I get what everyone is saying about quality and really do think that your odds of getting food poisoning are just as good or better at a locally owned mom n' pop establishment as it would be at a large franchise restaurant. If anything, your average large corporate chain restaurant will generally have more policies in place guiding employees on sanitation and food handling issues.
While in college I worked at a locally owned motel with a hugely popular attached restaurant that had a salmonella outbreak (a number of years prior to my employment there). They made most of their menu from scratch (very little prepared food service items). It cost the owners tens of thousands of dollars and took years to re-establish a good reputation within the community simply because a low paid (and probably ignorant) employee failed to properly clean a cutting board.
Another story. I was grocery shopping and had to use the restroom. When I finished taking care of business and went to wash my hands there was no hand soap. I mentioned this to somebody at the customer service desk who acted shocked and promised it wouldn't happen again. As I walked through the produce section, I noticed one of the employees stocking apples by hand and the thought struck me that he could've very easily have recently wiped his ass and not had the proper material to ensure food safety. A few weeks later the same thing happened in the exact same store.
In my mind it's a matter of trust. When you eat food that someone else has made, you are putting a significant amount of faith into not only the preparer, but also the guy who washes the dishes, wipes the counters as well as everyone else in the process of handling your food.
What scares me as much as the people preparing my food is the thought of some poorly paid field worker having to take a dump while handpicking that tomato that will eventually wind up raw in my salad. I'm not absolutely sure he's going to take the time to walk a quarter mile to relieve himself and thoroughly wash his hands.
Indeed, although statistically when you look at the big recalls of food, it usually comes from a big supplier or distributor. The most recent example of salmonella outbreak was traced back to COSTCO. Which is huge and sells all kinds of hot/cooked foods now.
I think we would need to see real data before we can say chains are safer or mom+Pop riskier.
The vast majority of the constituency prefers low prices over quality. Until our attitudes as consumers change radically, good nutrition will take a back seat to Cool Ranch Doritos.
Yeah people are hardcore about low prices, it's backwards thinking. Insisting on $0.99 cheesburgers via buying habits have convinced corporations that nothing else will do.
But is it chicken and egg? Do we insists on cheap hamburgers because that's all we know? Humans evolved to eat a little bit of meat and a lot of everything else. Society has changed such that a lot of meat is what we now eat. Is it the corporations fault for producing so much meat? Or is it the consumers fault for thinking cheeseburgers tastes good?
I believe it doesn't matter whose fault it is anymore, only that we all recognize it is a huge issue for the future generations and we need to work together to be more reasonable about food in general. (Sustainable for the kids!)