Fast Food restaurants have come up with some iconic food items, and others that had no business gracing a menu board. Here are the 25 worst.
We often think of fast food restaurants as a place to grab a quick burger and fries and go on about our day.
It’s instant food, and while it may not be good for our health, we simply can’t resist the taste, or the price, of fast food. The concept of “fast food” evolved way back in the 1860s, when the British staple of “fish and chips” was developed, and by the 1900s, there were over 25,000 fish and chip spots in Britain.
With its growth, fish and chips became an iconic staple of UK diets, and when the concept spread to America, many fast food items entered into our lexicon, such as McDonald’s Big Mac, Burger King’s Whopper, and the Original Recipe Chicken at KFC. These menu items allowed the companies that bred them to become classics, but, there were times when these same fast food outlets bred menu items that were so utterly forgettable, that we just had to make a slideshow out of it to refresh your memory.
So, with that in mind, let’s dive into the 25 worst fast food menu items of all time.
25. The Arch Deluxe Burger from McDonald’s
I remember my mom taking me and my brother to McDonald’s one time, and I, being a teenager at the time, was intrigued by the new burger on the menu — the Arch Deluxe Burger.
So, I asked my mom to order it, I got it, and, low and behold, it was the blandest burger I’ve ever tasted in my entire life, and I’ve eaten a lot of burgers, mind you! It wasn’t that it was disgusting, it had a decent taste to it; but, it was a burger that one wouldn’t normally associate with McDonald’s.
The Arch Deluxe was born out of McDonald’s test kitchen in October of 1995, and, at the time, McDonald’s was more associated with kids than adults. So, the chain wanted to find a way to “re-connect” with adults, and with that came the Arch Deluxe.
The burger even had its own slogan: “The Burger with the Grown-Up Taste.” Looking back on that, the slogan could have given us a huge clue into how this burger would taste.
The Arch Deluxe was the one burger that McDonald’s almost exclusively promoted for adults, and it was, actually, the first in the chain’s new “Deluxe” line, one that would include a Fish Filet Deluxe, Grilled Chicken Deluxe, Crispy Chicken Deluxe, and the flagship burger.
Five years after its launch, all of the “Deluxe” line, including the Arch Deluxe, was pulled off the menu. It was reported that McDonald’s spent over $300 million in research, production, and marketing for this burger, which is simply mind-boggling for such a bland line of burgers.
Though the Arch Deluxe is now firmly in the history book, it lives on, somewhat, in their line of salads, which are basically a re-tooling of their “Deluxe” line research.
What a small food world.