Worst Restaurants in America
 

Here are Consumer Report's 11 worst restaurants in America!!! Bon Appetite

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Media/...merica?page=10

What are some your worst restaurant experiences?

11 worst fast food restaurants you mean?

In reverse order is it the 11 best fast food restaurants, or is that an oxymoron in itself?

Please feel free to nominate a non-chain restaurant.

And here are the ten best:

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Media/...urants-America

I really like the food at five of those terrible places.

I could really go for some fries right about now...

Well, I have a soft spot for McDonald's. No, their burgers are not good burgers, but they are super tasty in their own way (I really like the double cheeseburger, and think it is a great balance between cheese and meat and the soft bun). Plus the fries are good fast food fries. And I think they do a pretty good job with breakfast (the breakfast burritos are good). Throw in admirable consistency across locations and generally clean locations, I definitely wouldn't place them in the bottom.

I also question KFC and Church's at the bottom. It has been a while since I have been to either (over 10 years in the case of Church's), but it is fried chicken and even the worst fried chicken is still awesome.

Sbarro is vile (or was 8+ years ago when I last ate there), so they got that right. I have either not eaten at, or it has been so long (American locations only - I have eaten at BK in the Zurich airport within recent memory) that I really don't have an opinion on the others.

For the top...

Love In 'n Out, except for the fries. I also really like Chick-Fil-A. Culver's was okay when I went last year, but nothing terribly special.

I don't really get Firehouse, Jason's Deli, and Potbelly. Firehouse is just okay, but bested by pretty much any mediocre pizza/sandwich shop here in Boston, so I would never think to go. Jason's Deli is a bit better, but suffers from a similar feel. I have never been impressed with Potbelly, but I have to confess that I have only eaten at the location at Logan Airport, so that could be the fault of the location and not a knock on the whole chain.

Papa Murphy's, to my mind, shouldn't be included on the list. If they don't cook it for you, it can't be called fast food.

I have not been to the others on the top list.

Pappa John's isn't on either list. Pappa Murphy is not fast food if you have to take it home to bake.
I had a good breakfast burrito (chorizzo egg & cheese) at Carl's Jr. this morning.

Taco Bell is so bad that it is goooood :)

Well - I think with laces like that you know what you're getting.

What I can;t deal with are the places that try to seem like they're serving actual food - Applebees, Fridays, Olive Garden, etc. Not sure where Denny's fits - but it would get my prize # 1. Had to stop there for lunch on the way to a client and ordered a tuna sandwich - I got 2 slices of soggy wonder bread with limp lettuce and unripe tomato - no tuna at all. When I complained the waitress said they were out of tuna. OUT OF TUNA! - It comes in a can and you mush it with some mayo (although they probably use a fake). And the fries that came with it were not even warm through.

When I got up to leave without paying the waitress said they would call the police if I didn't pay. I told her to go right ahead. And this on top of all their problems with racial bias cases.

Applebees - my mom got a chicken pot pie that was still ice cold in the center (for some reason my dad loved the place so I had to take them there although there was a charming local cafe with lovely fresh food only a few minutes away).

Olive Garden - got the most hideous vat of pasta with chicken - the latter totally dried out and with so much sauce that the pasta fell apart - wouldn;t stay on the fork - another road lunch with no choice.

To tell you the truth I prefer Mickey D's - they don;t pretend to be giving you any more than what it is.

<i>Taco Bell is so bad that it is goooood</i>

I haven't been there in years, but I must confess that some of the ads have food that looks awful, but so good. I mean, why had nobody thought of a Doritos taco????

For fast food fried chicken, I like Popeye's. My Mother-in-law used to like KFC chicken pot pie. Even a deer wouldn't have touched that as a salt lick.

Taco Bell = Serious hangover food

For fast food fried chicken Bojangles and Popeyes are much better than KFC. Hardees also has good fried chicken.

Bojangles takes the win with biscuits.

I don't really get Firehouse, Jason's Deli, and Potbelly. Firehouse is just okay, but bested by pretty much any mediocre pizza/sandwich shop here in Boston, so I would never think to go. Jason's Deli is a bit better, but suffers from a similar feel.
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I have never been to Potbelly but am not a fan of Firehouse or Jason's. I think Jersey Mike's is much better than either of them.

LOVE that chicken at Popeye's. That's actually legitimately edible. And the biscuits are good too.

Jason's Deli is rot - no bloody taste to the meats. Firehouse is better; it's not awesome, but it has a TON of hot (or not) sauces to try and that makes it more interesting. I'd take Whichwich over either in a heartbeat. And I'd take Chipotle over any sandwich shop in that top 10 list with ease.

How Five Guys didn't make the top 10 is beyond me. The fries alone should have guaranteed a spot. And even at the LGA terminal B outpost the staff is friendly. Imagine if you had to work at that dump of an airport and had to try to keep a good face on it to outsiders. Geez.

<<Papa Murphy's, to my mind, shouldn't be included on the list. If they don't cook it for you, it can't be called fast food.>>

Um, yeah. It ain't fast if you need to go home and blow another 15-20 minutes waiting for the oven to heat up and COOK the meal.

The biggest saving grace for the top 10 is that Jimmy John's wasn't on it.

I mostly agree with everything said so far. I pretty much also agree with the best/worst lists.

I LOVE In-'n'-Out, even though the lines are usually enough to discourage us from going there. The fries are not good UNLESS you remember to order them "well done". I always get my burgers "Animal Style" (grilled onions; patty coated with mustard, then grilled; melted cheese), and sometimes "Protein Style" (no bun, wrapped in iceberg leaves) and even sometimes a "3x3" (three patties, three slices of cheese). The Secret Menu is everything at In-'n'-Out, after all.

I am mystified by the popularity of Chik-Fil-Hate-- er, Chik-Fil-A. The attraction is a cheap slice of chicken breast brined in pickle juice, after all. It certainly keeps it moist, but it's also quite salty, and the quality of everything that accompanies it is terrible. And I won't give my money to a company that in turn donates part of its profits to organizations that want to take away my marriage and my civil rights (it says it stopped, but apparently it still does).

The Habit-- well, my mother-in-law likes it a lot. We tried it and found it to be rather "meh". Not great. Not bad, everything was fresh, but just not great.

Rubio's? Good place. Beats Taco Hell by a mile. For that matter, Del Taco edges out Taco Hell by a nose. But just barely.

Two places not on the lists at all that I really like even more than Rubio's: Wahoo's Fish Tacos and Chronic Tacos. Smaller chains, great Cal-Mex fast food.

I'm surprised Jack in the Box wasn't on the "worst" list. But I frankly LIKE JitB once in a while when I really, REALLY need something greasy and just don't want to cook. Like at 2 AM. Sometimes an Ultimate Cheeseburger is just what you need.

Of course, lately we've simply stopped going out when we can avoid it. When we do, it's almost all non-chain places. But c'mon-- we can run to Sprouts, get some free-range chicken pieces and some veggies, toss with olive oil & herbs & spices, then chuck it in a 400-degree oven till roasted and lovely, and how much time was actually work? Five minutes? And we get leftovers and that lovely-smelling kitchen...!

(I know, I know-- "Then you have to do the dishes...!!" Nothing is perfect...! :) )

Never been to potbelly, but there is like one on every street in downtown chicago.

Of the 11 named, I have to agree with all but KFC. It's one of my favorites. I also like Taco Bell's bean and cheese burrito. I made the mistake of ordering a cheeseburger from BK at the airport last week and was very disappointed. I think it was the plastic cheese they used.....

Among the worst is Hardee's, they had a roast beef scare-someone saw some and did not recognize it.

Papa Murphy's isn't what I'd consider "fast food", but it sure is good. The service at ours is always friendly, and you can get whatever you want on a pizza.

I'm not sure why anyone would even compare Taco Bell and Rubios - other than that they are both Mexican-ish fast food chains. OF COURSE Rubios has better food than Taco Bell. No one goes to Taco Bell for *good* food. They go because it is greasy and terrible and cheap.

"Mexican-ish" food is the best description I've ever heard of Taco Bell :D

Taco Bell is cheap, and as Janet pointed out, great hangover food, making it a stable in most college students' diets. :D

The Church's fried chicken is good but ours is in the hood and we were always afraid to go get food there.

I wish we had an edit button. That sounds a bit racial and didn't mean it to be that way. We have areas of our city that aren't safe because of drugs and that is where the church's chicken is located.

You go to Church's when you need a new bottle of oil for deep frying.

I like McDonalds, BK, KFC and Pizza Hut (only the pan pizza). Sbarro is okay in a pinch (I've only had it at airports) and way better than Dominoes. Okay. This is making me hungry. It's lunch time now.

"I have never been to Potbelly but am not a fan of Firehouse or Jason's. I think Jersey Mike's is much better than either of them."

Yes, Janet, I have to agree about Jersey Mikes, they have the best subs. Do not care for Firehouse at all. Jason's is just OK in a pinch.

Jersey Mike's! I covet thee...

flpab, I've often wondered if sub-prime locations with cheaper land costs are part of Church's model. I have never seen one on a prime corner, but they are often located near military posts/bases, which I have reason to have noted many times over the years are rarely located in the best parts of town.

<i>I've often wondered if sub-prime locations with cheaper land costs are part of Church's model.</i>

I would think that it isn't the cheaper land, but a demographic play. Affluent Southern California beach communities don't seem like big consumers of fast food fried chicken.

I suppose, but KFC is always prominently located. Of course none of the places under discussion are upscale!

<I>I suppose, but KFC is always prominently located. Of course none of the places under discussion are upscale!</I>

Not in Boston they aren't. We have a tragic shortage of fried chicken.

We were in Paris about a week after the first McDonald's opened and you would have thought Hitlter came down the Champs again. Now there are several and the Parisian kids frequent them often because they considerably cheaper than other restaurants.

One time my wife got sick in Guatemala City, so we ate at a McDonald's because he were hopeful their sanitary standards would be high.

<i>Now there are several </i>

That is an understatement. There are well over 1,000 McDs in France.

It seems that kids all over the world like McD's. We were in a medium-sized town in Japan - and the McD's was full of local teenagers. There was a home-grown burger chain in that town also, but McD seemed to be THE place to be.

At last I looked Paris was not France and there are about 15, 16 in Paris. And they have only added about 4 in the last 12 years or so.

There is a restaurant called Rolf's which could be the worst restaurant in Manhattan. Here is my take on the last time I ate there which was at least 7 years ago.

There is a German restaurant in NYC called Rolf's. Although I do not always agree with Zagat's, but I do in this instance where it regularly gets a 14 or so rating for food. This is probably too generous. Probably the lowest score for a non-chain restaurant in the book.

It is well-known for its epileptic fit inducing Christmas lights. They are everywhere, because they had to cover the interior design which had not changed since Eva Braun visited. We had a friend who wanted to go there for Christmas, so we agreed since we only heard rumors of its slop.

I had the duck, which died the previous Christmas and was cooked at Easter and served on the anniversary of its demise. At the time I had all my teeth and I put them good use. It could have a cherry sauce or maybe it was orange. It any event I had seen the sauce before in that movie Alien where the creature pops out of someone's stomach and it is covered in either cherry or range slime.

Mrs. Adu had the pork, or at least that was intention. It was of things you got in Bulgaria before the fall of the Soviet Empire, no matter what you ordered. It could have been pork or maybe it was sock puppet dressed in a white sauce of unknown origin.

Now there are two Indian restaurants in the neighborhood which have millions of little red lights all year round. Unlike Rolf's the ones at the Indian restaurants hang low, which is fortunate since hanging oneself in lights and little tinsel would have an attractive alternative at Rolf's.

Having just returned from a circle trip from California via Mesquite, Southern Utah, Arizona and the California Desert we came to view McDs as a shining beacon of clean restrooms, free wi-fi and a choice of Egg McMuffin or Jalapeno topped burgers. Jalapeno cures a lot of food ills.

The Popeye's chicken in Barstow on the way back from the Grand Canyon was also a blessing.

I do not get the Chick Fil A love either. Went to the one nearby and was unimpressed. Habit Burger is okay, very similar to In N Out but with a wider menu. And love the tempura green bean side.

Although they can be uneven, I like the two Baja Fresh locations near Long Beach.

IAmDonehere, I googled and found one list of over 60 MacDonalds with wifi in Paris. That site was dated 6 years ago.

<i>IAmDonehere, I googled and found one list of over 60 MacDonalds with wifi in Paris. That site was dated 6 years ago.</i>

My assumption is that IMDonehere simply used the location finder on the website and typed in "Paris", which limits the results. This is why McDonalds.fr asks you to enter a postal code in larger cities. Doing so and entering, for example, the postal code 75001 would yield 10 results. Using 75008 will give you a different 10. With 21 postal codes (IIRC), and knowing that there is some overlap in the results, I would think 60 would be a conservative number.

France is an incredibly good market for McDonald's and, as much as it pains some Francophiles to acknowledge, it is hard to imagine France became such a great market without some penetration in Paris.