When I was a kid, I never liked the Burger King Whopper; I perceived it as “wet”. Partly this was because of the tomato slice, which I never liked on a sandwich and may have contributed to this perception.
When I worked for Jack in the Box, our recipe book had a “Texas Cheeseburger” that I assume was specific to TX locations. It was a quarter pound patty with just mustard, pickles, and American cheese.
When I lived in southern CA, In-n-Out was my favorite fast food burger place. Last year I was in Vegas and had a chance to eat at one since the first time moving away, and I found it much less impressive than I remembered. Maybe it’s just that I’ve had better restaurant burgers since then and my palate is more refined now.
On a aide note, in Seattle we have a Caliburger - a chain that started in China as an unlicensed knockoff of In-n-Out before getting bought by a techbro who’s mainly been using it to try and market his order kiosks and robot burger and fry cookers (they still have a human kitchen staff for assembling the cooked food and wrapping/bagging/etc.) and I’d say they’re actually superior to the original.
I was very excited to finally have White Castle back in the 70s. What a total disappointment that mess is. Same for In n’ Out, which I finally got to try in the 2010s. Tasteless crap, IMO. 5 Guys is hit or miss these days, depending on the franchise. The original 5G burgers that I had in Virginia in 1992 were excellent, however.
Like you, I grew up in So Cal in the heyday of In-n-Out. They really were a cut above back then.
Traveling as I do, I’ve had a chance to sample them in lots of locations beyond SoCal once they had begun to spread. IMO, like Coors 40 years ago, the excitement extended well past where the product could be bought. So In-n-Out HQ prioritized building their non-SoCal restaurants in tourist traps. Sliding into e.g. Phoenix and setting up on random street corners across from McDs would be slow. OTOH, putting one in Fisherman’s Wharf in SF or along the strip in Vegas or near Pike Street Market in Seattle seemed to be a no-brainer.
So they made super-sized stores that could serve a hand-crafted product in vast numbers using production-line techniques. And hired indifferent locals to run the out of state divisions. The result is crap food mis-prepared and hastily mis-assembled. But the line of tourists clamoring to try it stretches down the block.
Go back to one of the old locations in SoCal where it isn’t a tourist experience and you’ll be happier.
Yes, the rest of the burger world has hugely upped their game since the 1980s too. So most regions have decent non-McDs/BKs alternatives that legitimately give In-n-Out a run for their money quality wise. Five Guys having been mentioned as an example we happen to have here in FL.
IMO Burger Fi beats all of them hands down.
Who’s pretty well concentrated in FL and up the eastern seaboard. With an outpost waay out West in, you guessed it, Las Vegas. I haven’t tried that location, but I do not expect great things from it.
I feel SO lucky to live in a town with a local bakery. Their donuts are heavenly at any temperature, but do stop by and ask “So, what’s warm?”
They peek into the kitchen and say “For cake donuts, chocolate or blueberry with maple glaze*. Raised, we got vanilla frosting with coconut, sprinkles or Fruity Pebbles, and… a few huge apple fritters.”
(*Soooo much better than it sounds…)
One time the college kid behind the display case said “… And we got some crullers we can’t sell yet.”
“Aww, that’s too bad. How come?”
“Well, they’re so warm they’ll melt the wax paper on the bags…”
“So, if you hand them to me and I eat them before they make it to the bag?”
“Dude, that’d work!”
My favorite independent bakery story … We used to live near a Mom ‘n’ Pop bakery like @digs described. They did more of cakes, pies, and pastries than they did scruffy donuts. Still wonderful though.
Anyhow, they had a small framed home-made sign on the wall behind the cash register
My doctor told me I have to lose weight.
So I went to the bakery for a second opinion.
So true! 
What with the price of rent in downtown Seattle these days, they’d probably have to charge $20 for a double-double, and the locals would still say Dick’s is better.
(IMO, Dick’s is sub-McDonald’s in quality as far as the burgers go, but the fries and shakes are tasty.)
When I was in IT (20+ years ago now!) I spent a lot of time in Redmond. I always wanted to go to Dicks, but never made it. It had the reputation you describe.
That’s what I was thinking. Born and raised in Alabama, and I’ve never heard this. Most fast food burgers do come with mustard (and ketchup) here, but I assumed that everywhere. Never heard it mentioned by anyone. I hate mustard.
QT coffee is pretty good.
That may well be true. They have a good product formula but seem to lack consistency in how their individual franchises are managed. When I lived in the Big City, the local urban BK gradually degenerated into a place that wasn’t clean, didn’t offer particularly good product, and the last straw was when a burger actually tasted gamey, as if it was on the verge of going bad or already over it. I never went back there again and it put me off BK for years.
But a couple of years ago I drove to a nearby BK while waiting for someone just because it was right there and I was hungry, and I was really impressed, and became a fan. The one in my neighbourhood is every bit as good. It’s nice and close. The McDonald’s is closer, but fuck 'em. Besides having crap product, the McDonald’s inexplicably has long lineups at the drive-thru. For what, I always ask myself. There are two other burger joints within a couple of blocks that are far, far better, and at least a dozen other decent fast-food outlets right in front of your face. I will never understand why people opt to the worst possible crap. Is it because it’s massively advertised?
According to the author of the Steamed Hams scene, so somebody with high fast food burger credentials, the best fast food burger is at Culver’s. There are some near me, but I’m not much of a fast food burger person, so I’ve never tried it.
Shockingly, perhaps other people have different tastes/preferences than you.
I understanding hating one product and loving another. I cannot understand actually crapping on people for liking something that you don’t or declaring that they must simply lack taste or be deceived or deluded into purchasing it while your purchases are logical and reasonable and right.
Ya think? I can’t believe that! 
I should first of all amend my previous statement to say that there are not two, but three burger joints within minutes of the McDonald’s I mentioned. Two are certainly competitors in the same mass market. Which I personally consider superior to McD’s in ways that I could strongly argue for, but sure, that’s subjective. The third one is so far above the others in quality that it’s objectively better by any standards.
Yet the masses line up at McD’s and wait for as long as fifteen minutes to get a greaseburger when a real burger can be made to order for them right across the street.
I’m not “crapping on” anybody, or judging anyone’s taste. There is a natural human-animal attraction to fat and salt, and cheap fast foods like McD’s cater to that. I eat fast foods. I’m not sanctimonious about it. I just try not to overdo it, and to avoid the worst of it.
actually, I remember in Indiana Burger King used to put mustard on its cheeseburgers and mayonnaise on its whoppers and it had Pepsi instead of Coke (Pepsi owned them until the early 90s)
my mom would rather die than drink Pepsi but she had been going to the BK where we lived so long she was allowed to bring her own bottle in … Ironically Grandma felt the same way about Coke and had started to go to BK because they served Pepsi
Once i was over the kids’ meals I just liked BK’s food better than that and for some reason in the early 90s they tried replacing their soft serve with some frozen yogurt type of crud …they did have one sandwich id get there when everyone else went there and were paying for it it was called the big n tasty it was MCD’sanswer to the 99 cent whopper andtheyt cooked it like one
In frozen food other than its lasagna I never understood the appeal of stouffers anything … most of it to me is flavorless mush…
I once got a quarter-pounder at a McDonald’s in a small town, that after I opened it, I just had to show it to the manager. I went up to the counter and politely asked to see the manager. She came over in an exasperated way, when I opened up the wrapper and said
this looks great! It’s just like the pictures. Whoever did this in the kitchen did a perfect job - thank you! She smiled
and she went back to the kitchen to talk to her team as I returned to my seat and finished my meal.
I get the distinct impression that they don’t want you to linger and eat the food there. If the decor isn’t doing the trick, they could add an Amityville Horror-style voice overhead that says GET OUT.
…to say, “Let me tell you about this absolute weirdo we’ve got out there.” 
Regular Coors taste like dirt to me, always has. Coors light is OK for chugging on a hot day and tastes like water.
I’ve had the freshest Coors possible: off the tap, right at the brewery in Colorado. Excellent stuff!
Problem is, I’ve found, that the farther you get from the brewery, the more the quality diminishes. By the time it gets here (southern Alberta), it may be imported, but it’s nothing different from any domestic Labatt or Molson product that invariably is less expensive than an import. I don’t know if it’s the canning–we don’t get bottles of it–but it’s not the fine Coors beer that I had in Colorado.