Catholics
I just went on the LJS site to look for the nearest location and they have a rewards program called “Seacret Society”.
Hmmm
Could have fooled me. All the ones that were near me are closed. I just checked, the closest one is 1.5 hrs away
The one near me is closed Sunday and Monday, but it’s still open.
I went there 3 times 7 years apart each time. Never again. Terrible every time.
That’s where you buy poplars!
Fishy Joe’s
Man, I fucking love LJS and wish I had one within driving distance.
Nothing like ordering a fish & chicken plank combo and not knowing which of the identical diamond-shaped planks is which before biting.
LJS’s chicken is way better than most other restaurants. I will die on this hill
Chicken planks, fries, hush puppies, and an obscene amount of tartar sauce to dip everything into. And the crunchy little batter bits? Absolute gold.
God I could go for some right now.
I hate knowing that LJS still exists, but doesn’t have a restaurant around me anymore.
The secret cabal is just the elderly. That’s all I ever saw there when I was able to go there lol
The elderly keep many disappointing restaurants afloat.
There’s a place by my house that has aggressively mediocre food. Every dish on the menu is merely edible, nothing to rave about. The sphaghetti tasted like Chef Boyardee, the steaks are under seasoned, the fish is overcooked, burgers are decent but always dry, gyro platter and sandwich are served with watery tzatziki that ruins the otherwise pre prepared meat, and the entire breakfast menu is always served just slightly warm. This place has like 150 menu items and does none of them well.
The only reason I go there is because I take my grandfather out for dinner twice a month. I ask him where he wants to go, and half the time he wants to go there. I have taken him to good restaurants but he doesn’t like the selection. He wants to be able to pick from 200 choices in one spot, even if none of these are particularly good.
When I was a small child I loved Long John Silver’s but now that I’m an adult I tried it once and it was so fucking oily that I feel like if they weren’t in the United States they would be getting invaded by them.
I think they’re in the same bucket as Red Lobster and KFC. Used to be fantastic, spent a couple of decades trimming corners until all that was left was the grease.
The smell of LJS actually gives me a headache. Nothing else does this to me the same way.
I had a cat that I found in a dumpster eating a taco during a hurricane. I only found her because she was yelling at the taco while she ate it. That cat, that I have seen eat every living and non living thing imaginable, refused to eat long john silvers fish
Hahahaha
There is one near where I work, but they are quite literally never open. They aren’t out of business and their facilities are kept up, but it somehow just persists in that state.
Sounds like los pollos hermanos
As a non-American, I’m assuming it’s a shitty restaurant?
They’re just weird because so many fast food chains come &
ho thego in the US, it’s hard to even keep track - but Long John Silvers; a shitty fish & chips place which is never busy, never seems to have any customers at all, somehow stays in business.Could be money laundering
But their food is actually good, tho.
you must be going to different longs johns silvers than any of the ones i’ve been to. i haven’t been in years, but it’s really a “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me, fool me multiple times over the course of my childhood because my dad fell in love with you and THAT’S IT no more chances”
There’s a lot of truth in the bit about which one you go to…
Being a franchise, a LOT of the quality comes down to the management. My cousin was a manager and made a huge point of a meticulous tear down and cleaning of the fryers to a degree not “required”. He’d budget people and hours specifically for the extra cleaning.
It showed BIG. Between the grease temperature recovering faster, excellent care about cleanliness through the shift etc, the food came out reliably fresh and not the disappointing greasy mess.
It helped that by budgeting the time instead of just forcing workers to do it while busy with customers, which also prevents being able to take the fryer offline, they workers were better treated and as result hated their job less.
I’ll absolutely say this is an outlier, and that in general most fast food is terrible, especially LJS. But if you find a good location, it can be awesome… Still going to be greasy of course, but in a good way instead.
Popeyes is this way too. One of their newish spicy chicken sandwiches, out of a well-run Popeyes? It’s legitimately a culinary delight, I would eat that sandwich over almost any I’ve ever had anywhere, not even just similarly priced ones.
Poorly run ones, though, that same marvel of sandwich engineering is wholly forgettable. At best. Tell your cousin there’s a Popeyes near me that needs his brand of TLC!
It’s the cracklins. Little crispy fried pieces of dough? Who doesn’t want those? Just ignore the offerings of frozen fish patties and go for the craving food.
yeah but you can get better hush puppies almost anywhere (disclaimer: i’m southern)
The hush puppies, yes, absolutely. I don’t know many places that have the little fritters available by the tubload though. They’re what potato chips dream of being.
the last LJS I went to the fish was sopping wet in oil and still it was cold and the fish was semi-raw
never again
I’m guessing that they didn’t cook it at the right temperature. They probably would have wanted you to let them know so they knew there was an issue.
“come & ho the the US”
How do you fick up that badly and not notice it?
How do you fick up that badly and not notice it? [emphasis mine]
lol
Eek. I have no idea. I’ll blame autocorrect.
The available food is mostly things they can pop into the fryer: Think fish and chips, except you can also choose “planks” of chicken breast, or breaded shrimp, or little balls of seasoned dough called “hush puppies”.
My wife hates them, and they’re an occasional guilty pleasure for me.
Hah
Found you :
It’s fast food that’s almost all fried sea food. And they’re like the cockroach of franchises, the few that are around tend to be in weird locations that have killed off everything but Long John’s.
Understatement to be fair. Its beyond lowest tier seafood
They are not. The food is deep fried. The fish and chicken look and taste alike. You have to really pay attention to tell the difference. I really miss the local one. I would only eat there a few times a year but it was a nice option.
Yeah, it’s very low quality. When I lived there, I’d get recommended LJS because I’m British, and they wanted to get my opinion on their fish and chips.
They stopped talking about it after all the complaints. I don’t think I’ve ever finished a meal when I’ve given them chances, always ended up tossing most of it in the bin.Americans don’t eat a lot of bseafood fast food or even in general. These are also not in every city like other chains so the locations are really far apart. They have a reputation of being a little sketchy/dirty. As others have mentioned you almost never see cars in the driver through or parking lots. With all that combined it’s hard to imagine how they stay in business.
I’m convinced LJS is Taco Bell for people who moved away from the coast. They know it’s not sea food, but they crave it’s badness for its own sake.
Here in the Midwest we even have some combined Long John Silver and Taco Bell restaurants. You can go through the drive-thru and order off of both menus. They’ve been slowly disappearing but for a while they were all over the place.
I’m from northern Connecticut and live in (southern, nowhere near any fished lakes) Germany. I tried seafood here a couple times when I first got here, but it’s just intolerably fishy for me, even in a taco bell sense.
Though I guess frying it does mask a lot of fishiness. And LJSs doesn’t try for the cachet of “never-frozen,” so it’s possible it’s actually fresher than what you get in a fancy inland restaurant…
I didn’t agree with you at first, but you might be on to something
It’s Catholics. LGS makes 1/3 their yearly sales during lent.
Why do you think Catholics don’t eat meat on Fridays? The Pope owns Long John Silvers!
They do own and operate restaurants, probably near the gift shop. I bet there are more hidden in their portfolio.
LOL this actually seems like a plausible scenario - it could be a regular meeting place for reptilian aliens, and who would notice?
Used to work at a restaurant similar to Long John silver and quite literally yes, 90% of people that attended were very elderly. Fish restaurants seem to exclusively cater to old people. I personally don’t like any fish
Captain D’s?
Captains cap