The latest consumer survey has proclaimed an old favourite the new top choice of Amer-ican Fast Foodies. And a surprising least fave… Many different folks commission different surveys on the subject several times a year. But this may well be the most accurate…
I doubt there will ever be a definitive answer to that eternal question. Except, maybe, the annual official ranking of Fast Food chains by sales, number of outlets and other factors. But even that one is subject to variation, depending on the factor(s) you choose to rank by!
Fan faves rule
… Seems to me to be the best way to gauge the overall appeal of a Fast Food brand. But poll after poll wants us to micro-focus on ‘the best Burger’, ‘the best fries’, or ‘the fastest service’. But none of those criteria alone is a fair way to judge.
But CouponBirds took a far more scientific approach in its annual tally – based on consumer reviews: “We scraped the reviews from a total of 161,054 individual restaurants on Google Maps. To provide a fair analysis of chain restaurants in the U.S. we only analyzed businesses with four or more locations – as per this definition of a chain restaurant – and more than 50 reviews.”
The survey included both corporate-owned and franchise locations of the same brands.
“The average Google rating was recorded for each individual location,’ The methodology section of the survey report explains. “The number of reviews was also recorded for each individual location.
Accepted statistical methods were applied to make sure the survey results were fair to both larger and smaller chains. All restos were rated on a scale of 1 to 5.
What they found
Broadly, the survey found that it was not fair to rank the largest and smallest chains directly against one another. So CouponBirds broke the restos down by Large (1,000 + locations), Medium (101-1,000 locations), and Small (4-100 locations) comp ‘leagues’.
Results for the Top 10 Super-Chains (largest) brands held few surprises. I noted, though, that all the top rated large chains ranked over 3.0 but under 4.0. Some observers might say that indicated there was no clear winner. But CouponBirds says the sheer number of different resto brands made it im-possible for any single one to rank ‘super-high’.
Foe the first time, in a survey on this topic, I was personally gratified to see some of my own prefer-ences more or less accurately reflected i n the numbers. I instinctively knew Chick-Fil-A (CFA) would top the chart. They almost always do.
Some personal observations…
I mean, it was the race to imitate CFA’s truly iconic crispy Chicken Breast Sandwich that touched off the infamous ‘war’. And that changed Fast Food History, bringing ‘serious’ chicken mains to virtually all the major Fast Food chain menus as a permanent fixture.
I was particularly pleased to see Waffle House rate so highly in the Top 10. I know, first hand, from a douple of decades of travelling south for anywhere from a week to a moth at a time, how sinuously Waffle House is woven into Southeastern US culture.
And I always expected Starbucks to do well. It’s as much an institution in the coffee niche as CFA is in the chicken sub-sector.
And finally – a very personal note… I was positively tickled to see Dairy Queen and DQ Grill & Chill in the Top 10. DQ holds a special place in my heart as a fixture of my childhood, and the neighbour-hood hangout through my pre-college teens. My closest McDonald’s was at least 10 blocks away, and only opened after I had entered my upper years at high school…
More surprises among the ‘worst’
On the whole, there were many more surprises among the Ten Worst chains as identified by the survey. This list contained those with the worst overall reviews, regardless of chain size.
First. I was particularly shocked to see McDonald’s rated second worst of among Fast Food joints, regardless of size. And, as Forrest Gump would declaim, “That’s all I have to say about that.”
I was also shocked to Popeye’s and SONIC rated as close to the bottom of the list as they landed. Both are legendary names in the American Fast Food pantheon. And both can boast famously faithful fan followings.
Likewise, I was shocked to find Papa John’s at the very bottom of the list. They’ve been trying rally hard lately to raise their profile among their competitors, and improve both the quality and variety of their menus.
One more observation… None of the Ten Worst Fast Food chains scored bellow 2.5. And two actually rated above 3.0.
My take
This may be the most personally impactful such survey I’ve every seen. It’s earned a place in my ‘back pocket’ not only as confirming my own beliefs as to who’s best, but as being one of he most broadly based in terms of the source data and fairest in the way the data was handled.
These surveys will never be perfect. But This one comes close!
~ Maggie J.