The first thing you'll notice is the price. This crap is expensive. It wasn't too long ago when you could get a decent meal for a low price. Remember Steak N Shake when they offered for meals for $4? Now the burgers are $4 by themselves. Heaven forbid you want a meal. The same with Culvers. At least some of the prices are still reasonable, but that doesn't change the fact that what used to cost $4 now cost $8-9.
And holy crap, what happened to Popeye's. The quality is still as good as ever, but those prices are too much to overcome. There was a time when a 3-tender meal was affordable. Now they want $13 for a meal. If you decide to forgo the sides, the tenders alone will cost you $10. Three lonely, pathetic tenders.
Then, you have the service. In general, service is terrible across the board. This terrible service seems to have coincided with the increase in the hiring of women who aren't White. Heck, White women suck 70% the time, but it seems like Latinas and Black women are always bad. Asian women get a pass because this writer has limited experience with them. Some places, like Steak N Shake and McDonald's have opted for service kiosks which, in this writer's humble opinion, is an upgrade. Hopefully, other places will follow suit or at least hire nothing but men. Men of all colors and ages tend to provide decent service.
You might say, "Okay, the price and service suck, but the product quality is still good, right?" Usually, but when it's bad, it's BAD. A recent trip to KFC was the source of a terrible meal this writer had. The chicken and fries were great, but it was the biscuit and lemonade that soured the experience. The biscuit was doughy and undercooked. This writer threw it out, which is darned near a crime for a biscuit lover.
The lemonade was a special kind of terrible. It might as well have been a cup full of piss. Heck, a cup of piss might have had more flavor. It was the kind of bad you can't force your way through. It was one of those situations where you drink more and the taste gets worse. It was almost like somebody rang the sweat out of a sock, put it in a cup, and called it lemonade. This sucks because the lemonade is usually good.
McDonald's has always been a 50/50 experience. Sometimes the fries are great, sometimes they are limp and cold. Even at the worst of times, at least they are fully cooked and salty enough. And while this writer hasn't eaten a burger from McDonald's in at least fifteen years, rumor has it they are worse than they've ever been.
The most consistently bad product has to be the Popeye's boneless wings. The product is mostly good. But for some reason, without fail, there is one wing that's rock hard. It's like eating a brick covered in sauce. And on that note, their honey lemon pepper sauce is truly garbage. It tastes like a cough drop. It's torture. Just...no.
Ultimately, we have to ask why we still go to these places. Shitty service, shitty prices, and more so than ever, shitty products. There are still good places to go, really there are. But on the whole, fast food is now overpriced and undergood. These places need to stop hiring women and replace them with either men or kiosks, which will help improve the service. Or we all could just cook our own food. At this point, it's a comparable product.
Until next time...
