Based loosely on the KFC thread where several posters have mentioned a decline in KFC quality, it led me to wonder, is any fast food getting better?
IMO, McDonald’s has remained mostly consistent over the years with the exception of their fries which used to be the standard by which all other fast food fries were measured. Now, they’re barely a blip on the radar.
Honestly, I can’t think of any that I’ve considered to have improved. Maybe that’s just the natural order of things.
I think Arby’s has gotten worse. I used to eat there a lot. But maybe ten years ago, the quality of the roast beef went down. I thought I might have been imagining it, but I ate there once with a colleague (who hadn’t been there in a while) and he agreed. It’s not as tender, and seems to have some sort of coating (possibly a preservative).
Arby’s has sucked ever since they dumped the Arby-Q and skin-on fries. That was decades ago.
Del Taco will never be great, but at least they vary things by introducing birria and stuff.
I know everyone hates them but Chick-fil-A is probably better but it was a pretty high bar to begin with.
Any failure to improve is offset by their superb customer service.
I don’t mind the Arby’s mysterious “roast beef” but I wish the slices were thinner. A few big slabs of gelatinous strange chewy stuff is off putting. I usually take it home and heat up the beef in BBQ sauce in an attempt to recapture the magic of the Arby Q. Otherwise, I love Arby’s. Their sandwiches are better than anything I can make! (reuben and pecan chicken salad when it’s available).
Popeye’s chicken sandwich.
Generally, I don’t think most fast food places can improve their product because they start up with the best version of the product they can envision. Then people get used to the product, so you can’t make sweeping changes, even improvements, without upsetting your customers.
Where they really get better is by introducing new products, like a new style of sandwich that people dig, extra crispy or spicy chicken, or by introducing whole new chains that have a different style altogether, like Smashburger or Shake Shack or Five Guys.
Locally, and I’m in a densely populated area, there are also 5-10 fast casual burger joints that take longer and cost more but it’s a premium product.
In-n-Out is exactly as good as they’ve always been. They haven’t gotten “better” since they do what they do perfectly, and any “improvement” would require changing that (new menu items, etc.). But they haven’t changed their menu or anything else in decades.
IMO, their prices have gone up more slowly than other fast food. So, arguably slower than inflation when comparing fast food. So I suppose they’re better in that sense.
I worked at Arby’s back when Arby-Q was introduced.
The beef is supposed to be sliced almost paper thin for sandwiches while Arby-Q required being thicker to stand up to frequent stirring. If thick slices are a regular thing, the store manager is not properly training their workers.
The roast beef is all meat. Chunks make up about 70% (back then, I don’t know if the proportions are different today) while the rest is a binder of beef ground into paste (Roast Beef: Beef, Water, Salt, Sodium Phosphates) bagged and frozen.
If Domino’s qualifies, then their pizza offerings are much better than the 80s/90s.
Subway has a more expanded menu, for that version of ‘better’.
Yes to both of these: Domino’s and Subway. We just had one of the Subway signature footlongs yesterday, and it was surprisingly good.
At least Arby’s brought back the potato cakes, at least for awhile.
I loved the Arby-Q. I didn’t notice the thickness of the slices in that, nor did it matter (as you said it needed to be sturdier)… The roast beef in the sandwiches is still good with Horsey sauce or BBQ sauce, but sometimes here the slices are not sliced paper thin and they’re kind of thick and chewy.
I agree with this too. Back in the day, Dominos wasn’t even considered when we wanted pizza. Now we get it every so often - for sure when the grandkids are over. That’s their favorite and it’s much cheaper than anywhere else. It’s not as good of a pizza that our local pizza restaurant offers but it’s not bad. And I love, love the cinnamon knots!!
The Quarter Pounder got better when McDonald’s switched from frozen to fresh patties. (The smaller patties are still frozen, however.)
Yep. Which, ironically, is why I don’t order the Quarter Pounder any more. I want it to taste like McDonald’s when I go there, not a real hamburger.
Dominos has absolutely gotten better. Chick Fil A is great. I agree with the Popeyes chicken sandwich when it’s firing on all cylinders, but they can be inconsistent around here.
Pardon, but I’m going to disagree with this. IMHO a fast food restaurant starts with whatever gets them customers and a reasonable (for values of reasonable, more on this in a second) profit. They then, in almost all cases, attempt to expand to the limits of their ability, often overextending and closing all but a few locations, sometimes even in multiple cycles.
Once they get past a certain size, and certainly once the people at the top are all business-types, rather than food or service types, they begin searching to make that “reasonable profit” ever bigger, normally by streamlining menus, reducing quality or variety of ingredients, removing “Freebies” (see that thread), or what have you, while continuing as much possible growth.
They can and do change extremely unpopular changes if it cuts the growth or profit, but that’s pretty rare overall. In most cases the encheapification is a slow, steady process, much like boiling a frog, and often covered up by their efforts to release the next big thing, or next sponsor/tie in offer.
So it’s against the interests of those seeking to squeeze $$$ out of any fast food restaurant or chain to get better. Better though, as you point out in terms of new products can be a thing, but once it gets established, the process is almost certain to repeat on the new product as well.
I consider it a win if, such as @Dr.Strangelove suggests, a chain can keep the quality of the product consistent even with cost-of-business increases being factored in. But outside a few very local (like city-sized) chains, I haven’t experienced it myself (others may!) - and that in my experience only lasts until some profit seeker buys them all out and the process beings as above.
One thing that I suspect helped In-n-Out is that they always paid well above minimum wage. So when labor costs increased due to minimum wage laws, effects of COVID, etc., they were better able to absorb that. I suspect they don’t pay as much of a premium now, but that they never had to cut wages. Also helps that they’re privately owned and don’t have to worry about how much profit they’re making in any given quarter.
Didn’t McD’s have an ad campaign a few years back where they added burgers that were supposed to appeal to adults who were tired of same old? They featured mostly weird mustards, iirc. It didn’t last very long because people don’t go to McD’s to be adventurous.
If by “a few years back” you mean “28 years ago”, then yes.
I read a McDonalds cook said QP’s are the best burger they do now, freshest, etc.
I stopped eating QP’s 30 years ago, so I thought I’d check it out. He was right. Fresher, tastier than anything else and much better than it used to be.
It helps that I always order with no ketchup.