Wilder Shaw / Cheapism
The number of fast-food joints that sell chocolate chip cookies is pretty surprising; even most pizza chains have a family-sized cookie that feeds a crowd.
But if you’re grabbing a burger or a sandwich from any of these nine chains, you’ve got the option to add a cookie for dessert.
Want to know which fast-food chains have the best chocolate chip cookies? I tried nine and found out.
Heck of a job there, Starby. I haven't eaten Starbucks' chocolate chip cookie in a while, but the thing is damn good, full of toffee notes and brown sugar. Unlike most of these cookies which feel one dimensional and manufactured, this one tastes more full-flavored, like a real baked good. I love it. This may end up becoming a problem.
Starbucks and Panera are in a league of their own when it comes to these cookies. This probably isn’t a surprise since they are far deeper into the baking world than the other fast-food spots here, but it’s worth noting just how much better these things are. Panera’s is flatter and thinner than Starbucks’, which has a cakey thickness I love. There are two types of chips, semi-sweet chocolate chunks and milk chocolate flakes, but I don’t really taste a difference when I bite the whole thing together. A fleck of salt would go an extremely long way.
Though the McDonald’s cookie doesn’t have nearly the depth of flavor that Starbucks and Panera do, it’s the best of the fast-food burger chains by a landslide. The texture is bang-on, chewy but not too soft, and the chips are thick and chunky. And though it’s the smallest, it only costs 89 cents. Which means you can get 10 of them.
Wendy is slinging a solid cookie, and I mean that both figuratively and literally. The thing is crispy around the edges to a fault, and though this may just be due to a baking mistake or some onsetting staleness, I still like it that way. Good chocolate chunks, too. If you’re craving a cookie, this is absolutely going to deliver.
This cookie is extremely whatever. It’s fine. It tastes alright. You won’t be upset if you eat this, but you also won’t be excited about it. Usually, when Firehouse Subs slides its back-patting self into one of these things, the reviews aren’t great, making my apathy here a glowing review by comparison.
Arby’s is rocking a Salted Caramel and Chocolate cookie. I usually love salted caramel, and nobody else is doing a chocolate chip cookie like this at any of the other chains, so I was excited. Then, the guy at the drive-thru window handed it to me and said, “Next time, go to the place across the street, the cookies are way better.” The place across the street is a bagel chain.
I was determined to shake the stink that he put on this thing, but I’m afraid it was no use. These salted caramel pieces are sticky and crumbly, but taste like nothing. All they do is change the cookie’s texture into something unpleasant and get stuck in your teeth. The guy was right.
Chick-fil-A’s chocolate chip cookie has oats in it. This thing is called the “Chocolate Chunk” cookie, which as you can see, does not contain the word “oat.” Oats are fine when they are announced, but they make cookies drier and flakier. I do not want oats here, please and thank you. I want big, honkin’ chocolate chips. If I wanted oats to shoot out of my mouth with every bite like the back end of a woodchipper, I would eat a damn Nature Valley bar.
I’m surprised Mike’s cookie is so bad, considering I find his sandwiches to be some of the best in the chain game. But this thing is a clunker. It’s so soft. The chips are the exact same consistency as the cookie, and that makes the whole thing into a weird paste in your mouth. It doesn’t help that the thing is crazy band, too.
If you found a person who had never heard of a chocolate chip cookie before, and then described it to that person, and then that person had to bake it from memory, it might come out something like this. It’s thick, dusty, and dry, like cardboard insulation. The chips look and feel like raisins, but I know they’re not, which is unpleasant. Bad job, Subway.
I attempted to eat the cookie from Burger King. I really gave it the ‘ole college try. I went to my local Burger King. The drive-thru line looked pretty long, so I went inside. There was also a line of people inside, but every single one of them turned around and looked at me when I entered the building, so the idea of spinning on my heel and exiting felt insane. So, I waited in line for a while. The guy in front of me had hair that contained at least three colors, and he wouldn’t stop kissing the woman he was with, whom he had just married three weeks ago, according to the loud announcement he was making to the entire restaurant. Because she had been married three times already and he had never been married, he explained to all who would listen, it made sense that this was definitely going to work out. It had to. Then she slipped and knocked over a ketchup display and started cracking up.
The line didn’t budge an inch during the entire time this was taking place. Since I was about to lose my mind, I decided to go back and brave the drive-thru line, which had now gotten even longer, and deal with the rest of this within the comfort of my own car.
When I finally reached the drive-thru window, well, I think you already know where this is going. My local BK is a modern marvel; it’s nearly always out of everything. Which means that yes, finally, when I got to the window to order the cookie I’d been waiting so long for, the little voice through the box told me their oven was broken and they were out of cookies. Then, I had to wait out the rest of the entire drive-thru line with the rest of the cars because somebody had already pulled up behind me.
So, yeah. How is the cookie from Burger King? If you’re lucky enough to live near a location with working kitchen equipment, please let me know.
