'A Cascade of Ice Cream Mix and Maggots': Fast Food Restaurants Redditors Will Never Set Foot In

Everyone's got fast food places that they hate. They're easy to dislike, whether it's because of a terrible past experience, an ethical objection to the company, or you just plain don't like drive-thru tacos. Turns out that there's some fast food chains that people despise more than others, and we're finding out which ones thanks to a thread on r/AskReddit that has over 4,000 replies so far. "What is one fast food restaurant you will never go to?" asks the OP, and as you can imagine, Redditors have very strong opinions on the subject. Here are the fast food joints that got the most hate. 

Few Redditors had much love for Panera's high prices and mediocre food. "I could get a full course meal at Olive Garden for the price of a sandwich and half cup of soup at Panera," said u/Flyinryans35. While Olive Garden isn't exactly good either, it does seem like a better value now than Panera, which is pretty sad. 

"The food also used to be much better," said u/flakAttack510. "The quality of their food has really plummeted the past 5 years or so."

"Panera is a sandwich shop that's pretending to be fancy," said u/Queentroller, and we couldn't agree more. "I'll go local soup and Sammy shop any time."

There's little love for Jack in the Box by commenters, and most stem from associating the chain with foodborne illness outbreaks. "In the early 1990s an e-coli outbreak was traced to Jack in the Box," said u/Schmliza. "It killed four children and something like 700 or 800 people got sick. Never eaten there since then." According to this article on Food Safety News, it's true: the 1993 e. coli outbreak on the west coast killed four people. It's hard to blame anyone for not getting over that.

Sorry, drive-in fans: Sonic got the most hate from Redditors, including lots of purported former employees, which is not a good sign. "I worked there, the hotdogs/chili have a chance of being 2+ days old, same with the gravy," said u/petty_witch. "You also better hope someone taught an employee how to clean the ice cream/slushy machines. If not, you might have a similar story to mine ... So one day, [the new manager] decided it was time to clean the ice cream machine and asked one of the employees from there to teach us. They didn't know how, so he went around asking, and no one who worked there knew how to clean it. So he gathered us around to teach us, he shut down the machine and opened it up. A cascade of ice cream mix and maggots came pouring down."

If that's not bad enough, lots of Redditors have experienced food safety issues at a Sonic. "Welp might as well add the time I got a chili dog from Sonic and noticed a strange color on the side while looking at, only to pick it up and reveal that the entire underside of the bun was covered in blue mold," said u/GDMFusername.

"So many Sonic comments. Makes me sad cuz I did used to like their food. Now I’m scared." Same, u/thePOVofExisting. Big same. 

Related: Sonic's Revived Slush May Leave a Sour Taste in Your Mouth

The lure of deep-fried seafood is not enough to pull a lot of Redditors into Long John Silver's. "Never drove past a long John silvers and said to myself I gotta try them out," said u/Buffalo_rider01, in a comment that has over 1,000 upvotes.

"LJ’s was pretty damn good back in the day, but it’s absolute trash now. They used to give you huge pieces of fresh hand battered fish they made right there in the store," said u/BigAl265. "Of course, ... their bean counters started cutting corners to maximize profits, and now everything is premade frozen garbage right out of a bag."

Perhaps it's not surprising then that Long John Silver's is one of the fast food restaurants that Redditors think should go out of business.

Though it's a giant — and therefor seemingly popular — chain, many Redditors avoid Burger King like the plague. "Every year or two I give Burger King another chance and I always regret it," said one Redditor in a comment with over 1,000 upvotes. "Can't imagine ever going back."

"I recently re-tried the BK Italian classic chicken sandwich," recounted u/NecroJoe. "It has the roll/bun, fried chicken, marinara. Swiss cheese ... and somehow all had the unified texture of mashed potato. Every bite was just homogenous mush."

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Footlongs at Subway are not going to win over the hearts of Redditors. "It's all just awful and I have a proper sandwich shop the same distance in the other direction," said u/Jonny2284.

"[Subway] used to be decent in the 90s and early 2000 to maybe 2005.. then went downhill quick," said u/Aggressive-Start-515. "Haven't eaten there in over 18 years and will never go back."

Related: Subway Ditches Employees and Dining In for Vending Machines

Redditors are not fans of the other big sub chain, Jimmy John's, either. One commenter, u/FandomDolphinDev, gave them up "ever since they stopped giving you like any meat. 8 DOLLARS FOR A BREAD 'SANDWICH' c’mon guys!" 

Many others are angry that shrinkflation hit the potato chip bags, which are only two ounces now instead of three. "What's next?," asks u/MoogProg. "Charging for smells?"