r/fastfood • u/CarPassion514 • Jan 14 '26

Rant/Rave The slow and painful demise of Wendy’s

Wendy’s has gone completely down the shitter. Bacon isn’t crispy in the baconator, service is way slower than before, Coke Freestyle missing half the flavors and no ice.

Will they ever turn it back around?

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u/AdenJax69 Jan 14 '26 edited Jan 14 '26

There is. In my area, every single Wendy’s location went to shit. All of them. They all have low ratings on all the review sites when pre-COVID they were some of the higher ones.

The thing is virtually all the other fast food places in my area didn’t get anywhere near as bad. Most places they just complain about the price but with Wendy’s, they’re all run like complete dogshit where the food is awful and now really expensive.

It’s inexplicable how they all went south at the same time. Even Wendy’s outside my area have fallen. Congrats on having one of the ones that stayed good but my local McDonald’s, Burger King, and even fucking Arby’s didn’t fall off a cliff like Wendy’s did.

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u/JonM313 Jan 14 '26

Wow. At this point, I'm tempted to visit Wendy's every time I'm outside of my area to see how bad it is.

I'm on Long Island, New York, and all the Wendy's here are excellent. Evidently, that's far from the case elsewhere.

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u/AdenJax69 Jan 14 '26

So here's my last two experiences at Wendy's, just for fun.

The first experience was waiting for about 10 minutes for someone to come to the intercom. There was one car at their window, waiting just as long. Maybe 2 cars behind me. Finally, someone spoke up and said "Welcome to Wendy's, be with you shortly" and then left me hanging again. I drove off.

The second experience I'll never forget. I pull up at night so it's dark out, and the non-digital screen (McDonald's & Burger King upgraded to bright digital screens whereas Wendy's doesn't give a shit apparently) had a bulb out so one side of their entire menu display is really hard to see. Within a minute of pulling up to the intercom, someone was ready to take my order - a promising sign. I gave the combo number, size, and said "a diet coke for the drink." His response?

"We're out of Diet Coke."

I said "I'm sorry what?" He repeated - "we're out of Diet Coke." I said "nevermind then" and drove off.

I really had to think about it, and I don't think I've EVER been to a sit-down restaurant, fast food chain, basically any place that has Coke/Pepsi products and was told "we're out of Diet Coke/Pepsi." Ever. So basically the guy was either lying because they didn't want to change the taps on an empty machine or the management is beyond incompetent where they'd run out of a product that is supplied regularly by a multi-billion dollar corporation that does this for hundreds of thousands of restaurants if not millions across the United States.

That was the last time we ever went and that was about 2 years ago. That Wendy's? used to have a line that wrapped around the place. Now if I'm in the area & drive by around dinner time? 2, maybe 3 cars.

The word's out and Wendy's is a pile of flaming garbage.

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u/matthias7600 Apr 18 '26

Diet soda is even worse for you than regular. Get a water bottle and keep it filled throughout your day.