I still refuse to patronize Taco Bell for want of the Cool Ranch Doritos taco, and the Mexican pizza, my two go-to, must-order-every-time-Taco Bell items. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no longer any reason to go there at all.
I was disappointed when they removed the Mexican pizza until I remembered that it had been a long time since I had gotten a good Mexican pizza. When I would order one it would usually seem a bit stale like it had been sitting around for a while. No matter which Taco Bell I went to I would get a sub par Mexican pizza.
Everyone makes that joke “Taco Bell is the same 4 ingredients remade 100 times for the menu” but then they still get rid of almost all the actual good stuff. Once Taco Bell gets rid of the Chalupa that would confirm the fact they just don’t care about keeping anything around.
Subway got rid of its Spicy Italian sandwich, at least locally. I can fall back on its BMT, but I did like the Spicy Italian.
I do note that Subway (and other fast-food places) are promoting chicken like crazy. McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, heck even Arby’s, are promoting chicken instead of burgers or roast beef sandwiches. Is this because chicken is so popular that they can’t afford not to serve it, or is it just because these chains want to appeal to as wide a range of customers as possible?
Popeye’s chicken sandwich went viral and ever since then every chain has been falling on the chicken sandwich bandwagon. I liken it to 15-20 years ago when every single burger chain was bragging about their “angus beef”.
I’d imagine supply chain issues and/or cost factors are more likely. Industrial amounts of chicken may simply be more economical to purchase these days.
This is a WAG but given so many major players made the switch at the same time, something must be up.
Probably a little of both, plus consumption of beef has been slowly declining in the U.S. for several decades, while consumption of chicken has been rising steadily (source), so McDonald’s, Burger King, etc., may be chasing trends, and trying to put things on their menu that will be appealing to younger consumers.
The beef-centric fast food restaurants have had chicken offerings for a long time, but most of them have been mediocre, highly-processed chicken; what we’re now seeing is those restaurants trying to deliver something of higher quality.
A year ago when meat prices skyrocketed 80/20 ground beef was over $5 a pound at my local grocery. I could still get a whole chicken for under a buck a pound. I remember because I had just found a 45 minute high heat recipe for spatchcock chicken. We ate a lot of chickens.
Some older examples to add to the thread:
Arby’s had a turkey sub with a creamy Italian dressing that was perfect
Denny’s had a breakfast Dagwood sandwich which I’ll think about for the rest of my life. The bread was perfect.
… onion petals, which have been gone for years now. Actual slices of onion cut the way I do them at home for sausage’n’potatoes, for example.
They were soooo good.
I must confess that I don’t get the concept of “seasonal” items at fast food places. The existence of a “season” for something implies that there are seasons when that something is either unsafe to consume (cf. mussels) or not delicious (not readily available could also qualify). You can’t get me to believe that the ingredients in Del Taco’s tamales are ever in short supply or unsafe. And they’re certainly never not delicious. So why are their tamales not on the menu year-round?
Tamales have a strong association with family Christmas celebrations, so that’s when Del Taco features them - the November-December period. It’s the same reason they feature fish tacos during Lent, just as a lot of other fast food chains feature their fish offerings at that time.
Stipulated. They’re still delicious January-October, and that’s the REAL reason to ever have them in the first place.
kaylasdad99 WANTS!
I was a fan of their Italian sub, which they dropped last year.
Also, when Popeye’s introduced their hit chicken sandwich a few years ago, they discontinued their po’boys, which was a shame. I loved the shrimp po’boy - it came loaded with fried popcorn shrimp on a perfectly chewy roll, with lettuce, pickles, and a tartar sauce that had a certain flavor I just couldn’t put my finger on.
Conversely, to name some examples from my days at Jack in the Box, there’s probably not many people who want an eggnog milkshake in July, or a lime avocado grilled chicken salad in January, or a sourdough spicy fried chicken sandwich with nacho cheese, jalapenos, and onion rings between the hours of 5 AM and 10 PM.
Whereas I, in contrast, want all of those things all the time.
Except for the jalapeños. A little bit of that can last me for quite a while.
Back in the late 90s, Wendy’s had a chicken Caesar wrap for something like a dollar that was excellent. It was just a breaded chicken, lettuce, cheese, and Caesar salad dressing in a wrap. So simple and so good. I wish they still had it.
In the early 2000s there was an explosion of bacon in the fast food world. I don’t remember if you could even get bacon on a hamburger in most fast food restaurants during the 1990s.
Same with ranch dressing. Ranch went from a salad dressing to a condiment seemingly overnight. And it was available on everything. I distinctly recall my cousin taking me to her favorite Italian restaurant because they served their spaghetti with ranch dressing on top (hurk). Thankfully that fad has died down somewhat.
About the only thing I didn’t mind ranch on was the chicken wraps from McDonald’s. I loved them – kind of like a chef salad in a tortilla. There was a McDonald’s on campus and I would occasionally grab a couple on the way to an evening seminar class. They were perfect for classroom eating because they were small and didn’t stink up the room.
But alas, those wraps are long gone. There wasn’t much else at McDonald’s that appealed to me so I rarely go now.
My answer is probably the silliest of the bunch, but I’m still a bit salty that Popeye’s removed the green beans as a side dish from their menu sometime in 2020 or 2021. It was the only vegetable-ish thing on the menu that was any good, as their cole slaw is atrocious.
My wife is a bit salty about that as well. That might be the reason she has high blood pressure.
Our local Jason’s deli recently removed shrimp from its gumbo (without mentioning the deletion, of course), which was the final straw resulting in my removal as one of its customers.