r/fastfoodreview

Chain Name	Donatos Pizza
Food category	Primary: Traditional Pizza
# of US Locations	450
# of US States	28
Primarily located in	Ohio, California, Washington
Restaurant Rank in US $ Sales 2024	190th
Rank of price (high to low) (Average: $15.97, standard dev. $3.03)	57th out of 258 meals.
Quality / Value Rating for this specific meal	4 (out of 10) / 4 (out of 10)

TIL that there's a type of pizza known as "Columbus-Style Pizza", which seems to be somewhat similar to the St. Louis Style. It is characterized by a provolone-cheese blend, a sweeter sauce, leavened crispy crust, and cut in squares, with topping "edge-to-edge". One of the examples that is often used to describe Columbus-Style is their hometown chain Donatos Pizza, at one time owned by McDonald's, and now has hundreds of locations nationwide.

But, going by that definition, what I ordered and received at Donatos is most definitely NOT Columbus-Style, and more of a traditional pie. It's pie-slice cut, the crust was not crispy, and most importantly, the toppings were not "edge to edge". If you go online and look at photos of Donatos, they really do cover the entire pie - in fact they offer up something called a "150", which has 150 pepperoni slices, so thick that it forms a solid layer of overlapping pepperonis almost like roof shingles. Donato's has even trademarked "Edge to Edge" as their slogan.

That being said, I'm not too hung up on the definition -- if it's a good pizza, it's a good pizza, regardless if you want to call it Columbus-Style, Detroit-Style, St. Louis-Style, California-Style, New Haven-Style, or whatever. And I chose the "Pep Duo", which is two kinds of pepperoni, and even though it was not famously edge-to-edge toppings, it was certainly well apportioned with lots of toppings and cheese and sauce. So I wasn't going to complain.

But all it takes is for one thing to ruin a good pizza. And in this case, that one thing was: the sauce. So sweet! Too sweet, to the point where I wasn't tasting tomato and spices, I was tasting sugar. There's nothing wrong with a slightly-sweet pizza sauce (when I make my own at home, I usually include a small amount of sugar myself), but this was beyond that. Kinda killed the pizza for me. Which was a disappointment - it looked and smelled so good at first.

Maybe I just got a bad batch of sauce at this location? Maybe Donatos was not meant to be ordered in Texas, and I should try it in Ohio instead? Well, maybe. No plans on heading to that part of the country any time soon, but who knows what the future holds. All I know is, for now, my first taste of Donatos was too sweet for my taste. And at a higher price than average compared to other pizza places at that.

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(About this review series: Starting in late 2025, I am visiting a different fast food/fast casual chain every day, until I run out of places to visit. Aiming to review as many chains on the Technomics Top 500 Restaurants list as possible, plus key/important regional and some local chains as well. Originally I thought this might end around 100 days, but I keep discovering new places I wasn't aware of before, so I keep going until I run out, which at this point may be around 300 days. And no, I haven't gained weight, and no, it hasn't hurt my health.)

600 N Sepulveda Blvd, El Segundo, CA 90245, United States.

I was back in L.A. after decades, and In-N-Out was my first stop after landing at LAX. My expectations were high, but the nostalgia never really returned. The burgers were just okay to me, and the fries were too. Anyone else with the same experience?

Chain Name	Chicken Guy!
Food category	Primary: Chicken Sandwich
# of US Locations	18
# of US States	9
Primarily located in	Florida and California
Restaurant Rank in US $ Sales 2024	not ranked
Rank of price (high to low) (Average: $15.97, standard dev. $3.03)	198th out of 258 meals.
Quality / Value Rating for this specific meal	6 (out of 10) / 6 (out of 10)

I remember a few years back when I was passing through Branson, and decided to try out one of Guy Fieri's restaurants while I was there. As the self-proclaimed 'Mayor of Flavortown", the spiky-haired loud chef of the 24-Hour-Diners-Drive-ins-and-Dives Channel has an eye-watering *seventeen* different branded restaurant concepts, but this Branson location was basically the equivalent of a Chili's or Applebee's in terms of what they served (menu items and quality), except for twice the price because of the brand name.

With that less-than-stellar experience, I went into Fieri's fast food restaurant "Chicken Guy!" with subdued expectations. There aren't a whole lot of locations, but they can be found in such disparate locations as ranging from high-end casinos and resorts, down to colleges, stadiums, a Wal-Mart, and just plain stand-alone storefronts (where I went).

True to its name, it's a chicken restaurant (sandwiches and tenders) that leans very heavily on the ten different flavored sauces they have. None of them particularly revolutionary, nor especially hot (they aren't trying to kill your taste buds like some other chicken chains seem to do), but it's what the dude's known for.

To keep it simple, I ordered the 'C.G. Classic' combo, which is their breaded chicken with lettuce, tomato, and special sauce (which, just like every other fast food place, is basically a variant of thousand island). For starters, the chicken itself was perfectly fine - well breaded, juicy -- that was great. The rest of the meal, however, was less than the Fieri Flavortown experience.

First off, the lettuce on the chicken sandwich was a wilted mess, that I immediately removed after taking the photo. The single tomato slice was literally paper-thin -- you could lay it on a newspaper and read through it. What about the signature sauce? Eh. Not terrible. Not great. Pretty much the same sub-par type stuff you get at Raising Cane's. And as with most place, the fries were fries - decent when piping hot fresh and dipped in the sauce, but got old fast. The longer I extend this Fast Food Death March, the less of a fan I am of fries in general.

Given that paragraph of disappointment, you would expect a lower rating. But really, the star of the meal is the chicken, and that was good -- If I came here again, I'd forgo the sandwich options and go straight for the meat of the matter: the tenders. That's the way to go. And maybe one of the different sauces to try them out. And I can always get something other than fries. Plus the manager was really cool and engaged, and it was a pretty decent interior dining area more like what you might find in a casual dining type establishment (better than the hollowed-out sterile empty shells of dining rooms you find in most fast food places these days). Yeah, I'd be willing to try this place again, and order something different.

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(About this review series: Starting in late 2025, I am visiting a different fast food/fast casual chain every day, until I run out of places to visit. Aiming to review as many chains on the Technomics Top 500 Restaurants list as possible, plus key/important regional and some local chains as well. Originally I thought this might end around 100 days, but I keep discovering new places I wasn't aware of before, so I keep going until I run out, which at this point may be around 300 days. And no, I haven't gained weight, and no, it hasn't hurt my health.)

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Chain Name	Twisted Mac
Food category	Primary: Macaroni and Cheese
# of US Locations	10
# of US States	3
Primarily located in	California
Restaurant Rank in US $ Sales 2024	not ranked
Rank of price (high to low) (Average: $15.97, standard dev. $3.03)	59th out of 258 meals.
Quality / Value Rating for this specific meal	5.5 (out of 10) / 4 (out of 10)

Remember a while back when I reviewed the up-and-coming franchise "Roni's Mac Bar", and musing it may be the only chain fast food restaurant based on macaroni and cheese?

Welp. I found another one. Twisted Mac is a new "concept" restaurant that PROUDLY advertises they are a part of Romano's Macaroni Grill -- essentially it is a slimmed down version of the casual dining establishment that focuses on a fast casual model for macaroni and cheese, sammiches and 'zas.

The parent restaurant has struggled of late, filing for bankruptcy citing the overall downturn in casual dining (before COVID, mind you), and apparently the refocus on expanding their Twisted Mac "sister brand" is part of their comeback. Right now that's a measly ten locations, but given Romano's overall financial backing, and as soon as people realize they can get essentially Romano's food for less time and hassle and especially price (and without the egregious tipping), we may see Twisted Mac grow pretty fast.

That is, if people can truly embrace the concept of mac and cheese as a fast food meal. Given how easy it is to pour a Kraft Dinner into a pot and have a hot meal at home for around a buck, are people ready to pay more than ten times that for a mac and cheese away from home?

To answer my own question, yeah, probably. Those who have the money to spend on fast casual today (the upper part of the K-shaped economy right now) don't seem to mind the cost of convenience. Especially when they can dress up the mac and cheese a dozen different ways with add-ons and meat.

For me, I chose the "Cacio and Pepe" version, which contains a sauce very heavy on black pepper, and with chicken, and with a salad as my side. The salad, by the way, was nearly as big as the entree itself. The mac and cheese was decent enough, they used these smaller-sized shells which I found annoying to eat, but otherwise the ingredients themselves mixed well. The pepper spicing wasn't as great as I thought it would be, and probably would have been better off trying one of the other options, like buffalo chicken or meatball. And it was hefty enough that I didn't even come close to finishing the whole bowl.

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(About this review series: Starting in late 2025, I am visiting a different fast food/fast casual chain every day, until I run out of places to visit. Aiming to review as many chains on the Technomics Top 500 Restaurants list as possible, plus key/important regional and some local chains as well. Originally I thought this might end around 100 days, but I keep discovering new places I wasn't aware of before, so I keep going until I run out, which at this point may be around 300 days. And no, I haven't gained weight, and no, it hasn't hurt my health.)

Wendy’s, I have been with you since the 80’s but I’m afraid it’s time we go our separate ways. You used to be amazing. In fact, up until recently I had a lot of love for you. You changed my buns, you started putting those weird pickles on everything, you changed the spicy chicken sandwich (not for the better, and you decided to also put those weird pickles on there. Not an upgrade), leaf lettuce be gone, hello shreds. You do know that shreds end up everywhere except in your mouth? Also, my “on the way home from work late” Wendy’s has had no lettuce for 2 weeks. Fix your shit, yes there’s a shortage, blah blah blah. If you don’t play the game, you get left behind. Call me after you seek some therapy and fix your internal issues. In the meantime Culver’s will be getting a lot more of my money.

I was at a local McDonald in SoCal they had a no refill sign out. I haven’t seen one of these signs. So they move the machine behind the counter and now no more refills. Prices have double and tripled as well.

What’s next ?

Chain Name	Cinnaholic
Food category	Primary: Baked Goods
# of US Locations	77
# of US States	26
Primarily located in	Texas, Ontario, California, North Carolina, Georgia
Restaurant Rank in US $ Sales 2024	not ranked
Rank of price (high to low) (Average: $9.62, standard dev. $3.81)	52nd out of 55 snacks
Quality / Value Rating for this specific meal	8.5 (out of 10) / 5 (out of 10)

Quick snack review. Never heard of this place before. But they have little shops in over two dozen states, driven by VC capital raised through The Shark Tank. Focusing on (you guessed it) Cinnamon buns, but also other baked goods like brownies, cookies, and edible raw cookie dough. Yes, cookie dough. And, believe it or not, there are other chains out there that specialize in just edible cookie dough as their primary product, so Cinnaholic isn't alone.

But let's start with their basic cinnamon roll, the "Old Skool", which is a roll with vanilla frosting. There are other types of frosting and toppings that can be added, but gotta check out the 'plain jane' before getting fancy.

Let's cut to the chase: It was the best damn cinnamon roll I've had in I don't know how long.

First off, though, before eating, you gotta scrape off about 3/4th of the glob of frosting on top. It's good frosting, but...*gesticulates wildly*. There are limits to how much pure sugar you can eat before going into a diabetic coma.

The cinnamon roll itself was pretty close to perfect, beneath that suffocation of frosting. Actually held its structure, slightly crisp in the places it's supposed to be crisp, and very healthy servings of cinnamon, so much you can taste the sharp slight bitterness of the spice instead of "just sweet" you find in other cinnamon rolls where the cinnamon is practically only there for show. I guess we have all become so used to industry giant Cinnabon's soft, overly-sweet sugar bomb that we've forgotten what an honest-to-goodness cinnamon roll is supposed to taste like.

One of Cinnaholic's key marketing points is that their entire menu is vegan as well. Which I could care less. Could be made up entire of meat products as far as I'm concerned, what matters is how it tastes. And Cinnaholic knocks it out of the park.

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(About this review series: Starting in late 2025, I am visiting a different fast food/fast casual chain every day, until I run out of places to visit. Aiming to review as many chains on the Technomics Top 500 Restaurants list as possible, plus key/important regional and some local chains as well. Originally I thought this might end around 100 days, but I keep discovering new places I wasn't aware of before, so I keep going until I run out, which at this point may be around 300 days. And no, I haven't gained weight, and no, it hasn't hurt my health.)

Chain Name	Holy Burger
Food category	Primary: Hamburgers
# of US Locations	26
# of US States	6
Primarily located in	Mostly New York City
Restaurant Rank in US $ Sales 2024	not ranked
Rank of price (high to low) (Average: $15.97, standard dev. $3.03)	72nd out of 258 meals.
Quality / Value Rating for this specific meal	4.5 (out of 10) / 4 (out of 10)

Holy Burger? Holy ___ Burger?

You could tell that this chain used to be named "Holy Cow Burger", based on the conspicuous space and outline of where the letters used to be in the restaurant's sign. My guess was that there was another chain with the same name somewhere, and there was a lawsuit, and this one lost. Turns out, after some internet digging, is that it wasn't another restaurant -- it was the estate of the former Harry Caray. Holy cow!

Looking online, looks like an absolutely delicious and very messy burger from this NYC-based joint. I just wish the real world burger was able to match up. Spoiler alert: it didn't.

I have a serious beef with shredded lettuce on a hamburger, and I'd say 80%+ of burger places (and sandwich places in general) use shredded lettuce instead of leaf or chopped lettuce. The problem with shredded lettuce is two-fold. First, shredded lettuce it a fast food place is invariably prepared and stored beforehand, and could be days old, before it's dumped out of some bag to be used. Issue is, mixing in old and new lettuce, you get a high chance of some spoiled lettuce in the mix. And even the tiniest fraction of spoiled lettuce in a bite ruins it all. The taste of lettuce going bad destroys the whole experience.

Second problem with shredded lettuce is what happened here - you throw on a pile of lettuce on a hot burger, and it turns into a wilted, mushy green pile of goo. The entire purpose of the lettuce, to produce a textural contrast to the burger, is lost. So, I ended up scraping off the slimy mess of lettuce from the burger before eating.

That being done, what remained still looked promising. And I WANTED to like this burger, even as it was slipping/sliding around in my hand. But it just didn't seem to come together. Maybe the chef was off their game that day or something, but it was an underwhelming burger.

Fries were, as like many other times at many other places before, just fries. Unexceptional to the point that they might as well not have even existed. And I am leery of any restaurant that can't manage to have a soda machine, and resorts to using cans of soda bought from Sam's Club - and an off-brand of soda at that.

Maybe that lawsuit against Harry 'Holy Cow' Caray took more out of this chain than they realized. But based on this one experience, this was not the hot-mess-burger I was hoping for.

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(About this review series: Starting in late 2025, I am visiting a different fast food/fast casual chain every day, until I run out of places to visit. Aiming to review as many chains on the Technomics Top 500 Restaurants list as possible, plus key/important regional and some local chains as well. Originally I thought this might end around 100 days, but I keep discovering new places I wasn't aware of before, so I keep going until I run out, which at this point may be around 300 days. And no, I haven't gained weight, and no, it hasn't hurt my health.)

Chain Name	Everbowl
Food category	Primary: Acai Bowls
# of US Locations	100
# of US States	30
Primarily located in	California, Texas, Iowa, Georgia, Colorado, Indiana
Restaurant Rank in US $ Sales 2024	473rd
Rank of price (high to low) (Average: $15.97, standard dev. $3.03)	231st out of 258 meals.
Quality / Value Rating for this specific meal	6.5 (out of 10) / 6 (out of 10)

Short review today, because I've been up since 3am to get here, and I'll be up at 3am again tomorrow, all to knock off the Dry Tortugas from my bucket list. Onward!

"Acai Bowls", or whatever you want to call the sub-category, is a fairly new concept that has sort of blown up over the last decade. The idea of promoting so-called 'superfoods' is hardly new, but putting them in a big bowl and turning that into a national chain is. Is it nothing more than a big fruity dessert? Or, can it be considered a healthy meal all by itself? Por que no los dos?

This is the second such chain I've tried so far, and there are few more regional chains on the list to knock out as well. But they are all basically variations on the same thing: a frozen smoothie-type base made of acai or coconut or vanilla or chocolate, and then topped with all sorts of cut fruits and grains. These places usually also serve smoothies and similar items. But it's the bowls that are in the spotlight.

Given the overall serving size and the cost per serving, I treat this as a full-sized meal. The "Everbowl" is an acai base with granola, strawberries, blueberries and bananas, and it's a decent-sized portion enough to fill you up. Also healthier than 99% of all the other fast food options out there. And, yes, also very tasty - it's freshly-cut fruit, which I am sorely lacking in my overall diet, and the frozen "base" at the bottom is more like an icy sherbert. Sure, it's healthy and 'good for you' and all that, but I'm not so concerned about the superfood aspect they push so much. That helps, but really I just like fresh fruit.

Frankly, I've already decided that after this Fast Food Death March is over, I'm going to be regularly incorporating these bowls into my regular diet, replacing the occasional greasy hamburger or chicken sando. At this point, it's really a matter of finding which chain is the best for me, and so far it's two out of two that are passing the cut. We'll see how the next one turns out (off the top of my head, that includes Frutta Bowl and Bahia Bowl).

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(About this review series: Starting in late 2025, I am visiting a different fast food/fast casual chain every day, until I run out of places to visit. Aiming to review as many chains on the Technomics Top 500 Restaurants list as possible, plus key/important regional and some local chains as well. Originally I thought this might end around 100 days, but I keep discovering new places I wasn't aware of before, so I keep going until I run out, which at this point may be around 300 days. And no, I haven't gained weight, and no, it hasn't hurt my health.)

Chain Name	Tacodeli
Food category	Primary: Mexican-American-inspired
# of US Locations	13
# of US States	1
Primarily located in	Austin, Dallas, Houston
Restaurant Rank in US $ Sales 2024	not ranked
Rank of price (high to low) (Average: $15.97, standard dev. $3.03)	64th out of 258 meals.
Quality / Value Rating for this specific meal	3.5 (out of 10) / 3 (out of 10)

First off, apologies for the potato-quality photo this time around. My potato phone is a bit old and doesn't handle bright-lit reflections well sometimes, cleaned it up best I could, but I know it's still a sub-par photo. Moving on to Tacodeli:

They're a small and locally-limited chain, but I've seen Tacodeli hyped up in many places, as people get tired of "old and busted" Torchy's and are looking for another place to hype.

Tacodeli isn't new - they've been around for over 25 years, slowly expanding to their current 13 locations. But under a new CEO with stars in his eyes, Tacodeli is setting its sights on TRIPLING its footprint in the next three years, mostly by in-filling their current markets and then casually just throwing out there, "oh, and Texas alone can probably support a total of 90 locations", before expanding to other states. Big plans indeed.

I have avoided Tacodeli until now, I had always sort of pictured in my mind that "deli" equates to cold cuts, and have a mental image of a hard-shell-taco filled with Oscar-Meyer cold cut slices. Silly? Yes. But weird mental images usually are.

Tacodeli is, in fact, falls into a sub-category of fast-casual food that I like to call the "fru-fru taco", or gourmet or snobby taco. It's a taco alright, but usually with a mix of carefully bespoke ingredients, curated to give you The Best Taco Experience (tm)...or something like that. And this is how you end up with a taco with wagyu-steak encrusted with panko-lime seasoning, with grilled portobello mushrooms and candied sweet onions, sprinkled with asiago cheese and a spicy chipotle garnish. Or whatever hoity-toity taco you can come up with.

And yes, sometimes it works. And many other times...it's just a fancy mess. But this is how you end up with the "five dollar plus taco" that takes three bites to eat. Tacodeli is far from being unique in this approach to 'inspired' tacos, of course, and it's not automatically a bad thing overall (unless you're one of those food purists, and I am definitely NOT). It's all in how you do it.

Alas, Tacodeli does not do it very well. I chose a taco with shrimp in it, and another with green salsa pork. Plus a side of chips and salsa. First, the two tacos - no, I was not impressed. They weren't *bad* per se, but as I mentioned above, sometimes the weird mix works out well, and other times...well, you get this. Just ingredients thrown together, not really bonding as a single dish. This is not the hyped up crave-worthy tacos I was promised. The shrimp themselves were good inside the taco, albeit skimpy. Tacodeli does pride itself on the freshness of locally-sourced ingredients when possible, but I couldn't tell, and I couldn't care.

The chips came in their own pre-sealed plastic bags, which seemed weird, and I had no idea how many days, weeks, months old they could have been. And the salsa - welp, the less said, the better. Apparently one of their key strengths, people say, is their signature salsas, so good they are sold at supermarkets. But I tried all three, and good god, the best I can say is they were *borderline edible*. Worst salsa of any fast food place, hands down. I don't know what they were thinking.

As touched on above, "fru-fru tacos" can get pricy, and Tacodeli is no exception. This meal was north of eighteen bucks - which is less than "outrageous" territory for what I got, but definitely falls in "concerned hmmmm noises" territory.

This was not a terrible meal, but I guess it suffered from over-expectations from the hype, and also from comparison of other fru-fru taco places I could have gone to instead. Fuego Tortilla Grill has this place beat hands-down. So does Velvet Taco. Even the increasingly-maligned Torchy's Tacos is better. Hell, even Rusty Taco would be preferable to this.

Sorry, Tacodeli fans. I don't see it.

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(About this review series: Starting in late 2025, I am visiting a different fast food/fast casual chain every day, until I run out of places to visit. Aiming to review as many chains on the Technomics Top 500 Restaurants list as possible, plus key/important regional and some local chains as well. Originally I thought this might end around 100 days, but I keep discovering new places I wasn't aware of before, so I keep going until I run out, which at this point may be around 300 days. And no, I haven't gained weight, and no, it hasn't hurt my health.)

I have been reviewing a different fast food/fast casual restaurant every day for the past 200 days, and earlier I reviewed the following three restaurants. However, these three received "poor" scores for one reason or another, but based on previous experience and visits I knew they could do better. Perhaps it was an "off day", perhaps it was the specific item I ordered. In any case, here are some "second chance" reviews, where I am re-visiting the chain, to see if it can redeem itself and earn a higher score.

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13. Day 29: Freebirds World Burrito (66 locations, 2 states)

Freebird's used to be the "edgy upstart with attitude" build-a-burrito place, the Texas version of Chipotle-Only-Better. For a while several years ago, I would go there regularly, probably once or twice a month. But somewhere along the way, something happened, and I can't exactly put my finger on what, or when. All I know is at some point, the cheap five-dollars-plus meal I would normally order, ended up costing me thirteen dollars out of the blue, and I pretty much stopped going cold for a while after that.

And when I tried again, it just wasn't the same. The menu is pretty much the same - all build-a-burrito places (and there are LOTS of them) are built on the same menu and same options. The only thing I can point to that is clearly different are their tortilla chips. Terrible chips for nachos, they don't hold up in the slightest, so it's just toppings on soggy used-to-be-corn-chips. This plate of nachos was better than the meal I had before, but still mid at best.

I dunno, man - it just seems that Freebird's is losing its edge, to better places, with better ingredients and better service, who are actually really really nice. Why go here, when I can go to Cabo Bob's instead, for (my regional) example?

Meal Quality: +1.5, going from 3.5 -> 5. Meal Value no change, going from 5 -> 5 (out of 10)

14. Day 77: Steak n' Shake (394 locations, 23 states)

Buckle up, it's multi-paragraph long-winded exposition time. If you want to skip to the actual review, go down to the first bolded sentence. There was a time, a little before COVID, when the owners of Steak 'n Shake thought they were the hottest shit in the world. The decades-old American staple casual-dining restaurant was in serious decline, losing money and locations at an alarming rate, until snatched up by the Biglari's, who slashed the menu drastically, cut costs sharply, closed unprofitable locations, and had quickly turned Steak n' Shake around...well, at least financially, which is all that they were concerned about. The Biglari's were the type of corporate weasels that only really saw the company as a way to make the money, so they could show up at their big, glitzy events in a limo and pretend they were the fast food version of Elon Musk.

But the cost-cutting came at a price, and that was left-handed-upper-cut of severe under-funding of their aging locations, which combined with the right-handed one-two-roundhouse of COVID ended up turning their darling profits once again deeply into the red, and Steak 'n Shakes were closing nationwide by the dozens, then low hundreds.

During the Biglari high-point, they moved their headquarters to San Antonio, and planned a big expansion that never came to fruition. Exactly one Steak 'n Shake opened in town from those expansion plans, a new concept Steak 'n Shake they called their "flagship", which was a counter-order fast food place that ONLY served a selection of burgers and fries and shakes, as well as alcohol.

Finally in 2022, Biglari cut their losses and sold Steak 'n Shake to the embattled and controversial Frisch's Restaurants (of Big Boy fame), and since then has taken an extreme hard-right political turn, embracing anti-American values and even anointing a protege of the Brainworm Guy as the company's 'Chief MAHA Officer'.

During this time, Steak n' Shake has made wide-scale changes to convert their remaining restaurants to a fast food model, with kiosk-only ordering, limited menu options, and a discontinuation of table service. That 'flagship' location I mentioned above? That, too, was part of the conversion, as I soon found out as I visited for this review.

The previous visit, I ended up with some crappy patty melt burger and fries that was literally SWIMMING in a pool of grease; literally as in probably the greasiest meal I've had in years, and with 200+ fast food reviews that's saying a lot. They pride themselves on their 'beef tallow' they use, but I couldn't give a shit one way or another, or taste any difference. It was just greasy as fucking hell fries swimming in the bottom of the basket. Ew.

As for this second time around...to my complete and utter shock, they redeemed themselves! This time, I ordered their world-famous Frisco Melt, and a side of chili-cheese fries. And I do honestly mean world famous, they really are known for knocking that burger out of the park when they do it right. And here, they did it right. When made correctly, the Steak 'n Shake Frisco Melt is *orgasmically* good. Damn good. If I had three of them in front of me, I could have scarfed them all down in a matter of a few minutes. Perfectly toasted sourdough, well cooked 'steak'burger, the cheese, and the sauce they use all come together perfectly. This is the way to order and eat Steak 'n Shake.

The chili cheese fries were also a significant improvement over the grease sticks I had before. Fries by themselves were just okay (and once again, Steak 'n Shake, screw the heavy promotion of that beef tallow nonsense shit, no one cares, it does NOT make them better). And it's the normal chili and normal nacho cheese you would expect in a situation like this, but it worked well together. (Could've done with a bean-less chili, though, which works better when used as a topping). Good job.

And the cherry on top is that all of this was relatively less expensive than what you would expect to pay at similar places. Nearly a complete 180-swing from first review to second chance review. Good job, Steak 'n Shake. That being said, I'm not eating here again until they drop their hard-core anti-American ways, but that's a personal decision just for me alone, YMMV.

Meal Quality: +5, going from 3 -> 8. Meal Value: +2, going from 5 ->7 (out of 10)

15. Day 36: Wayback Burger (168 locations, 35 states)

After writing way too much above, let's wrap this up quickly, with a trip to another lackluster burger place. I do want to like Wayback, I really do, but in the original review, and this review, as well as the few times I've been in years past, they're just not hitting on all cylinders. At least not yet.

This time I ordered the "Cajun Burger" with onion rings. I asked them, what makes it specifically "Cajun". Apparently, it's a regular burger -- with some extra seasoning (in this case, a remoulade). Well, okay then. That's not a deal-breaker by any means. Normal burger is with an extra sauce is still good.

And it was an okay burger, but that's all it was: Okay. There's nothing special about their burgers at all that make me want to spend an extra couple of bucks here, rather than some other fast food place that can give me an equally okay burger for less. This burger was better than the A-1 Steak Sauce burger I had in the first review, but not by much, and nothing here worth noting specially.

Onion rings were also okay (at least they weren't fries), even if they were just the normal Sysco/US Foods/whatever brand tossed in the fryer. Extra bonus for being lots of them, though.

Meal Quality: +1, going from 5 -> 6. Meal Value: +1, going from 3 -> 4 (out of 10)

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More "Second Chance" reviews coming down the line, in addition to the regular reviews! (And no, not every second chance review will be a positive one :))

Chain Name	Little Caesar's Pizza
Food category	Primary: Pizza Pizza
# of US Locations	4203
# of US States	50
Primarily located in	Everywhere.
Restaurant Rank in US $ Sales 2024	22nd
Rank of price (high to low) (Average: $15.97, standard dev. $3.03)	171st out of 258 meals.
Quality / Value Rating for this specific meal	6.5 (out of 10) / 5 (out of 10)

Did you ever notice that Little Caesar's stopped using its iconic catchphrase, "Pizza Pizza!"?

One of the "Big Four" in the pizza business, behind Domino's and Pizza Hut, but ahead of Papa John's, Little Caesar's can be found in all fifty states, multiple countries, and is still growing. Pizza may be a tough market to crack for all of the crabs in the bucket in the second tier trying to break through (Marco's, Round Table, Mountain Mike's, Jet's, Godfather's, Hungry Howie's, Pizza Ranch, Donato's), but Little Caesar's has firmly entrenched themselves and are here to stay - more likely to rise to second place than fall to any usurper.

That being said, I've never really been a customer of Little Caesar's. Not for any particular reason or dislike, and through all sorts of office "pizza parties" and movie nights and whatever else over the years, I've had my share of their pies. I have neither fond memories nor bad thoughts - they have always just sort of been 'there', and that's it.

So, jumping in to order a meat-heavy pizza to compare against the other chains I've tried, I end up with their three-meat pizza. And I have to say, it's pretty decent. Hot and fresh, just like they advertise, plenty of toppings, lots of cheese, good sauce. This is a solid pizza. (And, one should add, by itself more calories than FIVE Big Macs).

If I had to voice a concern, it's with the somewhat pedestrian crust, which wasn't bad but not a fan of, either. Then again, they do have multiple crust types available, and I just defaulted to whatever seemed normal, so they may have other better options for that, too.

Not going to say it's the best pizza out there (especially since I still have other chains to review before I can even judge that), but Little Caesar's definitely ends up on the positive side of my list.

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(About this review series: Starting in late 2025, I am visiting a different fast food/fast casual chain every day, until I run out of places to visit. Aiming to review as many chains on the Technomics Top 500 Restaurants list as possible, plus key/important regional and some local chains as well. Originally I thought this might end around 100 days, but I keep discovering new places I wasn't aware of before, so I keep going until I run out, which at this point may be around 300 days. And no, I haven't gained weight, and no, it hasn't hurt my health.)

Visited MOD’s Pizza for the second time and it was really good for the price. They had a lunch special $12.99 for a 11” unlimited topping pizza and drink. I really like the thin crust and that it is made to order/fresh. My wife & I split it and we both had plenty.