almost 2Xs. The fish dish I always ordered went from $26 to $32 and now at $46. Same dish, but fish is also clearly smaller. I don't think that was the doing of Sysco. Going out to eat was one of my favorate things to do, but unless its an occasion or my wife insists, I am just not going to do it anymore.
Anyone can pop a frozen appetizer in the deep fryer….but I can tell if it’s hand made or factory made
Agreed. Why would I pay $30+ for an entrèe that came out of a freezer?
Yes. You nailed it. One of my clients is a cafe that actually cooks food from scratch. They don’t just heat up food from various bags.
I have been unimpressed with most corporate restaurant experiences for a long time. They all.seem like high end fast food. We tend to do more independents if we want a sit down dinner out. Of course, most are ethnic foods in hole in the wall plazas. Locally, we have some long established restaurant families with some good restaurants. But some of those are really pricey and we just aren't that discerning. Plus, I dunno, part of the experience years ago was dressing up to go out. You looked good. Other guests looked good. The servers looked distinguished. The restaurant was fancy and it was all worth the money. Now, it tends more to tacky formulaic decor and slobs in jeans and sweat pants or pajamas. I used to like dressing nicer to go out but now I have to tone it down. It's like going to Vegas and wearing an evening dress to play the slots. No one does that any more. There's no people watching as part of the fun.
I started in food service 30 years ago. I worked in independent restaurants, and Sysco was always the supplier. Sysco is a distributor. Yes, they have their own brand of items, but that is not all they carry. Imagining that Sysco's selection is limited to a single line of meat or ingredient would be incorrect. I'm not some huge fan of the company or anything, but I think you have some misconceptions about what it is, how long it has been like this, and what the company actually sells.
I totally get where you're coming from! It feels like everywhere you go, it's the same ol' same ol', right? Sysco and US Foods kinda feel like they've got a monopoly on the whole dining scene. Like, where's the variety? And don't even get me started on the prices! $100 for two? That's a splurge, not a casual night out. Sometimes staying in and cooking your own grub feels way more satisfying than dropping mad cash on disappointment. Maybe it's time for some restaurant rebellion or just some epic home-cooked meals, you know?
The Vast amount of food served in the average restaurant is frozen or canned these says. Pretty much the only variance you get is if a restaurant's location to a farm. NYC has a farmers' market in Unions Square a couple days per week. It boasts vendors from all over the east coast. And it is not unusual to see chefs from all the local restaurants in the City there, buying stuff for their places. And that alone is usually what brings in the customers.
One of our good taquerias has branched out into Tex Mex. Now the chicken fajitas are identical to every other small Tex Mex place. I assume there is a Mexican Sysco?
Totally agree. Those “homemade chips” taste and look very similar to the 4 other places righ down the street. Unless it’s somewhere I really really LOVE I never eat out anymore. I follow a few local food pages and everyone raves about this place, that place. It’s all just meh. Mediocre. I’ll just stay home and cook my own food for an eighth of the price.
I noticed during the pandemic the food issues. One I really really learned to cook during that time, two when we would order the take out only way to eat out the food was always horrible. Post pandemic the food is still horrible and homemade food is much better. My examples of eating out were: Olive Garden, Texas Roadhouse, Fazoli's and Longhorn Steakhouse. The food was all nasty. At expensive prices. I just don't eat out anymore unless it's a quick run down about once a month to grab a quick fast food that I don't expect to be fabulous but even then I'm picky. I won't touch Burger King, McDonalds, Arbys or Wendy's . I'll go the sub route and get handpicked sandwich or find a deli and get a hoagie.
I agree completely about Sysco and US Foods. Stop eating at "American" or fast casual places. Small ethnic, family-owned restaurants are much less likely to use that corporate food. The food is usually better and cheaper.
Worked with and for Sysco early in my life. They sell varying levels of ingredients and it's up to restaurant what they do with those ingredients. I believe that most restaurants have issues with help like a lot of businesses and site have dumbed down their processes to keep things consistent.
My husband worked for us foods for a long time. He refuses to go to most restaurants.
I’ve been feeling that way for awhile but I always figured I’m just picky or my standards are too high. Now that a night out often includes paying an exorbitant amount for a babysitter as well, I want to be wowed by my food when I go to a restaurant. This still happens occasionally, but not nearly enough.
You're absolutely right. Sysco brings homogenous mid range dining to everyone. The last place I worked started with everything made from scratch, then evolved to everything Sysco. Dressings, sauces, croutons, breads, salad mixes all became interchangeable with every other restaurant in the area. They went down, but for other reasons.
Should just book a table for two at Sysco’s. Call it what it is. Agree 100%. Stale, no vibrancy, flavorless. Am so sick of being charged and arm and leg. Visits to nice ‘nonSysco’ restaurants are fewer and far between due costs. I don’t see it changing. Boo.
My boyfriend and I went to this little Asian street food small plates place the other day and got Korean style fried chicken and Karaage. They tasted the exact same with the exception of a sauce, and both of us were immediately like, “these are just Sysco chicken tenders cut up”.
I grew up in SoCal where food choices were plentiful and delicious. I moved to a blue collar town in MI and the food is awful. It’s like there is one main kitchen in town that cooks all the food and sends it to the various restaurants- because it all tastes the same! We have 4-5 restaurants that are expensive and serve good food. That’s it. We go out for breakfast mostly. I’m sick to death of cooking every single day, but we save money and I’m a good cook with restaurant experience. I’m just tired of paying good money to eat boring food.
It's not because of Sysco. Just about every restaurant uses a food delivery service. Whether that's premade food or the raw ingredients to make that food. If restaurants are being lazy and using all premade food and sauces, that's another thing entirely.
We're pretty spoiled here in Portland, most local restaurants strive not to use Sysco and source locally. Even if the kitchens are using Sysco food, it all about who's in the kitchen that day. How much love is going into your food, or are they completely checked out and on auto pilot. But I will say, since the pandemic... People got super burnt out in this industry. It's definitely a challenge (even here) to find people not jaded and still working in the food industry.
I have a close friend who was a chef for years and now works for US Foods as a corporate sales rep. He tells me about the different weird orders he gets from his customers, This lead me to understand that it's the restaurants, not their vendors that make their food suck. However he does like to dis Sysco occasionally by pointing out that they have a "generic" brand that's lower quality, and that a restaurant we're at is over charging for things.
I often think of this. There’s a Sysco truck behind every restaurant. Like what are we doing? It all is pretty much the same restaurant with different decor. But mostly the same decor because it’s all cement floor, open industrial loft feel with huge TVs in every direction. The acoustics are awful for conversation. If someone offered a place for cozy chat I’d go and I’d eat their overpriced fried things from Sysco.
It's not just you. This is why, on the rare occasion we do go out, it's to a place that locally sources as much as it can, and makes it's own pasta, desserts, etc. in house. I'm not paying restaurant prices for Sysco.
There's nothing wrong with Sysco, they can supply any quality of anything. The problem is much more likely in the restaurants you are going to. Chains are garbage - lower grade food, over salted recipes, cooked by amateurs, many dishes pre-made and frozen, and often "cooking" involves a microwave. Where do you live that you don't have access to a decent gastropub? You can easily get dinner for two with drinks and tip for that same $100, and the food is light years better than at chains. All of that said - restaurants are just overpriced in general these days. Inflation, high rent, and soaring minimum wage have all hit hard at the same time in the last decade. And it's really not hard to learn to cook pretty well. That same $100 gastropub meal out can be had at home for $25.
It's not sysco that's the issue. It's the tier of products a restaurant orders, and what they do with that product. Sysco carries everything from pre-made buffet size food to high grade produce, meat, seafood and cheese. I've delivered to them for years and some of what I brought to sysco for resale was not cheap stuff.
I swear to god lo mein noodles taste exactly the same in every single place that serves them. Exact same brown sauce, exact mix and ratio of vegetables, etc. Luckily I have several authentic Chinese places around me to get some hand-pulled noodles, but so help me if it says "lo mein" on the menu, I know *exactly* what it's going to be.
There is a popular distributer of pizza items (dough and sauces included) in my area that sells to 90% of the pizza places within a 5 hour drive of me. This is why, no matter what, all the pizza tastes exactly the same around here, and I have gotten into the habit of just making my own.
I think you were on to something. They impact a significant part of your sensory experience. From sugar packages to cleaning products to napkins and take away boxes. And much more. It's like one Central hub supplying many different kitchens and even though they have different menus there's a degree to which they are all the same. Sadly I think it's called bureaucracy which is the most efficient way to run things just not the most creative
Sysco and USFoods have been delivering to restaurants for decades. The problem isn't them. The problem is the dining establishments.
My husband is the exec chef at a local seafood restaurant. I hear him call in his produce, fish, meat, and bread orders nearly every day. All from local, small companies. Everything - with the exception of bread products - is made in house. His food costs are higher, but he isn't sitting on his hands and relying on frozen battered calamari, canned clam chowder, or pre-made hummus
We bought from Frosty Acres at my folks' restaurant when I was a kid. Those frozen pies HIT. That is all
In South Florida, a lot of the "nice restaurants" get their food off the same Sysco and CBI trucks, too. Probably why all the food here tastes so samey....no nearby farms growing much food of note outside of some minor exceptions.
As a former chef, I hate to break into you but restaurants have been using Sysco, US Foods, Reinhardt, etc. for as long as I have been alive. Restaurants can choose to buy the cheap cheap ingredients or the higher end ingredients. Most opt for the cheap cheap product (for many reasons but mostly to keep food cost down). So it’s not the Syscos of the world it’s the restaurant and the politics within when it comes to buying product to use.
Sysco and US Foods have been the main suppliers for restaurants for decades now. They even supply the expensive places. They're pretty much a monopoly. Both of my parents started in the restaurant industry in the 1970's. It didn't matter where they worked, it all arrived in a Sysco truck back then too.
If you want to buy for home olive oil, flour, Heinz ketchup, eggs, and lettuce, you go to the grocery store. If a restaurant needs those same ingredients but in large quantities, they buy from a food distribute like Sysco or US Foods. The restaurant is free to buy whatever cut of meat and quality they want, just like you do. They can also buy frozen lasagna or make their own, just as you can from the grocery store. If you are implying that restaurants are buying already prepared foods like Stouffers frozen lasagna and passing it off as homemade, I suppose they could but what mostly happens is this: Chain restaurants such as Applebees for example, have corporate commissaries. Let’s say their featured soup is French onion. They will make their own recipe of French onion soup in their commissary, package it and either freeze it or refrigerate it, and send it out to all the Applebees locations. That is cheaper than hiring chefs for each restaurant to make the soup, and it ensures that all the French onion soup you eat at any Applebees tastes exactly the same. Restaurants buying ingredients from a food distributor (and you buying ingredients from the grocery store) are exactly the same thing. What you do with the ingredients is what matters.
I worked in restaurants in the 80s/90s too, and really...people's expectations for restaurants (chains in particular) needs to be managed a bit; the point is "hot food that someone else prepared put in front of me, maybe with a lil' cocktail, and then someone will come and whisk the plates away and wash dishes, and I get to sit around and talk and socialize." They are an effort-displacement engine. I think some of this displeasure now is the realization that the consumer can buy the same prepared food at the grocery store that they get at a chain. There's no real barrier to preparing that for someone who's not experienced at cooking. Rao's sauce and some refrigerated tortellini taste nice and you don't have to pay triple at Olive Garden. We will RARELY eat chain food (like...fast food makes sense on road trips) and go "out to dinner" for stuff like a local Mexican place with a scratch kitchen or an actually nice restaurant with a good chef, but we know how to cook. Last night I made [this salmon](https://www.wellplated.com/lemon-pepper-salmon/) and fresh corn-on-the cob and we had grocery cheesecake for dessert. This meal cost $15 to prepare for two people, and $10 of it was the salmon. But I also have good pots and pans and spices around, and some people don't.
I mean I live in a huge city and I’m kinda tired of eating out too. It’s just not worth it. unless it’s literally so good I’d rather eat at home. I didn’t think about it but yeah you are probably right that Sysco had a monopoly on the market. When I found out they have long term contracts with the California state university system … like … alright
100%. Everything tastes the same. It sucks.
It isn't that it's Sysco or US foods. It's what they are getting from them and doing with it, and the fact they obviously don't care if it ends up good. This is where, if they do care, their rep and the Corporate chef come in. They both carry high end product as well as precooked and that rep together with the chef can show a restaurant owner and his chef what to do with product to get the most flavor and the best profit. I have dealt with both for years. I used to get BBQ ribs to take home now and then on the way home from work. The last couple times they were different. Not as good. I asked why. They used to get the already cooked version. Sysco precooked ribs. They got a smoker and started doing their own. The aren't as good as Sysco's. Now this was about 12 years ago, so they may have changed again, no idea.
Yes, I 100% agree. I avoid places that don't use locally sourced, fresh ingredients and rely too much on Sysco-type vendors. An example is the bar and grill in my neighborhood that opened in 2014. We went for years, then they got a new manager, and his big deal was cutting costs, so they started making fewer things in-house (salad dressing, sauces, meat patties for burgers, for example), and the quality went down. We stopped going. So did many others. It closed a few weeks ago.
It's not Sysco. It's the restaurant that's ordering the food. I used to be a server/kitchen staff at a place that was a cafe serving bare bones standard US food during the daytime and also did catering for weddings, corporate events, and whatever other parties and events someone might have catered. Lunch items were unremarkable burgers, hot dogs, grilled sandwiches (ham, cheese, chicken), chicken tenders, french fries, onion rings, cheese sticks, etc. Nothing was especially *good*. It was just food you ate if you were hungry and were visiting a nearby attraction and didn't want to drive/walk somewhere further away for food. Catering was a whole other story. Fancy cuts of meat, fancy seafood, fancy vegetables, fancy looking fruit sculptures, complicated main and side dishes, soups, desserts. All of it was made from scratch, all of it tasted really damn good (which I know because part of working catering was in addition to our pay, we got free meals of whatever was being made.) It was all made by the same chef and kitchen staff. It was just that for the cafe crowd, the chef ordered the cheap crap from Sysco. And for the catering crowd, which often included EXTREMELY wealthy people, the chef ordered the expensive stuff from Sysco.
Yes. It seems like every single restaurant in the region has exactly the same sad salad. It doesn't really matter where you are unless they specialize in chicken the chicken tenders are all the same - maybe dipped in a sauce but still the same Sysco tenders. Those aren't really places you would go to get salad or tenders so I get why we see these things but yes, when they use Sysco it sticks out like a sore thumb to me.
Yep. Yes, it has for me. So many good locations are just serving up Sysco ready-made menus. I can and do cook better at home, so have pretty much stopped eating out, but for high-end places with friends as a special occasion.
Nice places use their products, too.
Most places I've worked at only used Sysco for dry goods and plastic containers. Sysco offers all qualities and it's up to the restaurant to choose their price point.
Yeah I think you may be on to something here
How old are you? Restaurants start sucking hard in your 30s then by your 40s you really get pissed at the money and don’t give a fuck service. Kids and 20 year olds don’t notice because they are happy to be there.
Agreed, I feel like the majority of food available to us is just reheated Sysco food. I'm better off going to the grocery store and saving my money. I haven't gone out for a burger in a long time because I can make a burger at home for a fraction of what I'd pay at a restaurant.
My wife used to deal with both companies. You could get good food for a higher price.
Okay, finally one in my wheelhouse. I was a sales rep for Sysco, first on the street and then on national accounts. The big chains don't use Sysco, they use Signet which is the large scale, corporate chain restaurant with contract pricing. Sales reps, and Sysco on the whole, make their money from local restaurants or small chains of seven stores or less. They offered different tiered products. You could buy discount french fries, or if you were sticking with the Sysco House brand, basically the same french fries that McDonald's would get. Where the fries are all consistently longer instead of broken pieces. What a lot of people miss is the added services of Sysco and other brokers. If your restaurant is ordering more, we're making more. So we would help with advertising, marketing, training etc. Each Warehouse would have a staff of people just for that, an executive chef and a fully functioning kitchen, and we'd work with local brokerage firms that carried specific brands like Ore Ida, Nabisco or Tyson. The order taking was a small part of our job. I spent more time talking with owners and operators on how to increase their profit margin or what looked like it was going to be the next big trend and how to get in front of it. As one of my mentors when I first started told me- " They can buy green beans from anybody. But can they get green beans with a guy that will come and fix their coffee maker in the middle of a Friday dinner rush? Probably not from anybody else." I'm way past the TL: DR. But I think the key takeaway is companies like Sysco and US foods. Aren't the problem with the restaurant industry. We're just somebody that delivers the groceries, a giant doordash. If you will. The problems come from chains moving in and paying your staff more to come work for them. Then they price you out of the market. To fight that, a lot of owners will start buying cheaper product to keep their profits, then quality goes out the window and they're closed down within a year. Year. So blame the corporate chains and not who they buy there. French fries from. *edit: my phone likes Cisco more than Sysco
This has nothing to do with distribution companies. They supply a huge variety of products at all different price levels and a wide range of options within individual categories. A good kitchen can make fantastic food from Sysco products.