When I was a kid, every couple of weeks my mom would take me to Burger King. I thought it was far better than McDonald’s; flame-broiled burgers, and orders seldom botched. Around me, there was about two Burger Kings for every McDonald’s - it was the dominant fast food chain in the area.
In the past 10 to 15 years or so, it seems like Burger King just gave up. McDonald’s is building new restaurants with an upscale feel to replace older buildings, they have free Wi-Fi, and their locations are usually filled with people. By comparison, the Burger Kings around me are pretty much unchanged from the 1970s. In other parts of the country, I see the same thing; shiny new McDonald’s locations everywhere, with an old nearly empty BK here and there.
I don’t know anything about their financials, but it seems to me that they just didn’t even bother keeping up. Few new semi-healthy products like McDonald’s, no new coffee drinks to snag a share of the specialty-coffee market in the recession like McDonald’s, and the BKs around here, anyway, are rundown and ghetto. I can’t even think of one thing I would want to order if I went there, really- except for the breakfast croissandwiches, those are yummy.
Burger King burgers are more obtrusively nasty than McDonalds’ burgers. (At least they were twenty years ago; I suppose they might have stopped making them chewy and burned-tasting since then.)
While there are some exceptions, I find MickeyDs to be significantly cleaner that BKs. The difference is big enough to make me avoid BK in Favor of the big M - on the relatively rare occasions I am after fast food.
I stopped going to Burger King when the Whopper began to do nasty things to my stomach. At about the same time, they switched from real onion rings to minced onion rings.
I was in a combination Arby’s/gas station yesterday in Illinois. After I’d peed in the gas station restroom, and washed my hands and worked my way out using nothing but elbows and knees, before I ordered my sandwich I asked the counter girl if they had their own restroom. The Arby’s side looked clean and shiny, but there was absolutely no way I was going to eat food prepared by someone who had used that restroom on the other side.
Yeah, that switch in onion rings sealed the deal for me and pretty much have not gone back to BK since. Just as well - we have In 'N Out here, and it surpasses both BK and McD by a mile.
Burger King’s burgers are generally better than McD.'s, at least according to my tastes. On the other hand McD.'s fries are much better. And it’s true about them trying to evolve and change. There’s a McDonald’s not far from my house that has a separate, dedicated area for people who want to sip their coffee and use their computers. Amazingly, given the general atmosphere of this particular location, you’d probably want to stay there to do that. The coffee is sure to be less burnt than Starbuck’s, anyway.
I can’t speak to how Burger King’s burgers actually taste, as I haven’t eaten meat for many, many years, but my parents (both in their 80’s) go to Burger King at least once a week, where they get a Whopper and have it cut in half, then also split a large order of fries and a get a couple of drinks, which is more than enough food for the two of them these days.
I will often go with them, usually just having a Coke, but I will sometimes get an order of fries for myself. I like the fries more than any other fast food restaurant around, and my folks feel the same way. They are MUCH better than the limp, soggy fries that I remember from McDonalds, although I haven’t eaten at a McD’s for ages, so I suppose that they could have improved since then.
Finally, the Burger King that we go to is always spotless, and I would give it an A+ for overall cleanliness and general atmosphere, at least as far as fast-food places go.
ETA
The Whopper, fries and two senior sodas that my parents always order is just a little more than 3 bucks total, including tax, and while my folks don’t have ANY reason to worry about money, to people from their generation, a great deal like that is something that they are always happy to take advantage of.
I pretty much only eat at McDonalds for breakfast about once a week (bacon egg and cheese bagel meal), and only go to Burger King about once every three months. They came out with their own big breakfast menu (or rather, updated it) a couple of months back and so I went there to try it. Unfortunately for them, I found that it had the same heavy, greasy taste as their burgers and I have not gone back since.
Pre-manufactured eggs that they nuke and put on a sandwich should not taste like they were fried in the fat that cooked off a burger.
I love Burger King. The only thing that’s wrong with them is that they foolishly got rid of the loaded steakhouse burger. They have these delicious novelty burgers and then they just disappear forever-- why can’t they cycle them like the McRib?
I haven’t eaten in Burger King in years, ever since they made their fries take like they were cooked in detergent. The Whopper was a very good hamburger – as was the Whopper Junior – but without fries, I wasn’t interested. Now that McDonald’s no longer sells hamburgers, I’ll probably stop going there, too. Wendy’s have the both beat.
Burger King changed their marketing a few years ago to appeal to what they called “Super Fans” – people who already loved their burgers. This has hurt their sales. Obviously, the marketing is not aimed at new customers, and it turned off women and people buying for their kids. It also precluded them from adding any healthy items. The franchisees have been complaining about the practice as the target audience – 18-34 yo males – spends less money on fast food.
Probably still paying off the settlement where the Burger King used his whopper to get the Dairy Queen pregnant, but Carl’s Jr. was so incensed that his SO was being abused he decked the King.