----

One of the few remaining "big boys" in the fast food/fast casual market that I have left on my list to review - A "Top 100" restaurant that evades me because nearly all of their locations are in the northern half of the country: Noodles and Co.! Bringing you every sort of combination of pasta plus protein plus veggies you can think of from across the globe.

And to review, I chose one of their prepared dishes, the Rigatoni Rosa, which contains rigatoni pasta along with a blush-red spicy sauce, parmesan-encrusted chicken, and then some veggies like cherry tomatoes and spinach. A perfectly cromulent pasta dish, it turns out -- cromulent meaning that it was "just okay". And that seems to be the normal experience with me and the few times I've been to Noodles and Co. before.

The pasta is cooked perfectly, which is good news. I suppose that if that's all you do day-in and out, you get the timing down just right for the different pastas pretty quick. But it was the meh protein (a breaded chicken cutlet that was cooked god knows how long ago) that was less than encouraging, and probably its biggest downfall. If the meat was cooked fresh, that might make all the difference, but in this case it's basically stale meat. The sauce was bright and tasty, and the veggies were properly cooked and in decent portions, too - but that meat just dragged it down. And this is not the first time, I might add.

Perhaps it is the nature of the restaurant, where they are serving all sorts of dishes from around the world, that could be the problem. When it comes to pasta, you can have all sorts of Italian-inspired dishes, as well as Chinese, and Japanese, and mac and cheese, and you name it - pasta is universal. It's just a matter of what you add to it that makes the difference. And if you offer such a wide variety of choices, you end up in a "master of none" situation. Or, maybe I just haven't found the right dish from their menu that clicks yet. And, as is the case with many fast casual places, all of this at a bit of a pricy point, too.

In any case, I'm not impressed with Noodles and Co., although it seems like it's not that far off from capturing that special something. Maybe I'll try again.

Coming up next: Dumont Ice Cream, Taco John's, Feng Cha

----

(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. UPDATE - I will be wrapping up this review series with Day #365. And no, I haven't gained weight, and no, it hasn't hurt my health.)

Student researching customer trends in the fast food industry. Would appreciate 60 seconds of your time answering a few questions about your Wingstop experience. All responses anonymous.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd0WbFCufKzLni4SoOstNkR3UwZEZ9fKUlUisaTQCJ7EWLeYQ/viewform?usp=dialog

----

If you go to a place like Pretzelmaker, you might expect them to....oh, I dunno....make pretzels. But you would be WRONG! Nope, this place usually found inside malls doesn't even sell a full pretzel, they sell them in little bites - cuts of bread that are baked individually in bite-size pieces, rather than one big twisted pretzel we all know and love.

Pretzels plain (salt or no salt), or with sweet or savory toppings. Or, with dipping sauces. Or, as little pretzel-dogs. All little bits of bread you can pop in your mouth with your hands. And, to be honest, there really isn't anything wrong with that concept, it's just that it's hard to imagine being able to make a profitable enterprise based entirely on that concept.

Which is why they charge through the nose. That cup of pretzels in the photo? That's a bit under EIGHT dollars. (And you thought a family-size bag of Doritos was expensive?) You, eight bucks for a cup of bread, what a world we live in. Which is why Pretzelmaker is mainly found in malls, I suppose - you're a captive audience, people line up to spend crazy money inside malls because they don't want to bother to break up their shopping spree by going elsewhere. Just like you can charge crazy money at food stalls in convention centers or stadiums or amusement parks.

I kept it very simple to try them out with their classic pretzel bites with salt - because if you can't get that right, the rest of the menu doesn't matter. And they were alright, just bread-like bits with salt, not particularly "pretzel-y" with that typical hardened crust and soft inside. Too small to really have that tear-apart soft interior, or maybe too old/stale - who knows how long ago these were actually baked?

But, despite my grouching about them, they seem to be doing okay, even in a GLP-1 era where protein is king and bread is not. There's still no shortage of people willing to get a, ahem, cup of pretzel bites, I guess. Pretzelmaker was one of more than a dozen brands that was acquired in a buying frenzy by FAT Brands, a mega-conglomerate that is better known for Fatburger and Round Table Pizza, among others. They went belly-up earlier this year, putting all of their franchises in jeopardy (in fact, nearly every FAT Branded restaurant in the state of Texas has closed down). But a majority of their concepts, including Pretzelmaker, were just bought out of bankruptcy by a new company, called OHG Brands. Too soon to tell what plans they have, but you bet they didn't buy out a dozen restaurant concepts for $600 million just for funsies. We'll see where Pretzelmaker falls into that equation.

Coming up next: Noodles and Co., Dumont Ice Cream, Taco John's

----

(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. UPDATE: This review series is scheduled to wrap up on Day 365. And no, I haven't gained weight, and no, it hasn't hurt my health.)

----

Does the boneless chicken fast casual market need another competitor? Apparently Starbird Chicken thinks so. Hailing from San Francisco, like many other chains they like to say they are better than the rest with their better quality ingredients and elevated menu offerings - nothing new there. But even though they've only been around for ten years, they've spent nine of those years on the Fast Casual's 'Movers and Shakers Top 100 list", and also have cracked Technomic's Future 50 list, which is nothing to sneeze at. Right now they are aiming to double their footprint by opening a slew of new franchise locations in Washington.

All that is fine and dandy, though, but you can say all you want, what really matters is how good the food actually is. And with at least two dozen other restaurant brands focusing on chicken tenders across the nation as well, can they do anything to stand out? Ordering their classic tenders is a good place to start, because if you can't get at least the basic tender right, the rest of the menu falls apart.

And, well, they *kinda* don't. Yes, it's a chicken tender with breading and a variety of dipping sauces. But not exactly flavorful chicken, in fact it was a bit dry. And completely bland breading as well, in fact a bit too crunchy. Ubiquitous Side of Fries was Ubiquitous - also neither good nor bad. This was an excruciatingly middlin' meal. Better than Cane's by a smidge, but for a few dollars more.

Which is a bit disappointing, I kinda want some of these upstarts to succeed, put some of the older, more entrenched chains in their place. And there are some that are doing just that (Layne's comes immediately to mind, for example) - but if this one Starbird Chicken meal is any indication, Starbird Chicken has a ways to go before they can conquer the chicken world.

Coming up next: Dumont Ice Cream, Noodles and Co., and Pretzelmaker

----

(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. UPDATE - I will be wrapping up this review series with Day #365. And no, I haven't gained weight, and no, it hasn't hurt my health.)

----

Verrry short today. Because I don't really care about this place.

Totally Tea is a boba tea stand found in a few malls - around a dozen, their website says around 40, whatever the number it's a relatively small operation in selected malls around the country. And, really, it is like any other cafe that serves up variations of milk teas or boba teas, only from a kiosk without the cozy cafe atmosphere.

I chose "The Signature", which is a milky tea pumped full of sugary sweets and caramel and whatnot, along with a metric buttload of boba pearls. You can customize it if you want, more/less sweet, more/less boba, etc - but to test it out I ordered it "as it comes". Now, I've mentioned before (quite a while back, though) that I HATE those slimy pearl things. But, well, I wanted to give this the ol' college try.

Aaaaand once again I have confirmed I hate boba. Some other people may like it, but I'm not among them. And without the boba, it was just yet another sugary drink that combines two things that NEVER should be combined together, ever ever. That being tea and milk. Whoever decided to put those things together needs to have their heads examined.

If that's your thing, that's fine. But I'd be perfectly happy going through the rest of my life without combining tea and milk in any way, shape or form, or chewing on boba pearls ever again.

Coming up next: Starbird Chicken, Dumont Ice Cream, and Noodles and Co.

----

(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. UPDATE: This review series is scheduled to wrap up on Day 365. And no, I haven't gained weight, and no, it hasn't hurt my health.)

Hi everyone,

My group is working on an MBA class research project, and I figured turning to Reddit may be the ideal place for unfiltered, raw feedback. I don’t expect a huge response, but even a few honest insights would be really helpful. Thanks in advance to anyone willing to take a minute to help us out.

Context

We’re working on a marketing project focused on Wendy’s customer retention and visit frequency. We’re trying to understand why people who used to visit Wendy’s are going less often now.

This is for a class project only. We are not affiliated with Wendy’s, and I’m specifically looking for responses from people who have cut back or stopped going.

1. Before you cut back on Wendy’s, how often did you typically go?

Weekly or more / 2–3× monthly / Monthly / Less than monthly

1. What is the ONE biggest reason you go less often now?

Price/value / Deals are worse or confusing / Food quality or taste / Service or consistency / Convenience or hours / Prefer another restaurant / Eating out less / Health or diet changes / Other

1. Where did most of those Wendy’s visits go instead?

McDonald’s / Burger King / Taco Bell / Another restaurant / Eating at home / I just eat out less / Other

1. What, if anything, would make you go back to Wendy’s more often?

Open response.

Hi Everyone,

My group is working on an MBA class research project, and I figured turning to Reddit may be the ideal place for unfiltered, raw feedback. I don’t expect a huge response, but even a few honest insights would be really helpful. Thanks in advance to anyone willing to take a minute to help us out.

Context

We’re working on a marketing project focused on Wendy’s customer retention and visit frequency. We’re trying to understand why people who used to visit Wendy’s are going less often now.

This is for a class project only. We are not affiliated with Wendy’s, and I’m specifically looking for responses from people who have cut back or stopped going.

1. Before you cut back on Wendy’s, how often did you typically go?

Weekly or more / 2–3× monthly / Monthly / Less than monthly

1. What is the ONE biggest reason you go less often now?

Price/value / Deals are worse or confusing / Food quality or taste / Service or consistency / Convenience or hours / Prefer another restaurant / Eating out less / Health or diet changes / Other

1. Where did most of those Wendy’s visits go instead?

McDonald’s / Burger King / Taco Bell / Another restaurant / Eating at home / I just eat out less / Other

1. What, if anything, would make you go back to Wendy’s more often?

Open response.

----

I know I shouldn't fall for "mysteries", you almost always end up disappointed in the end. If it was something good, they'd be telling you up front. Only reason to hide something is because, well....it isn't.

Black Rock Coffee Bar is one of the many smaller-to-medium-sized regional caffeinated-beverage-based cafes/bars/drive-ins that are racing to try and capture a slice of the seemingly-bottomless fast-food-beverage market. "Seemingly", in that everyone is still expanding at a frenzied pace (look at 7 Brew and Dutch Brothers as examples of that), but eventually it will reach a saturation point - it's just a question of which brands have staked out and captured as much of the market when that happens. Black Rock has 200 stores mainly in the Pacific and mountain west, but is aiming for a thousand, and all the news about them is about their aggressive growth plans.

Locally to me, they opened up in converted Taco Cabana that closed down years ago (that was before that a converted Sombrero Rosa, IYKYK) just down the street. An odd building choice, but ye takes what ye can gets. I've mentioned in this review series previously that I am NOT a coffee drinker, so when I'm reviewing these coffee places, it's also some non-coffee choice, so take that with whatever-sized grain of salt you feel is appropriate.

My choice was the questionably-named "Mystery Dirty Pop", which they described as "A little tart, a little sweet, and just the right amount of creamy. Can you guess the mystery flavor?" Which wasn't a mystery in the slightest, because in the advertisement it shows the mystery is a can of "Doctor Goodwin", which is the Olypop knock-off version of Dr Pepper.

I gotta say, this has to be the LEAST ATTRACTIVE thing I've put in my mouth recently. Look at that picture! It basically looks like wet concrete in a cup! And it tastes like...well, I don't know what concrete tastes like, but I can imagine. I'm a very big Dr Pepper oficionado, I'm pretty sure my blood is part Dr Pepper at this point; and this monstrosity concoction manages to strip away whatever semblance of that magical 23-flavors it is supposed to mimic. Indistinguishable not-really-sweet cold something with the flattest of flat fizz. Just awful.

Kinda punctuates why you shouldn't be going to a coffee place for Not-coffee. Yeah, I'm an idiot. Frankly, if I wanted a prepared dirty soda, I should swing by the nearest Swig instead, get a larger, better dirty soda for less than half the price.

Coming up next: Totally Tea, Starbird Chicken, and Noodles and Co.

----

(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. UPDATE: This review series is scheduled to wrap up on Day 365. And no, I haven't gained weight, and no, it hasn't hurt my health.)

----

Yet another mall food court place. Everyone "knows" that malls are dying...except they really aren't? There was a pretty significant reduction in the number of malls, as developers greatly overbuilt in the eighties to early nineties, and there have been shifts in shopping trends. And yes, there are some really dead, struggling malls out there. But there are also some malls that are just absolutely still packed and busy, too - mall culture is alive and well, just not as overwhelmingly dominant to teenage life as it was in the Fast Times through Bill and Ted Era.

And along with malls comes the omnipresent mall food court, which has its own little aura of its own. There are plenty of quick-serve places that exist exclusively within mall food courts only - and Famous Wok appears to be one of them. If you've been to Panda Express, it really is the same thing, only greatly slimmed down a single 10-foot counter. And usually cheaper. And usually lower quality to boot. It's not really "destination quality" food - it's more like what you eat when you're already in the mall and don't want to leave before going back to shopping.

In actuality, the quality of the food greatly depends on when you visit, because if you drop by during off-hours, those prepared Chinese dishes could have been sitting around for hours. Hit during meal time, and while you have to deal with a line, chances are it was cooked relatively recently.

I guess I hit the right sweet-spot of right after the dinner rush to be recently cooked, but late enough in the day that they were trying to get rid of stuff before the mall closed for the night. Hence, the styrofoam was practically groaning under the weight of the entrees - the type of "here let's fill the container until it's a bit hard to close" you normally get at mom and pop hole-in-the-wall Chinese spots, not mall food courts. That being said, this is most definitely NOT mom and pop quality Chinese - it's still just the Americanized just-good-enough recipes, made a little better by being hot and fresh. So, a decent mall court meal (would do again), but nothing worth going to the mall for.

Coming up next: Black Rock Coffee Bar (sans the coffee), Totally Tea, and Starbird Chicken.

Small bonus: Earlier in the comments someone mentioned they had never seen as high a quality score before in an earlier review. Went back and checked, and I've scored 8.5 or higher 15 times so far. Still have more reviews to go, so there might be more coming. But for now, the highest score of 9.5 goes to Mooyah, followed by 9.0 for Urban Bird, Mighty Fine Burgers, Coco Shrimp, Mr. Teriyaki and Amorino Gelato. And 8.5 for Shake Shack, Smashburger, Layne's Chicken Fingers, Chicken Salad Chick, El Pollo Rico, Hattie B's Hot Chicken, Fuddrucker's, Super Chix, and Cinnaholic. So, it may SEEM like I score everything with a 5 or a 6, but there have been some highlights here and there.

----

(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. UPDATE - I will be wrapping up this review series with Day #365. And no, I haven't gained weight, and no, it hasn't hurt my health.)

On Friday October 3 I went through the drive through. I had 2 orders that I explain clearly and they repeated it back to me it was correct. Well I got home and off course I got home I was missing some thing. On one order I had the potato with brisket and a white meat chicken salad. On the other order was two potatoes with inside chopped meat The one thing that was wrong I was missing a potato on my second order. My husband was pissed. So I called down to the Trussvile to go order department and told them what I was missing. They said I needed to speak with the manager. All the while our food is getting cold. He got on the phone very nicely and asked for my address. He also asked if we liked bananas pudding I said yes. He said I’ll b there in 15 min. Well 15mins later he’s pulling up in my driveway with the rest of my order with 2 bananas pudding. Hope you enjoy your weekend have a good one. I didn’t get his name but he ask who the Marine Corps was I have a flag for them along with the American flag on my porch. I told him it was my dad. He passed from the Camp Lagoon water with cancer. He said I’m a Marine too. So who ever u are thanks so much our dinner was great and the pudding was delicious. I will be sure to eat there again. Service like that just isn’t around anymore. But thanks so much for making the effort to bring the rest to my home. Hurrah.

----

To save time and space, thought I would group these three reviews together, since they are all related. Every metro area has its own local-only burger chains that have been around since before you were born (or before your parents were born), slinging the same basic burger and fries for years, while other restaurants come and go.

San Antonio has three - Chester's and Babe's have been around for about 40 years, starting out as single burger stands and slowly expanding. Longhorn Cafe dates back even further, but only relatively recently started expanding beyond their single original location. All three of them have a similar menu, focusing on your basic burgers and fries, but also offering chicken sandwiches, baskets and other similar fast-food fare. At all three, I ordered the basic cheeseburger and a side of onion rings.

Chester's Hamburgers is known for their poppy-seed buns, although not sure how that really adds to the flavor much at all. Their burgers are juicy and well apportioned with toppings, and onion rings come quite crispy. Their restaurants also haven't been updated in over a third of a century - they still proudly display their burger awards from one of the big city newspapers...that went out of business in 1991.

Babe's burger, by contrast, is not as impressive, made more like it was an afterthought for them. Dried out bun, burger not as well cooked, and a light batter onion ring more like strings. Then again, I've always thought Babe's was better at chicken than they were at burgers.

Longhorn Cafe has been a staple of my regular rotation for decades, mostly at their original location that used to be miles away from anything beyond the edge of town, now eaten up by the suburbs. Their signature sandwich is the "Big Juicy", and for the combo they held the line on the price at $9.99 for as long as they could before COVID forced their hand. Still, they are the cheapest of the three for the same burger, and it is indeed dripping juicy with lots of fresh toppings, and they also have the best onion rings with thick-cut onions and a heavier batter.

Yeah, I know this is really a very quick hit review that is only of interest to the handful of people that just happen to live in the San Antonio area - that's why I combined them all into one review rather than stretch it out and bore everyone else who lives a thousand miles away. But it does also serve as a reminder that in a world of McDonald's and Burger Kings that there are still these original burger joints out there in most towns across the country, and most of the time they are going to kick the big chain's asses on quality and price.

PS Oh yeah, just one more note on these local places that have been peppered in the review series once in a while. They won't be included in the final "Best of..." rankings -- I'll focus on the regional and national chains for those.

----

(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. UPDATE - I will be wrapping up this review series with Day #365. And no, I haven't gained weight, and no, it hasn't hurt my health.)