Many people will agree that fast food sucks. It’s unhealthy for you, the employees don’t care about their jobs and get underpaid to do repetitive tasks. Customers never get enough ketchup or napkins at the drive thru counter or they never get your order right. We can all agree that fast food is not a five star dining experience. Unfortunately, many people work and are pressed for time and that quick burger or sandwich at the strip mall is too hard to pass up. We have come up with our own list of things that suck at fast food joints.
-I was once at a Wendy’s restaurant to get me some delicious spicy chicken sandwich. It was late at night and I hadn’t eaten all day. I walked into the fast food place and proceeded to order the spicy chicken sandwich combo. The Wendy’s server told me…
‘I’m sorry sir but that item is sold out for today’.
I didn’t see no sign saying anything about it. I then proceeded to order a standard junior cheeseburger from their value menu. Once again, I was told that the item had been sold out. Instead, I went with a grilled chicken sandwich and was asked what side dish I would like. Apparently… the fries and side salads were sold out too! My two options included a baked potato or some chili. I didn’t want either. I was asked what sort of drink I would like. Coca-Cola? Nope. Orange Crush? Nope. All they had was Iced Tea or Diet Coke.
‘Do you have any water’?
I was afraid that might have been sold out also. The server then told me how their inventory was delayed and they were waiting on a fresh shipment of goods by tomorrow morning. That’s fine. But, in this technological age, is it hard to just come out with electronic signs that can simply read ‘sold out’ if an item isn’t available anymore? Movie theaters can do it pretty easily – why can’t fast food joints do the same?
-When I shop for hamburger buns, I usually get the no-name brand because I’m cheap and don’t want to spend the extra dough on a nice Italian-style bun or one with sesame seeds on the top. These no-name private brands often make really tiny buns that can barely fit the patty (let along the other condiments I place on top of the patty). I get what I paid for. At a burger joint, the employees have the latest in technological wizardry to shoot ketchup on to my bun or to flatten a patty and place it neatly on the bun. This is why I find it ironic that by the time I receive my burger, the whole patty,lettuce and tomato is sliding off the side and into my container. It would be nice if everything was in symmetry and all stayed in the same place and didn’t move.
-This issue is a two step problem. First off, I enjoy getting lots of fries. Some people may not like this but to me it shows value for the money that I spent on the food. Some people prefer less fries because of nutritional reasons but these people should go and eat a salad and not worry about the fry weight at a burger joint. The thing that bugs me is when they create these tiny containers that overflow with fries and half the fries fall into the paper bag they give you and cause the bag to get soggy and rip. If you’re going to give lots of fries – make a damn container big enough to hold the fries. The fact that you’re overflowing my fries like a volcano to make it look like your fry to container ratio is humongous is not very impressive at all.
-You have to hand it to the marketing geniuses at fast food joints. It was shown over 15 years ago on national television why the burgers you see in advertisements looked so delicious and yummy. It turns out that they hired special designers that would make fake burgers with plastic condiments to help give the impression that the burger you were about to eat was ultra fresh and ultra desirable. The truth is that when you compare the ad versus the real deal; you see what a major difference the two look like side by side. You can’t blame the marketing gurus for trying any way imaginable to help to increase fast food sales but the truth in advertising is really lacking and to me the fact that you need to lie about how great your food looks really sucks.
-We live in an age of instant messaging, twitter, facebook and other social media outlets. Can someone tell me why it is that the speaker at my local drive thru sounds worse than the sound my old 56 k modem used to make? I’m also positive that the loud screeching sound coming from the speaker will not help my hearing when I’m 80 years old and trying to figure out what my grandchildren are trying to tell me. The sound of the speakers coming from the drive thru should not sound the same as the device being used to tell the suicidal person not to jump off the side of the apartment building complex across from the fast food joint.
-Coupons are a great idea because I get to pay less for the food that I eat. What I don’t like are these stupid paper coupons that I leave in my car for a week and then fall underneath the car seat or get scrunched up so much that I no longer have any clue what the coupon was intended for in the first place. The Japanese got it right when they allow you to touch your cellphone to a RFID scanner and receive the coupon fee without any paper being involved. We need to start advancing the technological curve a little bit more with these things and the good news is that by getting rid of all of that paper it won’t sit in my recycling bin all week and we may even save a tree or two in the process.
-This is the problem with capitalism right here. Supply and demand. How is it that a small burger joint can charge 1.75$ for a small paper cup full of ice and small amounts of soda and the pharmacy right next to the burger joint can sell a 2 litre bottle of the same liquid for 99 cents? If you want me to buy a soda with my drink….it better be the size of a big gulp at the 7 eleven otherwise I’ll just buy the drinks from somewhere else and save some change to boot.
-I’m no expert on the accomplishments of the microwave when it comes to the elimination of bacterial germs that can cause food poisoning. What I am an expert in is the overall tastiness of a burger that doesn’t taste soggy as though I left the burger in the rain for over an hour. Some food places like to market the fact that their burgers are grilled and taste better but if all burgers end up in the microwave before being served then they all end up soggy regardless of the cooking method.
-I’ve just been given a huge salad by the server. You want croutons with that? You betcha. Fork and knife? Hell Yeah. I’m then given the salad dressing in this plastic packet that takes me over 15 minutes to figure out to open it without it exploding in my face. When I finally open it, the sauce covers 1/4 of my salad and I’m stuck with a huge salad and hardly any salad dressing on it. This also happens with chicken nuggets or any chicken tender meal that requires a dipping sauce. If you want me to dip my food into sauces…give me enough sauce so that I may actually accomplish this task.
-Subway sandwich places love to do this. When I order a chicken sandwich, the thing I want to see a lot of inside my sandwich is the chicken – not the lettuce. I’m not fooled by the employees failed attempts at being an illusionist. I know that when I open my sandwich up, I’m going to see two tiny pieces of chicken and enough lettuce to make my very own side salad next to the sandwich.
-There is a neighborhood McDonald’s a few blocks from my house. The parking lot and entrances meet in such a way that cars need to pass through the drive thru in order to get to the other side where the parking lot is. There’s always some jackass that doesn’t realize this reality and idles his car right into incoming traffic which results in a bottleneck of honking horns and lots of swear words being thrown around. Is it too difficult to build a drive thru away from where the cars need to park? Thankfully, some places are starting to understand this problem and are building drive thrus away from oncoming traffic and making ordering a meal from the comfort of your own car a more pleasant experience.
-Ok…this is my final problem but it’s also the most annoying one of them all. I’m a big fan of general tao chicken and the majority of the time it’s served with extra thick sauce to hide any traces of chicken being in the actual meal. Nothing pisses me off more than to see something full of skin or breading inside that has been deep fried where there’s hardly any traces of actual meat inside because the establishment was trying to save some money and were too cheap to give you what you paid for (This is especially true of any Chinese fast food joint or restaurant). I’m not a dummy and I get what you’re trying to do. The sauce might taste sweet and yummy until I take a bite and notice that one chicken ball is 90% breading and 10% chicken meat. When I order chicken, I expect to taste chicken and not starch.
Well, that wraps up our sucky fast food problems article. We realize that not all fast food joints are 5 star restaurants. But, there are certain standards that we’d like to see fixed that will definitely help to improve our dining experience at these fast food joints. Anything that can help to improve both the quality of the food and the overall customer experience should be achieved by all fast food joints no matter how cheap their food is.
(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
Loading …
Entries (RSS)