I ate at In-N-Out once. The fries were lukewarm and barely cooked through, and the burger, while tasty as food in general goes, was nothing memorable.
For my money, I have to go with Sonic Drive-In. Good burgers, good fries, good drinks. Carl’s Jr./Hardee’s comes a close second/third.
And Red Robin rules.
I’ve seen those threads, and it’s simply not true. Root beer sells well in Thailand, among both locals and farangs (Westerners), be the farangs Americans or Europeans. We have two brands here: Mirinda and A&W. Mirinda is sweeter.
As for the A&W shops, they sell a small variety of hamburgers. They also have an ice-cream waffle that’s not bad. They tried to expand but just could not compete with the giants like McDonald’s and Burger King. The A&W Restaurant in Siam Square is long-running, and there’s a small one way down Sukhumvit Road past the last Skytrain stop, which is definitely geared towards locals, as tourists would have no reason whatsoever to go down that way. A couple more outlets that I knew of had to close down over the years, though, but their canned root beer is a big seller.
We had What-a-Burger back in West Texas, and I have to say that was probably my favorite.
You can throw Long John Silvers and A&W into the mix too. Within 10 miles of me are KFC/TB, KFC/PH, KFC/LJS, TB/A&W, PH/A&W and KFC/A&W combos.
Unfortunately, about half the places mentioned in this thread are not here in the Northwest. We recently got Carls Jr but it is basically the big 4, McD, BK, JITB and Wendys. We do have a couple regional places with excellent burgers, Dicks and Kidd Valley. A Herfy’s also opened near where I live, they have a killer chili size. A couple of Red Robins in the area don’t have drive thru’s but have drive up service. Call your order in and it is delivered to your car in the parking lot.
Long John Silver’s sells hamburgers now?? 
Speaking of Long John’s, there was a time – back in West Texas, mind you – when I thought it was a prime example of seafood. Oh, man, discovering REALLY good seafood was one of the greatest benefits of escaping that place.
When Yum! Foods opens a combination A&W/Long John Silver’s, pretty much. And this is a thing not to be knocked lightly; there are few US fast fooderies that provide malt vinegar with fries.
Hmm, I’ve kind of gone off burgers in recent years, but I’d say my all-time favorite fast food burger would be something from Hardee’s. If there is an outlet in the Houston area, though, I’m unaware of it.
Of the chain burgers available to me locally, I’d rank 'em this way:
Perhaps the most dreary burger I ever had in my life was at a Roy Rogers’ on the PA Turnpike. Ghastly.
I’ve never had an A & W burger, but there are some outlets around here, so based on the enthusiastic response maybe I’ll check it out.
Of the national fast food chains that I can get locally (which limits it to Wendy’s, McD, Burger King, and Jack in the Box), Jack in the Box is the best of the lot.
My sentiments exactly.
I’ll be the tastebudless weirdo who prefers McDonald’s hamburgers - specifically the Quarter Pounder With Cheese, though I also like the plain hamburger/cheeseburger. Second place is Sonic. I also remember liking Whataburger and In-N-Out, though I’ve only had those once or twice. My least favorite burger is probably Wendy’s. Maybe it’s because I only get the single patty, but it always seems to be too dry and the bun overwhelms the meat. I still like Wendy’s Spicy Chicken Sandwich with Frostee, yum yum.
They have a secret menu.
Check out the 100X100.
Wouldn’t that be the Centuple - Centuple?
Hey, and I get the Double Cheeseburger at McDonald’s a couple times of year when I’m feeling broke (especially in Vegas when I’ve just dropped $500 at the tables). I can’t resist the Dollar menu. I had an Angus burger just to try it. It’s alright, but I prefer the cheeseburger.
Way back in the '70s and early-to-mid-'80s, Carl’s Jr. was one of the best places to eat, because the company owned all its restaurants (essentially NO franchises!), so it implemented one of the strongest Quality Assurance programs in the business. My ex-wife was a manager for one, and a visit from QA was enough to induce nervous breakdown. This helped ensure that the food was good and the restaurant was clean.
In the mid-'80s, I don’t remember exactly when, but sometime around 1986, the company decided it wanted to expand rapidly to the east. In order to do that, it couldn’t continue to own all the restaurants, because that meant raising a VERY large amount of capital. So it turned to franchising, which at one point the Karcher family had said they would never consider (upon reviewing the company’s website, it turns out this was in 1984). Once the company turned to franchising, the QA program, as expected, lost its teeth. And since the company sold off many of its stores that it owned, it wasn’t even able to keep that emphasis in them. Now, sadly, the quality depends greatly upon what franchise owns the store you are frequenting.
Just to add something to the thread, here, for three years in the 1990s, CKE Restaurants owned Rally’s. In 1999, Rally’s was divested, and joined with Checkers; Rally’s and Checkers have been the same company since.
Just weighing in with saying that we have Fatburger here and I live in Arizona…
Never tried. Sounds like I’m missing out.
Fatburger is pretty good. They opened up a few outposts in the Chicago area a few years back, but, AFAIK, they’re all gone. I think it mostly has to do with the price–they’re delicious, but a bit pricey. The Yelp reviews for the defunct locations seemed to have the same complaint. That said, Five Guys is similarly pricey, but they seem to be doing great business in Chicago, so it could be other factors, too. Definitely worth checking out, though. When I first visited the LA area and had In N Out and Fatburger, Fatburger was my preference, but, over the years, I’ve become a huge In n Out fanatic.
Zombie, puly.
me too 3 & 4 the original bacon cheeseburger
Dammit. Had two tabs open, responded to wrong thread. I was wondering why I didn’t see that comment in the other thread…
So easy to do! Especially when somebody goes to the effort to post links to old threads dealing with the same topic! 
I’ve done that sort of thing more than a few times myself and rarely if ever have folks gone back to old discussions I’ve linked to.
Same here. When they do a Quarter Pounder with Cheese right (and this is by no means a certainty anymore–many of them are too dry, too peppery, or too salty), I love it. A correctly cooked QPC is my favorite fast-food burger.
Burger King used to be better than they are now. Not sure what changed, but they’re not nearly as good as they used to be.
In-n-Out is good, but IMO not the godlike burger that everybody seems to claim it is.
Wendy’s and Carl’s Jr. are okay.
Jack in the Box is swill, and I’d go hungry before I’d eat one.
I like Steak ‘n’ Shake, but I only get to eat there when I go to Gen Con (we don’t have them where I am, which is probably good). To me, their burgers taste a lot like In-n-Out.
As for White Castle…ugh. Again, we don’t have them here, but the spouse and I ate there while we were at Gen Con, just so we could say we could…and both of us ended up with indigestion and gastric distress for most of the rest of the day. Never again!