Over 27% Of People Agree That This Fast Food Restaurant Has The Worst Burgers

A while back, Mashed asked which fast food restaurant has the worst burgers. 656 people responded, channelling 2020s ire into votes against the biggest industry names. Of the options given, In-N-Out fared the best, receiving only 7.16 percent of the vote. Other more fortunate brands included Shake Shack with 7.77 percent, Culvers with 8.54 percent, and Wendy's with 10.98 percent. 6.71 percent of responses opted for "Other," which mostly consisted of comments of" I don't know," "they're all alright," or "I haven't tried all, so can't rightly choose."

The losers who almost tied for the second-worst burger were Checkers, coming in with 15.40 percent, and Burger King, who snagged the second-worst position with 15.85 percent. The worst burger, however, with an unassailable lead of 27.59 percent, was McDonald's. This "victory" matches the more valued victory of best french fries, a status McDonald's maintained with 41.44 percent in another poll. 

The french fry victory may be McDonald's preferred outcome anyway as even Ray Kroc, one-time McDonald's CEO, wrote in his autobiography Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's, "The french fry would become almost sacrosanct for me, its preparations a ritual to be followed religiously." People typically go to McDonald's for their fries, not their burgers, so all should be well.

The result of this survey, however, is not anomalous. In 2014, The Washington Post relayed the results from a Consumer Reports report. Just as The Habit Burger Grill's lead of 8.1 out of 10 surprised most, McDonald's 5.8 out of 10 shocked. McDonald's came dead last, despite, according to The Huffington Post's reporting, serving 70 million customers every day.

Such feelings about McDonald's burgers may explain recent financial difficulties. In February of this year — read: before the pandemic became a felt force in the U.S. — Forbes wrote how despite McDonald's myriad of attempts to woo customers, which ranged from promises of fresh beef to new technologies, customer traffic dropped each year: "This overall declining trend in customer transactions is troubling.The Corporation states that McDonald's cannot survive with declining customer counts." The company continues to make money by increasing prices.

But then the pandemic did hit, and McDonald's saw sales, to use CNN's choice word in their April coverage, "plunged." Sales dropped by 22 percent in March, with a special emphasis in international markets that saw a 35 percent decrease. While this could be dismissed as the casualties of the first impact, the industry has yet to really recover from the increased unemployment and stay-at-home orders. It has gotten so bad, in fact, that The Drum noticed Burger King beginning a statement for industry solidarity with "Order from McDonald's." Still, it seems McDonald's has floundered for a while. We'll see how it adapts.