[ehickox]

More optimistically, I believe the solution is for people to start seeking out the "critically underrated" ~3 star restaurants and start realizing that these supposed "trendy" places were never that great beyond their gimmick.

[dragonwriter]

> More optimistically, I believe the solution is for people to start seeking out the "critically underrated" ~3 star restaurants and start realizing that these supposed "trendy" places were never that great beyond their gimmick.

Here's how that plays out: if enough people start to do that, someone will start a system for sharing information to support them, the discovered places will become trendy and either crowded or expensive, rinse, and repeat (actually, you are already in that cycle—that’s how lots of trendy places happen now.) As long as the Bay Area is awash in money, the same process driving real estate prices through the roof is going to do the same thing to dining prices wherever there is quality except where obscurity creates hidden bargains. But to exploit that you'll need to spend more time than you'd spend waiting in line at known places finding the hidden gems, and then finding new ones as other people discover the one you've found and the obscurity you've been exploiting is replaced with visibility and success.