Image via Complex Original
Today, we have a bounty of creative fast food to chose from. But believe it or not, there was a time when the value menu didn't exist, and people didn't look forward to holiday seasons, not for gifts from relatives, but for releases of awesome, limited-run fast food items. Be grateful you never had to endure that kind of austerity.
There have been dozens of fast food innovations in the past decade alone, making it a difficult task to narrow down the 25 greatest fast food innovations of all time. These genius creations, though, are in a league of their own. They forced consumers and competing companies to abandon their preconceived notions about meals on the quick and cheap. Once these innovations changed the game, there was no going back.
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25. Cheesy Gordita Crunch
Chain: Taco Bell
Introduced: 2000
The advent of the Cheesy Gordita Crunch imparted some valuable insight to the people at Taco Bell: Americans really, really like food with cheese on it. There's no such thing as "enough cheese." In the wake of this, a simple hard taco would no longer suffice anymore; it needed to be smothered in cheese, and adorned with a chewy, soft flatbread.
24. Crazy Bread
Chain: Little Caesars
Introduced: 1979
All pizza joints have bread sticks in some form or another. But the Crazy Bread is uniquely Little Caesars, the underdog pizza chain started in Michigan in 1959. The chain may fall behind Domino's, Pizza Hut and Papa John's in terms of size, but that doesn't mean the chain falls behind when it comes to flavor. These garlicky bread sticks (combined with a bargain price and a wicked ad campaign) are aces. Stick to P'Zones, Pizza Hut.
23. Sweet Potato Fries
Chain: White Castle
Introduced: 2008
Some chains do fries so well, you wouldn't ever dream of changing them. This forces other chains have to get creative, because they're not going to beat McDonald's or Nathan's at their own game. (Fast Food Truth: Recognize your lane, then do everything humanly possible within that lane to explode the hearts and minds of your patrons.)
White Castle dominates mini-burgers, but the fry game was never worth a damn. Then they said fuck regular potatoes and switched to the creamy orange sweet potato. Whoa. #RESPECT
22. Shamrock Shake
Chain: McDonald's
Introduced: 1970
McDonald's is king of the limited-edition menu. They work the country into a frenzy over items that appear once or a few times a year. The Shamrock Shake comes out to tempt patrons in March, for St. Patrick's Day. What does a Shamrock Shake taste like? No one knows. It's not really mint, but it's far more than vanilla. What secrets are contained within the green dye that paints the treat? Presumably the dessert's former mascot, Uncle O'Grimacey, knows, but McDonald's gave him the boot during the '80s, and he took the secret to his Irish cartoon grave.
Mix it with Baileys for a gut-blasting time.
21. Dippin' Dots
Chain: Dippin' Dots
Introduced: 1988
It feels wrong to eat Dippin' Dots out of anything other than a miniature baseball helmet. The "Ice Cream of the Future" stands alone in the miniature ball-shaped ice cream market, and its unique texture adds a fun element to eating the treat (as if eating ice cream wasn't fun enough as it is).
20. Pumpkin Spice Latte
Chain: Starbucks
Introduced: 2003
The Pumpkin Spice Latte from the most dominant coffee chain in the world is one of the few limited-run items that can challenge the McDonald's McRib for fan-base fervor. The fans for this sweet seasonal drink are so dedicated, they grew irate over initial reports of a shortage of ingredients. The drink is pretty damn good, nice on a fall day, but still—first world problems, right?
19. Baconator
Chain: Wendy's
Introduced: 2007
The Baconator is the quintessential "no fucks given" type of burger: two beef patties, six strips of bacon. It bears repeating: Six. Strips. Of bacon.
You can't eat a Baconator and worry that everyone around will judge you for being a pig. Fact: You're eating too much pig to be mistaken for one. You're a meat hero.
In 2009, Wendy's changed even the Baconator game by allowing customers to get the signature six strips on singles, doubles, or triples. Choose the bar for you, and then crush it.
18. McFlurry
Chain: McDonald's
Introduced: 1997
It's not quite a sundae, and it's not quite a shake; instead, it mixes the best of both world's. Soft serve blended with candy that doesn't turn out to be a soupy mistake, praise Mickey D's. You might not go to McDonald's just to order a cone, but a McFlurry? Game changed.
There are rumors that some franchises will blend an apple pie into a McFlurry for you, but they stand unconfirmed.
17. Double Down
Chain: KFC
Introduced: 2010
Buns have held back the sandwich game for too long. They get in the way of what the people really want: more fried animal. Thus, the brilliance of KFC's creation— two pieces of fried chicken instead of bread—originally announced on April Fool's Day. Jokes, KFC—we see you.
Of course, adding bacon to the equation is pure genius. The sandwich could use more bacon, actually, but at the end of the day the Double Down is more of a conceptual artwork.
16. Crunchwrap Supreme
Chain: Taco Bell
Introduced: 2005
The Crunchwrap Supreme, a sort of burrito folded fat and flat like a spy's dossier, is all about portability. It also kicked off Taco Bell's obsession with grilling everything on the menu. Originally a limited-edition item, the Crunchwrap Supreme went viral on taste buds across America to become part of the regular menu. Now you can order a taco inside of a Mexican pizza inside of a burrito whenever you want.
15. Popcorn Chicken
Chain: KFC
Introduced: 1991
In the early '90s, Kentucky Fried Chicken re-branded as KFC and gave the United States precisely what it needed: a faster, simpler way to eat fried chicken. You couldn't really eat the Colonel's chicken on the go before, with all of those leftover leg, thigh, and wing bones. Popcorn Chicken is fried chicken for the hungry person traveling the land in their automobile. In fact, Popcorn Chicken is America.
14. Sonic Drink Combos
Chain: Sonic Drive-In
Introduced: 1953
Is there a bigger tease in fast food than Sonic? Its commercials advertise all over the country, but their locations seem few and far between. The adventure to find one, though, is totally worth it, especially for their mix-in sodas. The chain claims that there are “more than 168,000 drink combinations” possible. If you suffer from paralysis of choice, opt for the Cherry Limeade. It'll have you experimenting at soda fountains for the rest of your life, trying to get the proportions correct.
13. Blizzard
Chain: Dairy Queen
Introduced: 1985
The McFlurry, while delicious, can't stack up to Dairy Queen's Blizzard—it did it first, it did it best. All ice cream treats measure up against—and pale in comparison to—the DQ Blizzard. It's essentially smooth, whipped ice cream doing impressions of candies, pies, cakes, and cookies, and damn fine ones at that. If Dairy Queen had ice cream trucks drive around in the summer selling Blizzards to kids everywhere, they would monopolize the market. #COLDGAME
12. Doritos Locos Taco
Chain: Taco Bell
Introduced: 2012
The champ is here. Indeed, the Doritos Locos Taco is Taco Bell's most popular product of all time, with sales of 100 million in 10 weeks alone. And its future looks even brighter with rumors of a Cool Ranch Locos Taco. You know you have a top-notch product on your hands when it rose above the Crunchwrap Supreme, which previously held the title of Taco Bell's most-sold item. When it came to challenging to the (former) champ, the Locos Taco took Omar Little's words to heart: When you come at the king, you best not miss.
11. Munchkins
Chain: Dunkin' Donuts
Introduced: 1972
Dunkin' Donuts Munchkins are addictive, no doubt about it. You start off eating two or three small donuts, and before you know it, the entire box is gone, along with a little bit of your dignity. The Munchkin addicts of the world need their own help group—Munchkins Anonymous.
Dunkin' Donuts sells 1.9 billion donuts and Munchkins every year, which goes to show that people love their unconventionally-shaped baked goods.
10. Frosty
Chain: Wendy's
Introduced: 1969
Every fast food milkshake wishes it was a Wendy's Frosty. As with most goodness from the chain, founder Dave Thomas deserves the credit. He realized that a 100% chocolate shake would be too intense when paired with a burger and fries, so he developed the Frosty, a subtle blend of chocolate and vanilla. It's not too heavy, and is especially excellent when smeared on fries.
The vanilla variation was placed on the menu full-time in 2006, but the original will forever hold a special place in our hearts.
9. Big Mac
Chain: McDonald's
Introduced: 1967 (in Pittsburgh), 1968 (nationwide)
It's the first thing you think of when you hear the name "McDonald's." The Big Mac has become a pop culture icon, and if we learned anything from Pulp Fiction, it's that Europe also respects the sandwich. And yes, it does technically count as an innovation; the first McDonald's opened in 1940, but the Big Mac wasn't introduced nationwide until 1968 (and not a moment too soon). All other fast food burgers live in the Big Mac's shadow.
8. Double-Double
Chain: In-N-Out
Introduced: 1965
Burger aficionados on the East Coast may never be graced by the glory that is an In-N-Out burger (though to be fair, what the East Coast lacks in In-N-Out, they make up for in Shake Shack). The Double-Double is part of In-N-Out's "secret menu," but even they acknowledge that it's not exactly well-kept. With a burger that good, it's hard to keep it under wraps.
The East hears rumors and stories about the life-changing experience of trying In-N-Out for the first time, but never get a chance to try it for themselves. It's well worth the trip out to the West. The only problem is thinking up some excuse to fly out there, so it doesn't seem like you're taking a trip just to try a burger.
7. McRib
Chain: McDonald's
Introduced: 1982
The McRib's penchant for vanishing for long stretches and suddenly reappearing has created a cult following that's unique among fast food item in the U.S. McDonald's representatives have said that the product doesn't sell well enough to stay on the menu year-round, but the existence of a website and smartphone app dedicated to tracking McRib sightings indicates what the numbers may not: that the people love their McRibs.
6. Meat Lover's Pizza
Chain: Pizza Hut
Introduced: 1988
The Meat Lover's Pizza came from the mind of fast-food pioneer Tom Ryan. The brilliance behind this creation is its simplicity. In retrospect, it seems so obvious that a pizza topped with nearly every meat known to mankind would be a smash. Ideas like this are often imitated, but never duplicated. They can try to create a Meat Lover's facsimile, but it's hard to compete against decades of recipe perfection.
5. McGriddle
Chain: McDonald's
Introduced: 2003
Bacon (or sausage) and eggs on maple syrup-infused pancake buns. Mom always said to eat a balanced breakfast, and there's nothing more balanced than an entire meal that fits in your hand. And does anybody really care about the calorie content? Seriously, if you're using pancakes to hold together your breakfast sandwich, you don't give a shit about calories. And we salute you.
4. $5 Footlong
Chain: Subway
Introduced: 2008
Cost should never be a hindrance in buying fast food. Nobody wants to bring financials into the debate of whether or not to buy fast food (self-respect, on the other hand, is another issue entirely). With their $5 footlong promotion, Subway demonstrated a real understanding of this. Seriously, two meals for only $5? Passing on that deal is almost like losing money.
3. Big Gulp
Chain: 7-Eleven
Introduced: 1980
What a relief that the Big Gulp escaped Mayor Bloombeg's banhammer on large, sugary drinks. Big Gulp is the poster boy for comically-large soft drinks, and it's popularity is to the point where 7-Eleven markets itself as the "Home of the Big Gulp." It's the drink size that swallowed an entire convenience store. But perhaps its biggest claim to fame is one of the funnier instances of product placement in cinema history.
2. Stuffed Crust Pizza
Chain: Pizza Hut
Introduced: 1995
Another brainchild of fast-food savant Tom Ryan, the stuffed crust pizza addressed the American people's desire for both a cheesier pizza and their distaste for crust. According to Ryan, it took Pizza Hut a year-and-a-half to perfect the science behind the product, but it's evident that the hard work paid off. Once you try it, you can't go back to eating plain crust, like some kind of pizza peasant.
1. Value Menu
Chain: Arby's, Burger King, McDonald's, Taco Bell, Wendy's
Introduced: Wendy's, 1989
If the value menu was never invented, Sarah McLachlan would be singing sad songs over PSAs for hungry college students everywhere. When you talk about ideas that truly changed the fast food game, you have to start with the value menu, first introduced by Wendy's at the end of the '80s; it forced the major chains to introduce similar menus, marking down select items for binging on a budget. We wouldn't have the McDonald's Dollar Menu if Wendy's hadn't fired the first shot.
All fast food chains who carry this brilliant innovation should be commended for their public service.