#fast-food

#fast-food

With the holidays in the rearview mirror, restaurants assume that customers' free-spending days are over for a while and might be ready to save a few bucks when they're dining out. To that end several fast food chains are touting their value menus, offering to fill you up for as little as $5 or $6. Here are some deals that caught our attention this week.

One day at lunchtime, my dad was driving home from playing tennis with some friends and felt an unusual sensation - hunger. A McDonald's just north of our town had opened up several years before, but no one in our family had ever stopped there. Now, as he saw the restaurant's giant yellow M glinting in the sun ahead of him, Daddy felt a strangely powerful urge to stop.

The hamburger may bear the name of some distant German city, but the food is as American as it comes. Though the idea of a meat patty served with bread took shape in various cultures over the centuries, the food we know and love today bears the unique American traits of being very meaty, easy to mass-produce, and a friend to condiments like our beloved ketchup and mayo. In fact, Americans consume an estimated 50 billion burgers each year.

Vermont is not entirely without big-name fast food places. It has 30 McDonald's locations, yet remains the only state in the U.S. without one in the capital city. There are also seven Kentucky Fried Chickens, but again, not a single one in Montpelier. The state capital is also the only one without a Starbucks, even though the coffee chain has about a dozen locations elsewhere in Vermont. As you can see, breaking into Vermont is not an easy feat.

I am not here to critique the essentials of fast food (I love it). If you want someone who will come over like the critic in Ratatouille, you're just going to have to go and rewatch Ratatouille. I am merely here to eat six festive specials, and ask myself: do I feel Christmassy, punk? Impressive' Wagamama chicken cranberry katsu curry. Photograph: Wagamama

When it comes to fast food's biggest burgers, the prices are often stacked just as high as the patties. Hikes in fast-food prices and " shrinkflation" - a phenomenon in which people say menu items get smaller while either remaining the same price or costing more - are deterring customers, and chains have released meal deals aimed at luring them back.

A spud hasn't truly lived until it's been blasted with a generous amount of melty fromage. Once it has been, it makes for a combination that's salty, savory, and downright soul-warming. Just think of all the comforting cheesy potato dishes out there, from hash brown casseroles to creamy au gratins. Cheese and potatoes show up in many forms, and for good reason.

Can you imagine a world without fast food? We'll hazard a guess, and it's probably a no. As there are roughly half a million fast food restaurants in the world, it's not surprising that most of us have grown up with fast food all around us. This means that it's hard to picture a life without drive-thru burgers and fries on tap. But it did exist, albeit quite a long time ago.

Fast food fans who love a quick meal of Mexican-inspired comfort know the joy that comes from heeding Taco Bell's call to "live más." With a wide variety of standard fare and other items specific to Taco Bell's innovations, its menu adds up to quite the well-rounded selection. If you've ever wondered what might be the very best selling Taco Bell food, one disc-like handheld known as the Crunchwrap Supreme stands out above the rest.

McDonald's introduced the Super-Size menu, transforming a regular combo into a substantial serving of fries and soda. Jack in the Box stacked two quarter-pounders in its Colossus Burger. KFC went vertical with the regional Tower Burger, cramming a hash brown, cheese, and an extra chicken patty between its buns for good measure. It was an age of bigger, saltier, cheesier ambition.

Shattered expectations line the pathway to disappointment. How many times have you gotten your hopes up for a delicious new fast food item, only to find out it's not available in your area? This happens in rural communities all the time, but even big cities don't always get the hottest new thing. This is exactly what happened to one eager McDonald's fan in Chicago, who posted on Reddit about his city's lack of Crispy Chicken McGriddles.

A huge trend this year is crossover items and collaboration menus. Wendy's took a page from two popular sweet snacks to create its new Frosty Fusions, while the Popeyes x Hot Ones menu channeled the famed YouTube interview show's "hot questions and even hotter wings" with three spicy chicken items. Spicy dishes have been seen all over 2025 menus, making them hot in more ways than one.

A CurderBurger order takes a classic hamburger, which Culver's prepares using three cuts of beef, and stacks a patty of fried cheese on top. The fried cheese patty is made up of yellow and white cheddar cheese curds rolled in seasoned breadcrumbs and fried to golden perfection. The fried cheese adds a buttery crunch to burgers. Culver's executives have been surprised by the enthusiasm for the cheesy burger creation.

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. We get that it's a tough market out there, and no matter how big or small the business, the doors only stay open as long as people are spending money. At a time when we're spoiled for choice, marketing and hype play a huge part in getting the word out and enticing customers to spend their hard-earned dollars. But sometimes, things just go a little too far.

That honor goes to Mixue Ice Cream & Tea, a fast food chain founded and based in China. According to the Associated Press, Mixue Ice Cream & Tea has more than 45,000 stores. For reference, McDonald's website states that they have over 44,000. Foodies in New York will now be able to get a taste of Mixue Ice Cream & Tea's offerings as the chain is debuting its very first location in the U.S. on NYC's Canal Street.

If you've ever rolled through a Checkers drive-thru - or Rally's, there's no real difference anymore between Checkers and Rally's restaurants - and been handed that paper bag full of steaming-hot french fries, you know that they are something special. These aren't just your run-of-the-mill fried potato sticks, these are tender stalks of pure magic wrapped in a crisp, warm-hued crust that surely should have landed them at the top of the ranking of the best fast food french fries.