The Wendy's Breakfast Meal Reddit Is Appalled By
If Wendy's is your favorite fast-food restaurant, you're not alone. According to Brand Finance, the ubiquitous burger chain has already outperformed its 2021 metrics and is currently in ninth place among the top 25 restaurant chains across the globe. (That marks an increase from its position at No. 11 the previous year.) And one significant change Wendy's has made in the past few years is its attempt at entering the fast-food breakfast wars. While its rivals, such as McDonald's and Chick-fil-A, have long been known for breakfast, Wendy's has not. Wendy's found its niche by selling fresh, square-shaped beef burgers, fries, and the classic chocolate Frosty. But according to a September 2019 report from QSR, after a failed attempt to sell breakfast in the 1980s and 2012, Wendy's decided to get back into the breakfast game in March 2020, launching its new breakfast menu at all of its U.S. restaurant locations.
The previous attempt failed because Wendy's wasn't ready to scale breakfast to all of its locations, and it struggled to stand out, according to QSR. Therefore, with the new go-round, the fast-food chain provided unique breakfast menu items, including the Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit, the Frosty-ccino, and the Breakfast Baconator. It even increased its staff to support the expected influx of customers, hiring an additional 20,000 crew members across the United States, the magazine reported.
The new rebrand has proved to be a success — but there's one item on the Wendy's breakfast menu that has Reddit in an uproar.
Blame it on the cheese
After a couple of years of favor in the breakfast market, one Wendy's breakfast meal has Reddit users appalled. The culprit is the sausage, egg, and Swiss croissant meal, and the focus of the debate is the Swiss cheese. Instead of featuring a slice of Swiss cheese, as the name of the sandwich might imply, the sandwich comes with a Swiss cheese sauce. And its taste hasn't been well-received.
The original Reddit post stated, "Is the 'Swiss' on the breakfast sandwiches just a sauce? I had to wipe it off, and it's still nasty. Can't even eat this sandwich." From there, the thread was flooded with others sharing their disdain for the sauce. "Reminds me too much of mayo ... which is fine but not something I'd put on a breakfast sandwich," wrote one disappointed consumer. "I didn't know before ordering that it was a sauce at all. I assumed it was a sliced cheese like it should be," another commenter wrote.
The sauce even caused one Reddit user to opine that it reflected poorly on the whole menu, sharing, "It's the worst part of Wendy's breakfast. They should get rid of it. There are better 'sauce' options out there." It's not just the disappointing taste, either. Some found the smell disappointing, with one person stating, "It is a cheese sauce, and it is so unbelievably gross, it stinks too." But will the Swiss cheese sauce's stinky reputation overshadow Wendy's other, more well-received breakfast items?
The Swiss cheese sauce is an unpopular choice
Some may argue that the original Reddit poster who ordered the sausage, egg, and Swiss croissant sandwich just had a one-off experience, perhaps a mistake at their local Wendy's. But the Swiss cheese sauce seems to have found its way to other menu items as well, as another Reddit thread detailing experiences with the sauce explains. Or, as it is referred to in the thread's heading: "lumpy, tangy, and watery mother's milk."
"I still remember my first experience with the Baconator breakfast sandwich," wrote u/KennyFromNapa. "The day started with excitement for a new breakfast sandwich, and my hopes were quickly dashed after my first bite." The user went on to describe how they felt "defiled by the sandwich" — or more accurately, the cheese sauce that was spread on the sandwich. "They coulda warned a fella before slathering that all over their first meal of the day, I'm still shuddering," another person wrote. A self-identified Wendy's employee in the thread added that the smell of the cheese sauce was even worse.
But it seems that there are some people who like the cheese sauce — under certain conditions, at least. Some users explained that the cheese sauce gets a bad rap because it's supposedly not served at the correct temperature. The sauce is supposed to be warm and smooth, not "lumpy," which suggests that the customers who ordered breakfast sandwiches may have been served cold cheese sauce. That sounds unappetizing, to say the least.