Eating out is no longer a treat; it’s a way of life. Americans spend half of every food dollar at restaurants, and most of those dollars are going to waiter-service establishments like those we asked about in the latest Consumer Reports National Research Center survey.

Results suggest that respondents were especially happy with meals at chains so newly expanded that we had never rated them before. On average, they were “very satisfied”--the highest praise earned by any chain--with 14 of the 20 newcomers.

New names include: Red Hot & Blue, a blues-themed barbecue chain co-founded by a former governor of Tennessee; Bravo! Cucina Italiana, home to faux Roman ruins; Texas Roadhouse, with South­western decor and country music; Bone­fish Grill, a dark, boisterous bistro; and The Capital Grille, a beef boutique with an expense-account clientele.

The Ratings  group restaurants mostly by the food they feature. Across the board, you’ll find three general price levels. At white­tablecloth chains such as Morton’s and Ruth’s Chris, the bill is often $40 or more per person including drinks. Not surprisingly, readers said those fancy establishments typically serve the best food, and they tended to earn top scores for service and ambience.

A notch less pricey are the casual-dinner houses, which usually offer the best bang for the buck. Readers said they found especially good value--$15 to $19 for a very good meal--at seven casual-dinner chains: Claim Jumper, Romano’s Macaroni Grill, Johnny Carino’s, Abuelo’s Mexican Food Embassy, Texas Road­house, Red Hot & Blue, and Famous Dave’s. White-tablecloth and casual-dinner restaurants tend to be open for lunch and dinner, and most serve alcohol.

Least expensive are family restaurants, such as Denny’s, Shoney’s, and Friendly’s, which add breakfast to the menu but rarely serve alcohol. Most read­ers paid less than $10 for dinner there. Service and aesthetics aren’t noteworthy, and the food is unlikely to win awards. Even so, the fare at three of the 20 chains--Le Peep, the Original Pancake House, and Cracker Barrel--was rated as better than most. Cracker Barrel and Bob Evans offered the best value.

Just as these restaurants offer a cuisine and price tag for every taste, they’re increasingly selling a distinctive atmosphere. Given the intense competition for your dollar, those little conceits are essential. After all, there are only so many ways to grill chicken.

The result is more choice for you. Have you ever wanted to join a cattle drive? Try Saltgrass Steak House, with its rough-hewn timbers, big stone fireplace, tin ceiling, and Western memorabilia. Fancy the veldt? The marketing mavens behind the Elephant Bar Restaurant want you to go on safari. At Maggiano’s Little Italy, you can journey back in time to a pre-World War II supper club. Smokey Bones dangles a more modern lure: television sets. There are about 30 throughout the dining room, and customers at each table can tune to the audio of the program of their choice--or mute the sound.

The chains also differentiate themselves by romanticizing the ingredients they use. Carrabba’s boasts of its “rope grown” mussels from off Prince Edward Island, Canada (the mollusks don’t touch the sea floor, so they’re claimed to be clean). The Old Spaghetti Factory points out that its hormone- and antibiotic-free beef comes from Piedmontese cattle of Italian descent, raised as vegetarians.

The restaurant business is changing in other ways that can enhance, as they say, your dining pleasure:

The focus is on new cuisines. Celebrity chefs and TV cooking shows are tempting diners to try regional, ethnic, and international foods and seasonings, says Richard Martin, executive editor of Nation’s Restaurant News, a leading trade publication. The Ratings include our broadest mix of cuisines to date, with chains specializing in not just barbecue, but Memphis-style barbecue (Red Hot & Blue); not just Italian, but country Southern Italian (Johnny Carino’s). Other chains feature Cajun and Creole (Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen, Copeland’s of New Orleans) or Caribbean (Bahama Breeze). The Melting Pot serves nothing but fondues.

Menus are largely the same from one restaurant in a chain to another, but you may find slight variations from one region to another.

Takeout has taken off. Despite the attempts to create a mood, today’s headline dining trend is takeout. More than 90 percent of waiter-service restaurants will prepare food to go, according to the National Restaurant Association, a trade group. Many chains are making it easier for takeout patrons by accepting online orders (and orders phoned, faxed, or e-mailed). Some also offer local delivery and curbside pickup. Pickup can account for an estimated 10 percent of sales at full-service restaurants, says Hudson Riehle, the association’s senior vice president of research.

The most convenient chains have created separate entrances or parking spaces for pickup customers and have spotters who watch for your car so that they can deliver your order as soon as you pull up. For the best chains for takeout customers, see Quick Picks .

Kids are welcome. That’s always been true at the family chains, where food is often served on indestructible tableware in a very informal setting. If your 6-year-old pitched a tantrum or knocked over a glass of water, few patrons would blink. Family chains also tend to have menus for children (as well as seniors) and are open long hours. In a few chains, like Denny’s, most of the restaurants never close.

Some casual-dinner restaurants are using similar incentives to court parents. A few go even further. Red Rob­in, for instance, hands out crayons, balloons, and a souvenir cup, and it has a video-game room. The tactics seem to be working: Six chains where readers with kids said that they all had a great time were the casual-dinner type. (See Quick Picks, available to .)

More restaurants take reservations. Some of the busier chains, and not just the high-end ones, accept reservations online or by phone. They include Maggiano’s Little Italy and Buca di Beppo. A few others, such as Outback Steakhouse, Carrabba’s, and Texas Roadhouse, have “call ahead” seating, which lets you cut ahead in line to shorten your wait for a table. If you can’t wait at all, try a family restaurant. Only 10 percent of readers, on average, waited for a table more than 10 minutes at family restaurants, vs. 23 percent at casual-dinner restaurants.

It’s easier to find nutrition info. In the past, chains often balked at providing calories and such, citing an ever-changing menu and each chef’s slightly varied approach to the same dish. Growing dietary concerns, however, have prompted many chains to reveal, on their Web site if not at the restaurant, just how fattening (or good for you) their fare is. You’ll learn, for instance, that The Old Spaghetti Factory’s Tuscan chicken sandwich, topped with tomatoes, eggplant, cheese, and pesto dressing, contains 67 grams of fat--about the limit most people should eat in a day.

You can have it your way. Not only is nutritional data easier to find, but so are smarter eating options. Many chains will gladly change cooking methods or omit ingredients, serving steamed instead of sautéed vegetables, baked potatoes instead of au gratin. They’ll skip the mayo, hold the butter, avoid adding salt, and let you order, say, an appetizer-size portion as your entrée or share a single menu item. Children’s menus often offer milk and vegetables in addition to soda and fries.

Low-calorie is a higher priority. In examining dozens of menus, our reporter found an array of low-calorie and low-fat, gluten- and dairy-free, and vegetarian choices. Red Lobster has a “Lighthouse” menu, IHOP has “IHOP For Me.” Applebee’s helps people on Weight Watchers count points. T.G.I. Friday’s lets Atkins dieters track net-carb intake.

Even chains with a reputation for catering to hearty appetites are making changes. Uno Chicago Grill now sells multigrain pasta and flatbread pizza, the latter as an alternative to high-calorie deep-dish pies. Claim Jumper, known for huge servings, offers a half-sandwich and soup or salad for lunch. At the Cheesecake Factory, a small child can receive a free plate of sliced bananas and oranges.

That’s not to say that supersizing is over: Not all of these restaurants have seen the “light” when it comes to portion control. Our survey respondents singled out the Cheesecake Factory, along with Claim Jumper, Maggiano’s Little Italy, and Buca di Beppo, for serving too much food.

One clear way to save is to choose a family restaurant instead of a fancy one. Our respondents got a decent, albeit unspectacular, meal at most family restaurants for less than $10. Those chains are particularly generous to children (usually under age 12) and seniors (typically 60 and up), offering frequent discounts. Kids can eat for free at some chains, such as Denny’s, on certain days and at certain times. Wherever you eat, following one or more of these tips could knock a substantial amount off the price of a meal: