The Burger Chains

I haven't had a chance to do some good, quality eating of late. There will be plenty more for me to write about as I go along here, and in the beginning some of my entries may have to be about places I've been to in the recent past but before I decided to write about them. In the future my reviews will have the date of my visit. My initial reviews probably won't.

As I sit and ponder my next review, I'm returning once again to the world of fast food. This time it's not so much a review of a restaurant as it is an overview of some of the national (or regional) burger chains I've been to. It'll give you an idea of my taste and how I come to my own conclusions about restaurants.

I'd say that everyone loves a good burger, but that wouldn't be fair to my vegetarian friends (or to those who simply don't like burgers). I think it's safe to say though that most red-blooded Americans have a weak spot for a nice, greasy hunk of ground meat on a bun. I know it's always been a major weakness of mine, which is why I'm not a vegetarian anymore myself. I did it for six years and it was mostly a great thing, but I caved in to a burger craving and never looked back.

One thing I have to say is that a craving for a good real burger is rarely satisfied by a chain restaurant. Fried or grilled, there's something about a burger made at home that most restaurants have never been able to capture. There's a certain taste in a homemade burger that is conspicuously missing from restaurant burgers. The weird thing is it's there when you have burgers at someone else's house, so it's not like it's some proprietary thing we do with our own burgers that makes them better than everyone else's. No, it's just the restaurants and I have no idea what that undefinable thing is that they're missing. It's just not there.

That said, when we go to a burger joint we usually have a good idea of what we're getting ourselves into. We have low expectations before we even reach the parking lot. Once we've decided on fast food burgers, it's usually just a matter of whose version of a burger we want to subject ourselves to. Some are better than others, and some have a flavor that can only be had at that particular place and nowhere else in the known universe.

I'm not rating restaurants as a whole or going deep into menu selections here. This is just about burgers, and it's just about resturant burgers alone - not as compared to the much preferred homemade burger...

McDonald's:
Is there a person anywhere in the free world that hasn't been to McDonald's? Sometimes I think there's a good reason for their continued and unprecedented success, and other times it baffles my mind. Of all the burgers available, a McDonald's burger is probably the the least burgerly of them. Yes, I fully accept that it is 100% real beef. I don't think the company is scamming us into eating some bizarre substitution or by-product. But beyond the general appearance there is almost no relation between a McDonald's burger and a real burger. They have a different texture, they're extremely salty and greasy, and even as I'm hungrily eating one I feel a little sick at the same time. Eating McDonald's to satisfy a real burger craving is about as effective as eating baked halibut. It's like wanting a nice cold beer and drinking lukewarm prune juice. There's nothing wrong with baked halibut or prune juice, but they're not getting you where you want to be. Not even close. So they get a D for their burgers in that light, but there's a catch.

Nothing tastes like a McDonald's burger. The only place you can get it is at McDonald's. You can't get that flavor at any other restaurant, and you can't recreate it at home. McDonald's is McDonald's and that's that. And sometimes you just crave McDonald's. Lucky you, there's a McDonald's right down the street, and a little further down the street, and even a little further down the street. Satisfying a McDonald's craving is easier than picking your nose. And the great thing is that some stores may be cleaner than others, some may be faster than others, and some may always give you fresh fries while others always seem to have been sitting just a bit too long (ok, don't get me started on their fries), but when you order a burger at one, it tastes EXACTLY THE SAME as it does at every other one. It's hard to be disappointed at McDonald's when McDonald's is what you want. And for that they get an A. Averaged out, they're somewhere between a C+ and a B-.

Burger King:
It's sad what's become of Burger King. They have had the worst marketing department in the history of business marketing for the past 25 years or so, and they haven't figured it out. They have the worst commercials going all the way back to that weird geeky guy named Herb everyone was supposed to be looking for in the 1980s. It was a monstrous failure for them, and apparently they refuse to learn a lesson - every ad campaign I've seen from them since has been almost as bad. They keep putting out bad commercial after bad commercial and wondering why they aren't making more money. Ummmm, maybe it's because your commercials make people want to avoid you??? The real shame in this is that Burger King burgers are actually quite good. Sure, they've made more marketing mistakes by trying to expand their menu to carrying their version of every food item known to man (and doing a lousy job of it). And they had their huge marketing campaign about how good their fries are when they're really just about the worst fries available anywhere. But dammit, their burgers are great and if they'd just concentrate on them and make a decent commercial about it, they'd be in much better shape. Maybe not as sappy as the old "hold the pickles, hold the lettuce..." jingle in the 70s, but back then it was effective. If you haven't had Burger King in a while and there's one that's still open near you, give it a try. You might be surprised how good it really is. But do yourself a favor and order the onion rings. Stay away from the fries. B+

Checkers:
The first time I tried Checkers was 15 years ago in Dallas, and I admit I was a little put off by their slogan at the time: "One taste and you're ours". Seemed a bit cocky and overconfident to me. That is, until I tasted the burger. They were totally right. I've been a Checkers fan ever since. While not quite capturing the essence of a good homemade burger, I think they come closer than most. And while I assume that most burger places are essentially the same in using frozen beef patties and shipped-in ingredients, somehow Checkers burgers seem fresher than all the other places. If I'm not careful, I can almost trick myself into believing that I'm eating a fresh and healthy meal there. Though I do like Burger King, when I get that generic "I want a burger" urge, Checkers is almost always top of the list of choices for me. I've lived in parts of the country where Checkers doesn't have stores, and at times have actually been upset about it. I was thrilled to find them here. One drawback is you either eat in your car or take it somewhere else because it's drive-through only, but since that keeps their costs down I'm ok with it. And their fries are truly awful. Everything else I've had on their menu is fine, but it's all about the burgers baby. They need to work on their consistency a bit - some days are better than others but it's never bad. Checkers is a must. If you haven't been there, drop everything and go. You'll be pleased. A-

Wendy's:
When the Wendy's chain first became national I liked them. Granted, I was just a kid at the time, so if it was food that was good enough for me. Since then, I've seen the chain get worse and worse, then a little better again. For a long period there, they could have offered to let me eat there for free and I'd have declined. The beef quality got pretty bad, sometimes you'd get a close to raw burger and have to take it back. Over the last several years they've improved but I still rarely feel compelled to eat there. Given the choice between a Wendy's a block away and a Checkers 10 miles away, I'll opt for Checkers every time. But Wendy's has improved - I'll give them that. I'm not disgusted by them anymore. I just think there's much better (and cheaper) out there. C--

Mr. Quick:
I don't know if Mr. Quick is strictly a regional chain or a group of regionally owned franchises in a larger chain. There are other Mr. Quick's around the country, but they may not be related at all. All that matters right now is that there are 5 Muskegon locations. I've only been to one of them, and I'm not especially impressed. I'm told they tend to be busy early in the day, which is a time that I'm not functioning yet. I've only been there later in the day, and have always been the only customer there at that time. Nevermind that "Mr. Quick" is a misnomer, at least as far as the service is concerned. Being the only customer, I have yet to get in and out quickly. But this is about burgers, not all the other stuff. The burgers are ok. Just ok. Very greasy and mostly flavorless, they'll do in a pinch when other options aren't available. I doubt I'll ever have an actual Mr. Quick craving. Not much else I can say about them, except have them cook your fries well-done. Then they're not so bad. Otherwise you get these limp, undercooked things they call fries but are closer to greasy potato noodles. Yummy. D+

That's enough for this installment. I'll follow up with another post to review a few places I didn't include here, as well as a few places that don't have local stores but should be mentioned since we eat at burger joints when we travel too. Enjoy your burgers.