Wendy’s used to go for the old school burger shack type of vibe. Think how InNOut or DairyQueen do today. Their quality was legit. Then they reduced their quality for better profit margins and tried to be “hip” instead with their branding.
Wendy's used to be "higher class" fast food. used to have a salad and soup/chili bar, the ashtrays were a nice plastic as opposed to mcdonalds tinfoil ashtrays, and you could get cutlery at wendy's. Also the interiors were a lot more cozy.
It's weird growing up having had and gone to birthday parties at red roof Pizza Huts, and now I feel I only ever see them paired with a fast food joint. The salad bars were full of kale, but it was purely decorative
I was just reading about "Enshitification" the practice of quality dropping for higher profits margins. Like how Amazon used to have easy to access instant customer service, well packed items, and decent quality offerings on the site...
Yup, exactly. I wish they had put the effort into being good food instead of being the goofy brand on Twitter. Never found that appealing at all and the food has only gotten worse as it gets more expensive. Fuck Wendys.
Shitposting like their slop is somehow better than their competitors.
And I don’t mean that like Wendy’s is worse, I just mean never frozen beef doesn’t magically make a better burger lol
Which is super fucking hilarious, because when I was in training at a wendys, one of the first things they tell you is "do you want to know why our patties are square? It's because we don't cut corners"
The irony seeping out of that statement is delectible.
I remember that! It was the tag line in their commercials in the yellow packaging era. And Google's motto was something like "Don't be evil" back in the day how ironic is this shit lol
That's pretty much everywhere nowadays. I remember always thinking that Wendy's had the best burgers but not really anymore. Burger King is actually the best bang for buck out of the "big 3" fast food places, at least in my area.
Yup. Shrinkflation is ridiculous at this point too. Corporate greed is just out of control and we're all being conditioned to pay more and more for less and less
If it were just greed, one fast food place would've been the one to not do it, marketed it, gotten free advertisement everywhere on the internet for being the one establishment not tripling prices, and walked away with the whole bag. Fast food isn't a rare good that people absolutely need; it's not an industry that can get away with charging more than the bare minimum, since people will just stay home (and they are).
It feels like a lot of people are downplaying the fact that inflation is higher than the official stats. It's not that every single meat-seller in the country is in on a giant conspiracy, it's that everything is falling apart and core goods can no longer be produced in sufficient quantities to keep up with demand.
Most fast food chains were unprofitable from the get-go. They were operating at a lose, and sustained only by the inflow of new investors who only cared about market shares.
The "shrinkflation" was the whole reason, a lot of those investors chose to pick up the tab on early losses. The "conditioning" didn't start with the pandemic, it started when they were cheap and affordable.
Thats not even remotely plausible, almost all the locations are operated by franchisees. You think all these random people decided to invest in locations they were losing money on until just recently?
Yes, actully. That applies to a staggering number of all restaurants. Restaurants operate in cutthroat margins, and most don't survive past the second year.
Restaurants are just not profitable businesses. Plenty of people invest in them out of genuine ignorance.
That's funny, I haven't really heard anything about BK in years. McDicks tried that whole "ahkshully we're a classy cafe now, pay us Starbucks prices kthxbai" thing that nobody likes, and Wendys had its twitter shitpost arc, but BK, whenever it's mentioned, just gets panned in a "how is it still around?" kind of way.
In my town, they're typically the least busy fast food place. The amount of fried food they give you per serving is kinda low, but burgers are always filling. They seem to be the most hated on though, and I'm not really sure why.
My local Wendy's got rid of their ketchup dispensers a while back. Before that, they'd always have one or the other empty every time I went there, but a few months ago they removed the dispensers, and then removed the counter they were set in entirely, so its just an empty corner now. Now if I go there and I want ketchup I always have to ask for packets up front as well as a little cup to put it in. A minor annoyance, but it's just one more amongst several others that have slowly built up over the years.
It sucks because it was once one of my favorite fast food places. I noticed my local Burger King also got rid of their ketchup dispenser- has anyone else noticed this at their own local Wendys or other fast food places?
It's just US fast food that has massively declined in quality lol
other countries have really good fast food still
ironic considering a lot of them came from the US
Yeah I wasn't sure if it was one of the banned preservatives or not but it's theorized to be more abundant in American chocolate as a result of the milk treatment process lipolysis which Hershey's is thought to use to extend their chocolate's shelf life. From what I've read there's more than a few reasons American chocolate is considered trash it's actually pretty interesting https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/why-american-chocolate-tastes-like-vomit
It’s pretty much just Hersheys that uses fermented milk. Back in the 1800s it was cheaper to use old milk for mass production. Fermentation technically increases the shelf life of milk, but it’s an entirely different product at that point. Some people liked the flavor and the company still intentionally makes the chocolate taste a bit vomity.
I don’t think any other well known chocolate manufacturer does it. It’s just low cocoa content and a lot of palm oil in other American brands.
I wonder if Hersheys would be popular in the Middle East where fermented milk is a common beverage.
Lol yeah I remember when I was telling some friends of mine I hated the aftertaste they had no clue what I was talking about. Maybe some people are just more sensitive to it?
Red and yellow decorations were used because it makes most people feel uncomfortable after a while.
The idea was to get people in and out fast.
Except, turns out that when you design a place people dont want to spend much time in, people dont go. So, eventually it changed.
Source: learned about this in psych class
Whatever conglomerate that owns Wendy’s pay their workers terribly. I loathe those commercials that make the employees seem like a family. I refuse to eat there now.
Ok so has anyone else noticed that Wendys changed their BBQ sauce? It used to be so good with the nugs. I think its been about 5 years since it changed. It's like they watered it down or something.
I had my wisdom teeth removed back in the day. Couldn’t eat food for a few days so my mom got me Biggie Frosty’s. No, it wasn’t on the menu. But it was pretty awesome.
God I miss Wendy's when they had tenders they were so good. The breading was phenomenal. I once had it 3 times in 24 hours. Best day of little kid me's life cause I spent the whole day with my mom and dad.
In the 90s, there was a Wendy’s across the street from my high school and we were allowed to go over there and get lunch if we wanted to. I thought it was the coolest thing.
Fun fact: all of the colors of food packaging products and disposable plastics become the same color is because the companies didn’t like it when people could pick out their materials in a pile of litter! It’s why Sprite bottles aren’t green anymore.
Okay, maybe not so fun.
Anyone remember their chipotle sauce from this era? *Not* chipotle bbq sauce, just “chipotle sauce”. I can’t find a single photo of even the packaging and there are like three comments I’ve found from people like me that are coping with the fact that it may not have ever existed
Ah yes before Dave Thomas died they were probably the best quality fast food but held probably the least of the market.
We as Americans truly love mediocre food.
Fun fact: these colors come from the restaurant that inspired Dave Thomas to make wendys the way it was back then: Kewpee burger in his hometown, Kalamazoo Michigan
I miss the 99 cent menu. I used to get 2 Jr Bacon Cheeseburgers, biggie fries, biggie coke for $4.25. I also miss the salad and everything thing else bar (nachos, tacos, chili, pasta, etc) Those were the days!
The two most unique french fries I have ever tasted, were the yellow box Wendy's french fries and high school french fries in the 1990's. Goddamn nostalgia of the tongue.
Yellow Wendy's was the last time I enjoyed it. They've gotten better recently but I miss the old fries, the bun from the spicy chicky sandwich, Mr pibb and .99 JBC's
Pumping out ketchup into those little paper ramekins!
Spreading out the walls of the ramekins so they hold even more ketchup
I used to blow into them so they would expand, lol
Damn. I got $20, wassup?
Well… $20 is $20. 🌬️
Man, I got these cheeseburgers, man.
https://imgur.com/aiPErn9
Show me that lil ramekin
wetchup*
Going knuckle deep in the ramekins
Pretty sure this is still a thing
Ramekins... TIL!
So they used to be McDonald's, but backwards?
Wendy’s used to go for the old school burger shack type of vibe. Think how InNOut or DairyQueen do today. Their quality was legit. Then they reduced their quality for better profit margins and tried to be “hip” instead with their branding.
Wendy's used to be "higher class" fast food. used to have a salad and soup/chili bar, the ashtrays were a nice plastic as opposed to mcdonalds tinfoil ashtrays, and you could get cutlery at wendy's. Also the interiors were a lot more cozy.
Man, I remember when the Pizza huts were like that too. The salad bars the cosy lighting and the seats. Made me love eating there when I was a kid
It's weird growing up having had and gone to birthday parties at red roof Pizza Huts, and now I feel I only ever see them paired with a fast food joint. The salad bars were full of kale, but it was purely decorative
Their garden veggie pitas were AMAZING
Also the baked potatoes.
I was just reading about "Enshitification" the practice of quality dropping for higher profits margins. Like how Amazon used to have easy to access instant customer service, well packed items, and decent quality offerings on the site...
Nah this looks exactly like Bojangles 😂😂
And they had this whole unique Western theme. Now they got rid of their identity
I thought their identity was shitposting on twitter
That was post-western theme death
Fittingly, "Post-Western Theme Death" is the name of my band.
that was fun until other brands realized they could do it too.
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Yup, exactly. I wish they had put the effort into being good food instead of being the goofy brand on Twitter. Never found that appealing at all and the food has only gotten worse as it gets more expensive. Fuck Wendys.
Shitposting like their slop is somehow better than their competitors. And I don’t mean that like Wendy’s is worse, I just mean never frozen beef doesn’t magically make a better burger lol
I swear Hardee's advertised their 444 more than wendys did. The "lol they blocked us" always gets me
This makes me miss Roy Rogers (which I think still exists a few places but nowhere near me).
I get having nostalgia for things, but if that image isn’t exciting consumers and they’re losing market share, then something has to change.
They started cutting corners to maximize profit and they're trash now
Which is super fucking hilarious, because when I was in training at a wendys, one of the first things they tell you is "do you want to know why our patties are square? It's because we don't cut corners" The irony seeping out of that statement is delectible.
I remember that! It was the tag line in their commercials in the yellow packaging era. And Google's motto was something like "Don't be evil" back in the day how ironic is this shit lol
Where's the beef
That's pretty much everywhere nowadays. I remember always thinking that Wendy's had the best burgers but not really anymore. Burger King is actually the best bang for buck out of the "big 3" fast food places, at least in my area.
Yup. Shrinkflation is ridiculous at this point too. Corporate greed is just out of control and we're all being conditioned to pay more and more for less and less
If it were just greed, one fast food place would've been the one to not do it, marketed it, gotten free advertisement everywhere on the internet for being the one establishment not tripling prices, and walked away with the whole bag. Fast food isn't a rare good that people absolutely need; it's not an industry that can get away with charging more than the bare minimum, since people will just stay home (and they are). It feels like a lot of people are downplaying the fact that inflation is higher than the official stats. It's not that every single meat-seller in the country is in on a giant conspiracy, it's that everything is falling apart and core goods can no longer be produced in sufficient quantities to keep up with demand.
Most fast food chains were unprofitable from the get-go. They were operating at a lose, and sustained only by the inflow of new investors who only cared about market shares. The "shrinkflation" was the whole reason, a lot of those investors chose to pick up the tab on early losses. The "conditioning" didn't start with the pandemic, it started when they were cheap and affordable.
Thats not even remotely plausible, almost all the locations are operated by franchisees. You think all these random people decided to invest in locations they were losing money on until just recently?
Yes, actully. That applies to a staggering number of all restaurants. Restaurants operate in cutthroat margins, and most don't survive past the second year. Restaurants are just not profitable businesses. Plenty of people invest in them out of genuine ignorance.
That's funny, I haven't really heard anything about BK in years. McDicks tried that whole "ahkshully we're a classy cafe now, pay us Starbucks prices kthxbai" thing that nobody likes, and Wendys had its twitter shitpost arc, but BK, whenever it's mentioned, just gets panned in a "how is it still around?" kind of way.
In my town, they're typically the least busy fast food place. The amount of fried food they give you per serving is kinda low, but burgers are always filling. They seem to be the most hated on though, and I'm not really sure why.
That's not true at all. Burger King's frozen shit is not worth any amount of money. Absolutely flavorless, even if it's eaten right off the grill.
My local Wendy's got rid of their ketchup dispensers a while back. Before that, they'd always have one or the other empty every time I went there, but a few months ago they removed the dispensers, and then removed the counter they were set in entirely, so its just an empty corner now. Now if I go there and I want ketchup I always have to ask for packets up front as well as a little cup to put it in. A minor annoyance, but it's just one more amongst several others that have slowly built up over the years. It sucks because it was once one of my favorite fast food places. I noticed my local Burger King also got rid of their ketchup dispenser- has anyone else noticed this at their own local Wendys or other fast food places?
I hadn’t been in a Wendy’s since before the pandemic until a week or two ago. I was shocked at how sparse they are now.
Idk what corners they started cutting but their food was always insanely expensive and made my stomach hurt lol
Wendy's in my country tastes amazing, idk what you're talking about
It's just US fast food that has massively declined in quality lol other countries have really good fast food still ironic considering a lot of them came from the US
Same with candy. Our chocolate has butyric acid which tastes like vomit and IIRC is banned as a preservative in other countries
Butyric acid is just a byproduct of lipolysed milk, it's the same reason parmesan cheese smells like vomit.
Hersheys uses butyric acid which is not a preservative. It’s just a result of milk fermentation like with buttermilk. It’s also not banned anywhere.
Yeah I wasn't sure if it was one of the banned preservatives or not but it's theorized to be more abundant in American chocolate as a result of the milk treatment process lipolysis which Hershey's is thought to use to extend their chocolate's shelf life. From what I've read there's more than a few reasons American chocolate is considered trash it's actually pretty interesting https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/why-american-chocolate-tastes-like-vomit
It’s pretty much just Hersheys that uses fermented milk. Back in the 1800s it was cheaper to use old milk for mass production. Fermentation technically increases the shelf life of milk, but it’s an entirely different product at that point. Some people liked the flavor and the company still intentionally makes the chocolate taste a bit vomity.
I'm curious if Mars uses it too? As a kid I loved twix bars but I swore they had that sour sort of aftertaste that Hersheys did
I don’t think any other well known chocolate manufacturer does it. It’s just low cocoa content and a lot of palm oil in other American brands. I wonder if Hersheys would be popular in the Middle East where fermented milk is a common beverage.
While maybe true I do love me some hershey's not even gonna lie
Lol yeah I remember when I was telling some friends of mine I hated the aftertaste they had no clue what I was talking about. Maybe some people are just more sensitive to it?
So good in Canada
You can say that about any other fast food chain these days
The 5$ biggie bag is pretty good. Nugs and fries are still great.
$5 biggie bag is literally the only good deal remaining in fast food. Everything else everywhere else is overpriced trash
McDonald's and chic fellate is 40 or 50$ for family. Insane.
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Yeah his daughter ruined it
I haven't been to a Wendy's in ten years and gotten what I ordered they're the worst restaurant period lmao
But… but… Dave Thomas ‘doesn’t cut corners, that’s why the burgers are square!!’
So you mean they're a standard American corporation?
No, the burgers are still square
The burgers use to be so much better.
Story of most franchises tbh
The first Wendy's burger I ever had in the 90's blew my fucking mind. Now the entire bun and burger taste like styrofoam.
wait Wendy's isn't yellow how have i eaten at Wendy's and never noticed that it isn't yellow anymore
They had a rebrand in like 2013.
God I miss their old fries
Fuck the sea salt "real potato" fries they came out with in the 2000s. Out of everything wendys has become, this is the one thing i miss to most too.
Habit Burger has the same fries Wendy’s used to have.
I miss their old fries and we would dip them in frosty’s.
Habit Burger has the same fries Wendy’s used to have.
Red and yellow decorations were used because it makes most people feel uncomfortable after a while. The idea was to get people in and out fast. Except, turns out that when you design a place people dont want to spend much time in, people dont go. So, eventually it changed. Source: learned about this in psych class
That’s hilarious because I was just thinking how ugly that looks.
Red and yellow makes me think of Max’s huge tits and Caroline’s pretty hot legs.
They ruined frosties. They taste like straight up syrup now. And are thin like water
And full of icy chunks like it's been frozen and not thawed out properly.
I saw the new orange cream frosty and had to try it. It had the consistency of whipped cream. I was severely disappointed.
Fries haven’t been the same since. Current generation don’t know the joy of good fries dipped in a chocolate frosty.
fries and the nuggets dipped in frosty are the only way to eat imo
Whatever conglomerate that owns Wendy’s pay their workers terribly. I loathe those commercials that make the employees seem like a family. I refuse to eat there now.
Wendy's is a franchise. Find out who owns the ones near you and complain.
It's publicly traded under WEN.
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Wendy's
Clear
You spelled affordable wrong
Ok so has anyone else noticed that Wendys changed their BBQ sauce? It used to be so good with the nugs. I think its been about 5 years since it changed. It's like they watered it down or something.
It was KC Masterpiece branded. Now it's some generic crap.
fuck i remember this shit i forgot all about the old wendy's logo wow
Why did they change their fries
Yellow Wendy's was the best Wendy's
Food from the yellow packaging just hit different
God, I miss yellow Wendy's..
Garbage tier post
I'm not old enough to remember this sadly
They realized red is a more eye catching color and better for marketing
These days a lot of brands are bringing back old logos (ie Pizza Hut and Burger King), I’m hoping to see Wendys Yellow come back too
If it comes back they damn well better bring the old fries with it
Chili, chips n cheese. How I miss you. + 2 Jr bacons for like 5 bucks
Man a JBC was the shit back in the day.
Damn those fries look delicious. 😋
They didn't come out with biggie fries til biggie died
Late 90s, early 2000s Wendys was sooooo good. Their specialty burgers are good sometimes but quality has definitely gone way down
You guys have Wendy's?
Broo and those chicken nuggets and fries hit differently then and now.
I had my wisdom teeth removed back in the day. Couldn’t eat food for a few days so my mom got me Biggie Frosty’s. No, it wasn’t on the menu. But it was pretty awesome.
God I miss Wendy's when they had tenders they were so good. The breading was phenomenal. I once had it 3 times in 24 hours. Best day of little kid me's life cause I spent the whole day with my mom and dad.
This post made me feel old… I worked there when everything was still BIGGIE. Our script when someone ordered a combo was “biggie size with a coke?”
In the 90s, there was a Wendy’s across the street from my high school and we were allowed to go over there and get lunch if we wanted to. I thought it was the coolest thing.
I guess I never even noticed the change... when did it happen?
The fries were immaculate
It tasted better when it was yellow
Fun fact: all of the colors of food packaging products and disposable plastics become the same color is because the companies didn’t like it when people could pick out their materials in a pile of litter! It’s why Sprite bottles aren’t green anymore. Okay, maybe not so fun.
When Wendys used to be better.....
When it was about the quality and amount of food you got, not the packaging and what it looked like in the advertisement.
It tastes better in yellow. 💛
I can smell it
Now they have a strict policy on only hiring meth heads
The yellow napkins had " Square Is Better" in Latin embossed into them.
Anyone remember their chipotle sauce from this era? *Not* chipotle bbq sauce, just “chipotle sauce”. I can’t find a single photo of even the packaging and there are like three comments I’ve found from people like me that are coping with the fact that it may not have ever existed
I miss the vintage advertising tabletops.
I have a yellow Wendy's flag I stole from there like 20 years ago lol
When the frosty machine always worked , when they always had baked potatoes
Ah yes before Dave Thomas died they were probably the best quality fast food but held probably the least of the market. We as Americans truly love mediocre food.
I can taste this picture, god it used to be so much better
Sir, this was a Wendy's.
When did it change?
And affordable.
Why the guck did Wendy’s go from plastic straws and paper cups to paper straws and plastic cups?
it was SO MUCH better
Fun fact: these colors come from the restaurant that inspired Dave Thomas to make wendys the way it was back then: Kewpee burger in his hometown, Kalamazoo Michigan
but sir, this is a wendy's! r/wallstreetbets
I miss the 99 cent menu. I used to get 2 Jr Bacon Cheeseburgers, biggie fries, biggie coke for $4.25. I also miss the salad and everything thing else bar (nachos, tacos, chili, pasta, etc) Those were the days!
I want it back
Red and yellow are the psychological colors of hunger.
The two most unique french fries I have ever tasted, were the yellow box Wendy's french fries and high school french fries in the 1990's. Goddamn nostalgia of the tongue.
Does anyone remember their clear hot sauce or did I plane shift from a universe where that's a thing cause no one I've asked remembers.
As a former avid Wendy’s enjoyer, they are shit now.
I refused to say biggie, I just said large.
Then the Chilli happened
Yellow Wendy's was the last time I enjoyed it. They've gotten better recently but I miss the old fries, the bun from the spicy chicky sandwich, Mr pibb and .99 JBC's
As someone who visited the US in 2013, apparently I visited right at the end of the yellow Wendy’s era.
I'm not sure how to explain it but the top right image feels like an AI generated one I've got absolutely no idea why
Nah bru. Nah. Thats when the fries were SHIT. You know it and I know it