What is the best chain fast food restaurant?

[Nephilim00]

I prefer to order chain at a sit-down restaurant. Less chewy that way.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

McDonalds selling their burgers at the same cost as other shops with better quality food has been to their detriment

It's certainly made me less prone to spend any money there. I mean, for my health that's a good thing, I'm sure - but like, I could spend £8 at Maccie Ds and get a kind of bleh dry burger, chips that are roll a d6, 1-5 "meh" 6 "totally fresh hot and really nice", and a bleh fountain drink, or I could spend £8 at some random local fast-food joint like the Peri Peri chicken place just down the road from me, and get really nice peri peri chicken, great chips or wedges which are guaranteed just cooked for me and a cold canned drink (which is at least equal to the fountain drink).

What's really sad is Maccie Ds would ALWAYS give me the hot, fresh chips (errr french fries I think you'd say in the US), like that might be enough to convince me - especially if they also actually always made the burger to order, rather than it being like 50/50 that or dry-as-hell and clearly having been there for a while (you can no longer see where they rack the burgers up and assess on that basis either), but no, it's roll the dice.

 

[R_J_K75]

I love that the McRib is this limited time beloved fast food offering. I hate the fact that it is disgusting.

Never had one in my life. Right outside my backyard is a railroad track and WNY was and still is a big manufacturing area. We used to play and get drunk back there and we'd come across unearthed opened barrels of god knows what it was in them. I'm pretty sure that's where the first pig for the McRib came from.

 

[R_J_K75]

...it's roll the dice

Whether it's a fast-food chain, local restaurant or a high scale eatery I hate that there's never any consistency. I don't care if I'm spending $10 or $300 on a meal, I should be able to expect a certain level of quality.

 

[R_J_K75]

Just an aside but still relevant I believe. In the United States its customary to tip in many settings, eatery, barber, taxis, etc. I have always been of the mind that I should tip because I got good service, and I shouldn't have to tip to get good service. Apparently, that wasn't always the case and people would tip beforehand, "To Insure Promptness", thus the term tip. Has anyone else heard of this?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

All this chicken talk makes me wish a fast food chain would arise that uses the broasted method. There is a joint in middle Minnesota in a rural town called the Brass Rail (not to be confused as the strip joint in Minneapolis) that makes a killer chicken dinner.

Well, “broasting” chicken has an interesting history.

What's the difference between Broasted and fried Chicken? - GBC

What’s the difference between broasted and fried chicken? Broasted chicken is marinated, Slo-Bro coating, pressure-fried in a pressure-fryer.

genuinebroasterchicken.com

KFC actually uses (or originally used) a broasting technique, as have some other places. But there are those who claim it’s not really broasting unless you satisfy certain very narrow criteria. And that functionally limits it to just a few sellers.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Just an aside but still relevant I believe. In the United States its customary to tip in many settings, eatery, barber, taxis, etc. I have always been of the mind that I should tip because I got good service, and I shouldn't have to tip to get good service. Apparently, that wasn't always the case and people would tip beforehand, "To Insure Promptness", thus the term tip. Has anyone else heard of this?

It's a backronym therefore there is a 98% chance it's completely and totally false and made up by some raconteur (often in the early through mid 20th century). Almost all backronyms are false, very very few exceptions. I can't offhand think of a single exception. The actual origin is unclear but the word appears first in English as being associated with "giving" when it's used in the 1600s to mean "tip" as in the sense of tell someone some useful-to-them semi-secret information (i.e. that the cops are coming, or which horse to bet on or whatever). Then by the 1700s it means "gratuity for service", which is probably an evolution from the information-tip sense. Before that? Who knows, but it's thought to be Thieves Cant related (as a surprising number of English words are).

Personally I tip 10-20% depending on the nature of the service in the UK, and 20% on food service in the US, because US food service workers are underpaid deliberately (whereas in the UK they are not). This means I tip more than most by UK standards. I hate situations where you're supposed to tip but it's unclear how much or who or when or how, which is often the case with hotels and the like, they trigger the hell out of my ADHD-related anxiety (which is otherwise rarely seen). Unfortunately the US seems to have more situations where you're supposed to tip than the UK - but I least I got sit-down or delivery food service locked down.

I've almost never reduced a tip for service in the US, it really has to be clearly intentionally crappy service from the actual wait staffer and at an expensive restaurant for me to consider reducing a tip. Some poor waitress as a 24-hour breakfast place or something, I don't care if she's slow or inept, I'm not not tipping her.

Whether it's a fast-food chain, local restaurant or a high scale eatery I hate that there's never any consistency. I don't care if I'm spending $10 or $300 on a meal, I should be able to expect a certain level of quality.

I agree, it's the absolute killer of places I like.

Unfortunately in London there's been this recurrent pattern, for like, 15+ years, where a new restaurant will open, and it'll be excellent, like undeniably great. For six months, sometimes a year. Then the quality slips - usually either the ingredients get worse, or they get much lazier about putting them together. This applies to high and low end ones. And it can even apply to chains - when Papa John's came over here to the UK, initially they imported US ingredients, and held franchisees to very high standards - I forget how long that lasted, like between 2 and 5 years maybe, and then the quality just dropped, and it's never come back up. It's sad because whilst Papa Johns isn't remotely as good as [local pizza place] in the US, it was better than the vast majority of UK pizza places and no longer really is (which is sad, because it's a low bar).

This doesn't happen 100% of the time, but it does happen like, 50% or more of the time I'd say.

There are also of course restaurants that are just consistently inconsistent and that's really annoying - we had a really good Chinese takeaway, but it was actually only really good on certain nights - it seemed like they had a "good chef" and "bad chef" or something. And whilst we tried to only order on the "good" nights, even then it wasn't 100% so that kind of sucked.

Of course there are some restaurants that come in sucking and keep sucking and you have no idea why anyone goes to them - Taco Bell in the UK for example, is just inedible.

 

[payn]

Tipping is getting worse in the U.S. Wait staff are underpaid and customers are increasingly expected to foot the bill. Im not greedy, I understand cost are up, but please build it into menu costs. A lot of restaurants are now charging "service fees" to pay for benefits for employees. Its typically 3-4% on top of the bill. In Minnesota they passed a law indicating establishments must announce this ahead of time since a common practice was to stay mum until the check comes.

I was heading to a spot I liked last year. I was handed the menu and saw that the service fee was 18%... I was told by the waiter I was expected to tip on top of that!!! I left and went to an Irish pub instead (you cant throw a stone in St. Paul and/or Minneapolis without hitting 5 Irish pubs...its kinda weird).

A few hipster joint have tried the no tipping all built into the menu price, which is great, but folks still tip anyways...

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Tipping is getting worse in the U.S. Wait staff are underpaid and customers are increasingly expected to foot the bill. Im not greedy, I understand cost are up, but please build it into menu costs. A lot of restaurants are now charging "service fees" to pay for benefits for employees. Its typically 3-4% on top of the bill. In Minnesota they passed a law indicating establishments must announce this ahead of time since a common practice was to stay mum until the check comes.

I was heading to a spot I liked last year. I was handed the menu and saw that the service fee was 18%... I was told by the waiter I was expected to tip on top of that!!! I left and went to an Irish pub instead (you cant throw a stone in St. Paul and/or Minneapolis without hitting 5 Irish pubs...its kinda weird).

A few hipster joint have tried the no tipping all built into the menu price, which is great, but folks still tip anyways...

I have a few things to add to this.

1. If you order food at a restaurant, tip generously. 20% is the expected minimum. If you can't afford that, you shouldn't be eating out. That's the price of eating out in the United States.

2. That said, places also need to pay their employees a fair wage. If you are charging a service fee (other than the amount for "large parties"), then that should be the amount for the service. Tipping should be a gratuity in excess of that, not just a way for the establishment to pay their workers without, um, paying their workers or telling you the actual price.

3. In addition, I really don't like the fact that tipping has spread throughout all sorts of places. Look, I get it. It's a way for people to make more money. But you know what else is? Paying employees. I finally hit the limit when I was at a concert and buying an outrageously priced shirt, and was prompted to tip the person who sold me the shirt.

 

[payn]

I have a few things to add to this.

1. If you order food at a restaurant, tip generously. 20% is the expected minimum. If you can't afford that, you shouldn't be eating out. That's the price of eating out in the United States.

Sure, but telling someone they have to pay 18% service fee and 20% tip? Even if it costs average out (the joint I went too was already above average in price for the city) just build it into menu costs.

2. That said, places also need to pay their employees a fair wage. If you are charging a service fee (other than the amount for "large parties"), then that should be the amount for the service. Tipping should be a gratuity in excess of that, not just a way for the establishment to pay their workers without, um, paying their workers or telling you the actual price.

I think the jig on this is up (at least in MN). I think some folks thought they could cleverly sneak in a service fee and folks would adapt out of habit.

3. In addition, I really don't like the fact that tipping has spread throughout all sorts of places. Look, I get it. It's a way for people to make more money. But you know what else is? Paying employees. I finally hit the limit when I was at a concert and buying an outrageously priced shirt, and was prompted to tip the person who sold me the shirt.

Yeap, its being built into credit card readers as a must answer option. Sneaky as a lot of folks are caught off guard and assume its expected. Folks are increasingly turning it down tho.