The Taco Bell Supremacy

 I am pretty proud of myself. I did not eat any fast food in 2023 until 3 February. I don't have any particular goal or resolution tied to that. I have just been generally trying to eat healthier. Avoiding spins through the drive thru helps both the diet and the wallet. I also get a bit of pleasure when I update my finances at the end of the month and see that category empty. 

The sad part of that is that I ended up running through McDonald's. I am not in any way above the golden arches. There are somethings that come along with the experience I do not enjoy. No matter what you order you are going to pay more than the food is worth. There is no financial value in the transaction. When you add that the nutritional values skew toward toxic (ok, that is intentional hyperbole) I would most always rather go anywhere else. 

The service is slow at every location. I am always amazed when I pull up and there is a line. There most always is which is what allows McDonald's to have piss poor value for mediocre food year after year and stay in business. The order is also never, ever delivered correctly which should be impossible. Even if it was McDonald's policy to intentionally screw up every order in a large enough sample size on a large enough time line I should accidentally get all of my food included in the correct portions, varieties, and with fresh French fries by now just based on the law of large numbers. I won't hold my breath on the likelihood of them including the freaking Barbeque sauce.  

I feel my complaints hold value in this instance because I put my money where my mouth is. I avoid fast food in general and McDonald's very specifically. You cannot subject yourself to the place frequently enough that you know the number of the meal you are going to order and have many complaints. I used to be that guy. In true old guy fashion I am going to say that McDonald's has actually gotten worse in progressive steps since I was a kid. 

To break this down, I have to start with the fries. I promise you I actually cut teeth on McDonald's fries in the early days of the 1980s. Those golden straws of salty goodness are the fast food equivalent of the soundtrack of my childhood. I was absolutely mad for them, and I remember begging Mom to swing through McDonalds. Hell, let's trump that with a specific memory. I once (or three or four times) got my parents to bring a Happy Meal into Cracker Barrel when I was a wee lad. I remember spreading those fries out on the plastic purple steam boat happy meal container and being more at peace with the universe than a Hindu cow. I took great pride in the waitress commenting on how much I was enjoying my food. I am pretty sure this scene was repeated in a similar fashion in a Dinner Bell before my Mom finally put her foot down. 

McDonald's has not been fine cuisine at any point during my lifetime. It pretty much invented the concept of fast and ready food before I came along. Other than breakfast, the only thing McDonald's has gotten better at over the last forty years is their nuggets. Yes, when I was a kid the nuggies were not all white meat. I do not miss the grey meat that used to live inside America's favorite processed chicken product. I don't know if they changed the quality of the meat or just got better at their seasoning and dye game, but the nuggets legit are better than when I was a kid. 

That is the thing I think McDonald's is surviving on. My parents were of the dinners and drive ins generation. They watched fast food rise to prominence and become a part of the culture. My generation grew up with fast food. We are nostalgic for those childhood memories of glorious fries and a basic but quite tasty hamburger. Like I said, I avoided the nuggets back in the day. 

As a teenager McDonald's certainly was not my favorite spot, but it was a budget friendly option in the days of the dollar menu and the super-sized extra value meal. You didn't use it for date nights, but if you had a steady significant other and a budget for going out you likely made the McDonald's sacrifice before doing something less budget friendly. You didn't hate yourself for scarfing down a meal there because it was cheap and didn't taste completely awful! I mean between four gas station hotdogs for a dollar or a McChicken for the same price I often went hotdogs, but those were exceptional hotdogs. Not that I ever treated a date to gas station hotdogs. 

Ok, I totally admit I have. No shame.

Now on my foray to McDonald's this go round... Nothing is cheap anymore. Three people eating for $35 probably is cheap in the modern market. I admit I still define McDonald's and other fast food on the concept that I can eat there for five bucks and those days are long behind us. A little over ten bucks a person probably isn't unreasonable. Because I don't let myself eat fast food often I always get a little sticker shock. 

The line was as expected. The staff was as terrible as they have ever been. Credit where credit is due the lady at the drive thru was screaming into the mic so there was no chance I was going to not hear her clearly. It only took her three or four attempts to take our order. The manners were there even if they sounded forced and unnatural in THAT TONE OF VOICE! 

The wait for the food was long. Two orders of ten piece nuggets probably meant a basket had to be dropped. I can deal with that on the concept that my food is fresher. It certainly didn't help the pathetic excuse for fries that ended up in the bag. I wanted a nice, golden fried carton of fries nicely covered in salt and wonder. I am pretty sure I got something much more akin to those potato sticks you can get out of the can from the grocery store. They were certainly hard, salty, with the barest hint that a potato might have been involved in their creation at some early stage. You know, the same freaking nasty fries we have been putting up with for a few decades. Why is this place still doing business? American consumers are clearly blissfully stupid.

Naturally I got the wrong hamburger. The quarter pounder I did get was nicely nostalgic. It was dry as it has always been needing a bit more ketchup, mustard, or both. It is sort of neat that the quarter pounder with cheese (my grandmother's favorite fast food burger) really hasn't improved or worsened since I first tried it in the early 90s. That boxed burger could have slid right out of 1992... gosh I hope it didn't. I enjoyed thinking back to trying Granny Mae's Quarter Pounder one sunny afternoon at the McDonald's on Broadway. Nostalgia is powerfully seductive. 

The best thing about having McDonald's is that I have no desire to return for quite some time. The bevy of disappointments coupled with the absolute mediocrity of the whole experience activates me. I think all of the above stuff every time. You would think that I would never darken their drive thru again. 

Today I found myself alone for lunch. I had planned a grocery pick up and decided that I could turn my trip out into errands including a quick meal on the run. I enjoy eating in the car. It is a little decadent to shove food into your face while facing Knoxville traffic. I enjoy the challenge in any car, but my little Veloster is a manual. Adding the fun of taking bites, shifting, sips of drinks, signaling, and changing that song my phone keeps shuffling to is multitasking at its finest. 

The title gives away my fast food meal of choice. I find Taco Bell reliable. From a nostalgia stand point it is tough to beat. All the key items that were there when I was a kid are still around. The pintos and cheese may not come in the same wax paper cup, but they still taste just the same. A soft taco tastes exactly the same as it did the only real difference is I don't order them without lettuce now. The cheese and nachos are precisely the same as when they were first introduced. There is zero disappointment. 

I have had a lot of Taco Bell in a lot of places over a lot of years. The fundamental stuff on their menu is always consistent. Sure, that taco meat is probably only meat in the loosest definition of the term. I am fairly certain everything is brought to temperature in a steam table and there likely isn't any actual cooking going on, but I think that has been true throughout the history of the fabled franchise. This is why I hold some belief that Demolition Man may have accurately predicted a future where all restaurants are Taco bell. 

If we set the food aside for a moment there are some commonalities between Taco Bell and McDonald's. Locally, the Taco Bell staff is always much nicer. Then again the family that owns the majority of the McDonald's around here are notoriously awful in their oversight so that may not be a high bar to jump over. Attitude does reflect leadership after all. 

Both McDonald's and Taco Bell seem to tear down and rebuild in a more modern concept every few years. Again this may be a local thing. I have to say it feels like very wasted money unless it is helping with kitchen cleanliness. The last thing I want to describe any fast food restaurant as is culturally relevant. Don't try to keep up with Starbucks design sensibilities. Nostalgia is a strong thing you have going for you. 

It takes a fair amount of time to get through either drive thru. Taco Bell doesn't feel like as much of a rip off because it is slightly cheaper. Also, the food is a higher quality which should be absolutely terrifying for old Ronald McDonald. Wait, didn't they retire all the mascots except for occasional gruesome Happy meal toys?

Between a fry and a nacho chip there should be absolutely no contest for me. I love potatoes way too much. Somehow though, Taco Bell is kicking the shit out of McDonalds for me. Bring on those soft tacos and I will rely on memory to imagine that there are still good fast food fries out there.