Delivery/take-out Chinese is always good the next day, I’ve found. Ditto a well-made sub. The local sub place does a beef/bacon/cheese number hat is perfect the next day if you tell them you want it “dry” and add your own condiments when you eat it later.
Boston Market. Walk in, see chicken, walk out. It’s a national chain. There’s probably one near you.
You can certainly do that with the “personal pan pizzas” which are a Pizza Hut tradename, but the other major chains do something similar. They’re ~8" thick crust pizzas with limited toppings. They run them through a conveyor belt oven and they cook in about 4 minutes it seems.
They usually have 3 or 5 kinds premade. Especially at locations like airports, sports venues, etc. But sometimes even at ordinary locations. At which point you’re grabbing a completely prepped, cooked, and boxed small pizza off the warming rack, paying for it, and walking away. Fiddling with your credit card is by far the slowest part of the process.
When is the last time you went into a Boston Market? They are all but dead. Two locations near me were just abandoned. I mean the employees just stopped coming in because they weren’t being paid and the company stopped paying rent. Landlords are paying the utilities to prevent damage to the building. (From personal knowledge)
Their HQ and all Colorado stores have been siezed because they were collecting sales taxes and deducting payroll taxes without paying them over to the state.
They’ve closed 97% of their restaurants, many of them by simply abandoning them and the employees. Never told them the stores were closing, just stopped paying them and paying suppliers until the product stopped coming in or the employees did.
Last time I went into one was over a year ago. It was desolate and filthy. Now it’s abandoned.
If you go to a Dominos here when it’s not busy, you can be outta there in ten minutes so I consider that sufficiently fast. Of course Costco and many grocery stores sell roast chicken, and a few restaurant chains specialize in it though they are mostly sit down places some wouldn’t consider fast food. I don’t care how you define it, you do you, I’m happy to consider roast chicken fast food. Besides, the Canadian chains usually have drive-thru and what is more fast food than that?
More info on the whole Boston Market implosion:
(most recent)
Boston Market headquarters in Golden seized over unpaid taxes.
Colorado specific.
So yeah, I don’t think Bankruptcy is going to save them when among other things they’ve been found liable for failure to pay wages to employees and tax withholding in multiple states. And even if they did - the bankruptcy was declared 4 months ago - by the time it’s all worked out, I can’t see any of the stores (if any are left) recovering from it.
Wow. I knew some local BMs had closed a couple years ago and in general they’d gotten a bit shabby compared to when I frequented them back around 2005.
But I had no idea the rot went that wide or that deep. Their website (that I checked a couple hours ago before posting my last bit) is a cheerful place showing no sign of distress. Fooled me.
Thanks all for the catch-up and corrections.
Chinese food. My aunt used to say that Chinese food is the perfect food for a microwave because everything comes out mushy from the microwave, but at least Chinese food is mushy when it’s fresh so there’s no noticeable difference.
FTR, sandwiches are not good leftover; the bread gets soggy from ingredients.
Well, I guess depending on the sort of Chinese food you buy that could be true. Not for the ones I do though, for most stir fry and similar options I find it harder to reheat, because to get a thorough heating and good texture without turning it to mush I need to reheat in a hot skillet.
But an adjacent thought, one of my favorite Thai dishes is Yum Neu, a spicy, sliced sirloin based cold salad. And it’s about perfect, because it’s a cold salad. It’s pretty much just as good coming out of the fridge as it is fresh on the plate.
But I wouldn’t normally consider it fast food. For fast food Chinese, I guess we’d be talking Panda Express (
) which is best never eaten at all - considering the grease, salt, batter and sugar bombs that most of their entrees are.
I admit to liking Panda though I try to stay with its somewhat healthy options. I personally like to make “Panda Ramen” the next day with my leftover Kung Pao & whatever specialty crap I got as my second entree.
Pizza, and only pizza.
I agree - but I don’t consider pizza fast food.
It’s take out, which I think we can all agree is synonymous with the spirit of the OP.
Clearly pizza. Italian subs and many deli sandwiches can be perfectly good, but they aren’t cooked food. The bread might be soggier but most of the sandwichy goodness will remain, at least overnight. Fried chicken maybe when fast food fried chicken isn’t that great to start with it may not be much worse eaten cold or reheated the next day. Most everything else doesn’t age well, although anybody could have an affinity for day old fries or nachos.
These days everything from McD’s to $100 per plate haute cuisine can be ordered for takeout or delivery. I’m not convinced that “takeout” has any good connection to “fast food”.
When we were kids, sure. Now? Color me very skeptical.
There’s still a big difference. Pizza places often don’t have dining rooms.
That’s fair, but it does admit that the best you can do is a “somewhat healthy” option. 
Buuuuut, this is fast food we’re talking about, not exactly a genre known for that emphasis.
Since we’re now arguing what fast food is vs. takeout, my rule of thumb (and yes @LSLGuy, the modern era makes for tons of exceptions) is that someone else makes or prepares and packages my food for me, AND a substantial fraction of their business is dine out. Drive-through options, pick up only windows, and the like are strong indicators of this.
Most “traditional” fast food restaurants qualify, Pizza would, and a few “fast casual”. But for me, it rules out buffet places (which in terms of time certainly would qualify) where you could walk in, fill a container, get it weighed and walk out in less time than most places, because you’re packaging it up yourself.
Probably any and all such rules are going to be more than slightly arbitrary.
emphasis mine
seems like that is the main purpose of 90+% of companies’ websites