Finding Restaurants When You Travel

I really like small, local restuarants; I prefer them to the “Big Box” chain restaurants when I take the family out. But when we travel, we really prefer to visit the larger national chains. I feel that there is a little more accountability than some local place, and there is also something comforting about a familiar place to eat while visiting a strange place. So, when we travel outside of our local area, it is great to find a familiar, more well-known national restaurant.

The obstacle is finding them. I’ve been building a small list in my travel laptop of restaurants that have websites. I keep the list bookmarked in my browser, so that when we travel, all I have to do is check the list, open up the websites, and browse the locations, hours, and menus. It’s extremely convenient, and I find it much better than relying on hotel-recommended pizza joints, or the ads in the yellow pages of the phone book. We tend to prefer seafood restaurants or burger joints than pizza and pasta when we travel.

One such restuarant I’ve recently discovered is McCormick & Schmick’s. They are a superb seafood restaurant with locations across the U.S. in numerous states. Plus, their website has detailed descriptions of menu items! Yum! Menu items may vary, because McCormick & Schmick’s choose fresh seafood depending upon local availability– so you can really get a “taste” for the local diet while still enjoying the comfort and reliability of a national chain. Check out the website, bookmark it for future use. Looks great!