Are all fast-food chinese take-out restaurants the same? They all have nearly-identical menus, and MUST have?

And judging by their menu offerings, and identical taste accross restaurants, they MUST have the same supplier.





Can anyone confirm this?





All these chinese food restaurants have different names, and different ownerships, but have identical features (large menus placed on an oversized sheet of paper, exact dimensions --maybe 11" by 18" i'm guessing) and they all offer a dish called a "happy family" which has lobster, crab, chicken, and pork.





Can anyone confirm to me, that they are indeed linked by the same type of supplier and same business plan? Its almost like they are all a multi-thousand unit franchise but with different store-names to prevent association with one another, when annual health reports come out (fast food chinese restaurants are always tops of the X-list put out by the food inspectors).|||How many Chinese restaurants have you eaten at? And where are you located?





The large menus sound like place mats. It could be that there is a printer in your area that specializes in printing place mat menus for Chinese restaurants.





Are you sure that all the restaurants offer Happy Family with lobster and crab? I'd like to try that! I've never seen that combination before though I've ordered Happy Family many times at many different restaurants.





So far as supplier, once again, depending on where you are, there may be a limited number of suppliers for Chinese restaurants. Business plan wise, make as much money as they possibly can!





No, there is no conspiracy out there to hide poor food inspection reports by using different restaurant names. While there are probably some restaurant groups that operated under different names, they usually do so because of differences in styles of food or pricing structure. It would be poor business to use several different names if the restaurants all served exactly the same things for the same prices. If you went to location A and enjoyed a meal, you might go to location B expecting the same quality. If the company used different names, you might not go to one of their restaurants when you were hungry.|||no......that's ignorant....|||If you were to go and eat at different Chinese restaurants you will know the answer to your question....no, they are not all the same. Different restaurants may offer the same food choices on their menu, but the taste of the food is quite different from one to the next.|||I'm not sure what it's like in the US (but I have been to a few chinese restaurants there and found that even though they have similar menu items/names, the dish you get is different depending on the restaurant's chef and recipes), but here in the UK no 2 restaurants are the same...





Sure, the menus are very similar and the dishes are identically described and named in many of them, but just like the US restaurants I've been in, the dish you get is different in each restaurant.





I think it's all down to the demand of the customer (they expect a range of dishes that they know and request), and also down to the family recipes used by the chefs at the restaurants...





As for suppliers, You're almost right... There is generally a common supplier to many chinese restaurants... Over here in the UK, there are a number of "Chinese supermarkets" (one chain is called "Wing Yip") and the ingredients required for chinese food can only really be found there... I suppose it must be the same in the US...|||as far as taste goes, they're not the same.