The Smith has long been a target of derision for the culinary elite, easily dismissed as a generic American bistro that chucks together a bunch of hip restaurant trends — Edison bulbs! Subway tiling! Truffle fries! — seemingly just for profit. Suggest the Smith to a food-obsessed friend, and brace for ridicule.

It’s not an unfair reaction: With so many excellent, independent restaurants to try in New York City, why would anyone ever choose to dine here, at a restaurant that at this point can be called nothing other a middling chain?

Well, I’ll give you a reason. As someone who is literally paid to be an expert on NYC’s restaurant scene, I think we need the Smith. We need its regularity, its protection from the compulsion to Instagram, its non-judgmental menu, its hospitable table service standing strong against the city’s creeping fast-casualization.

Eating out in New York is a rat race, and picking where to eat dinner tonight can turn into a complicated calculation that involves cross-referencing lists and maps and Yelp and friends’ recommendations. And then there’s the not-so-small issue of trying to even get into the place that won out. So when someone suggests the Smith, instead of scoff, I breathe a sigh of relief.

I’m not alone in this. Ten years in, the Smith is positively thriving. It now has six locations, which all hit on a specific, winning formula, broken down into three parts: First is a focus on variety and quality, serving (sometimes watered down) versions of the greatest hits of food from around the world — think raw bar, empanadas, burgers, and bibimbap. Second is keeping that food at prices suited to weeknight levels, with entrees in the $20s and $30s, and the last part is serving it all in a buzzy, trendyish space without the long waits or tough reservations of its more esteemed counterparts. It makes dining out easy.

I call it the New York-ified basic chain.

Identifying a restaurant as a chain is the ultimate insult to most mid-level independent restaurateurs. It’s a word that has taken a derogatory turn in the hospitality industry, usually signifying lower standards for quality, lack of soul, and desire for profit above all from its owners, coupled with poor taste in its customers. No modern, full-service restaurant wants the stink of TGI Friday’s or Applebee’s on it. As for basic, it’s come to signify (somewhat shadily) something or someone uninteresting and completely ordinary.

And a basic chain is exactly what the Smith is — but it’s the New York-ified aspect that is key. It’s part of a new, rapidly growing class of restaurants like Westville and the Meatball Shop and Tacombi that is turning those outdated associations on their heads, drawing in stylish, if pumpkin spice-drinking, city dwellers by at least seeming to care more about product and experience than their frozen food-loving, mass-producing nationwide predecessors. The average New York diner is savvier than the average diner at nationwide sit-down chains, and places like the Smith know how to drill down into all those needs.

That’s not to say that the national, sit-down chain restaurant hasn’t played a vital role in Americans’ lives. TGI Friday’s started on the Upper East Side as a singles bar, growing into the global corporation it is today. In the years since the height of its popularity, tastes may have changed — leading to its seemingly inevitable demise — but diners still seek that sort of reliable, easy, full-service experience for a night out.

Which is where the Smith has picked up that slack, and done so in a very smart way. Taking hospitality cues from Danny Meyer, decor cues from Keith McNally, and food cues from basically everybody, the Smith provides today’s oh-so-important thoughtful sourcing and warm hospitality in a cool atmosphere. You don’t have to eat a crappy rack of ribs in a corporate-feeling space. That rack of ribs is available instead as a once-a-week special, signaling that extra care has been taken on that day.

But unlike many trendy, “local” spots around town, the Smith has an added guarantee: The diner is in charge, not the restaurant. To eat at the Smith is to rarely hear the word “no.” Not everyone from a party has arrived yet? Don’t worry, customers can sit down rather than hover awkwardly near the entrance. You’re hungry right this very minute? Please, come this way to an open table. Want to make a substitution to a dish? By all means, ruin a perfectly good steak all the way to medium well. Trying to feel active on a Thursday night, without having to make too much of an effort? Wear your cute leggings, and order that glass of rosé without a flicker of judgment from the bartender.

At these New York-ified basic chains, it’s not about the vision of the chef, and so diners are made to feel welcome rather than lucky to be there. While they’re certainly not driving the culinary world forward in any sort of meaningful way — though the food really is more than good enough — they serve a very important function nonetheless.

Both the founder of the Smith and co-owner of the Meatball Shop told me they gave up on culinary ambition and influence within the industry long ago in sacrifice for the high cover counts they’re able to entice. In a world where food world darling chefs and restaurateurs continue to gripe about the increased challenges of running a mid-level restaurant, the Smith has been quietly drawing in 1,419 people each mealtime. In 2017 alone, it served almost 1.8 million meals. It’s growing, it’s leasing prime real estate, and it’s profitable.

Those are stark numbers in contrast to the depressing fate of classic diners. Those places — similar refuges from the downtown cool kid scene that provide a quality, if boring, meal in a comfortable, yet busy space — are dying out in a time when New Yorkers need them more than ever. The New York-ified basic chains are places to go on bad first dates, to take parents when they’re in town, to feel okay with screaming children, to easily walk in before a show, to catch up with a friend, to dart in when in desperate need of a bathroom. To feel welcome. I dare you to try to get all that from Ferris or Frenchette, two of the hottest and best new restaurants in the last year — ones that are equally as essential to the NYC restaurant scene, but with long waits and hard-to-score reservations, cannot sustain us on their own.

So the sophisticated diner can turn her nose up all she wants at the New York-ified basic chain. She can jeer while waiting two hours to get into the hottest new boite. She can perch on a backless chair while pretending she’s comfortable. I’ll simply slide into my booth at whichever location of the Smith is nearest to me at that moment and relax.