You're putting your head in the sand here. Independent restaurants in the US are dying. This is not based on anecdotal evidence, but national data. And your entire hypothesis that chains thrive on a lack of regulations is similarly completely unsupported by data. Look at the ratios of chains:independent restaurants in countries with extensive rules and regulations on food and then compare that to countries without. If your hypothesis was correct, we'd see domination of chains in countries with minimal rules and regulations, instead it's the unambiguously exact opposite.

Arguably the biggest issue with the regulations is that they're overreaching and extensive to the point that if somebody wants to find a violation, they probably can. And many have very little positive effect. In California the 'CalCode' [1] for food regulations alone is 188 pages of random rules, which regularly change. And that is not an all inclusive document. It regularly references not only itself but also other sources. If you actually put all the rules in their verbose and clear form together, it would likely exceed a thousand pages. And you get these dense rules like:

"FOOD prepackaged in a FOOD FACILITY shall bear a label that complies with the labeling requirements prescribed by the Sherman Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Law (Part 5 (commencing with Section 109875)), 21 C.F.R. 101-Food Labeling, 9 C.F.R. 317-Labeling, Marking Devices, and Containers, and 9 C.F.R. 381-Subpart N Labeling and Containers, and as specified under Sections 114039 and 114039.1. [...Skipping several more lines of rules, this for this single rule...] Except as exempted in the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act Section 403(Q)(3)-(5) (21 U.S.C. Sec. 343(q)(3)-(5), incl.), nutrition labeling as specified in 21 C.F.R. 101-Food Labeling and 9 C.F.R. 317 Subpart B Nutrition Labeling."

And that's just one segment of the regulations. If by some miracle you manage to obey every single rule down to the dime in the Calcode, there's then hundreds of other pages of rules and regulations you need to obey. And as mentioned many of these things are completely arbitrary. How deep a sink do you think you need to wash the utensils in a food cart? Would 9 inches do? Obviously that'd be way more than enough, yet that'd be a violation of CalCode giving them sufficient cause to find and/or shut down your business. Some politician somewhere at some time decided all sinks must be at least 10 inches deep. Why? No good reason. Instead of creating common sense regulation, rules and regulations inevitably converge on these obtuse rules. Instead it could be that all utensils and instruments used in food preparation need to be able to be fully cleaned on site. But that'd be too logical.

This is all an enormous burden on individuals starting businesses and serves little purpose other than ensuring we're left with chains and perhaps your 'bold' restaurants, which I assume boils down to a euphemism for overpriced outlets primarily targeting yuppies. It's much easier to afford the full size legal team necessary to navigate all this mess when you have a 4 figure markup on your product!

[1] - http://www.emd.saccounty.net/EH/Documents/Calcode2017.pdf