Beloved Fast Food Menu Items That Were Saved By The Internet

Taco Bell's Mexican Pizza has long been one of the most unique and tasty items the fast food chain has to offer. It had been on the menu since 1985, so fans of the item were shocked and confused when Taco Bell discontinued it in 2020. Taco Bell's CEO Mark King told Fortune that the company decided to remove Mexican Pizza to help streamline the menu during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The company only wanted items on the menu that employees could make quickly, and Mexican Pizzas take more time to prepare than other items like burritos and tacos.

Mexican Pizza fans took to the internet in protest. While many Change.org petitions to revive discontinued food items only receive hundreds or maybe a thousand signatures, the one to bring back Mexican Pizzas received well over 171,000 signatures. Taco Bell listened and brought the Mexican Pizza back in early 2022 to everyone's delight. Only, it underestimated how many people would flock to buy one or several of these Mexican Pizzas. The chain sold out of a six-month supply of pizza ingredients in just a handful of weeks. Once the chain had everything it needed to make more pizzas, it promised to never take Mexican Pizza off the menu again. Fans rejoiced, and Taco Bell thanked them for loving Mexican Pizzas enough to use the internet to get them back.

Taco Bell first added the enchilada-like Enchirito to its menu in 1970. The cheesy item had a 43-year run before disappearing in 2013. Fans had not forgotten it, though. After they demanded and then won the return of the Mexican Pizza in 2022, Taco Bell decided it would turn to fans again to decide what to bring back to its menu. Fans had already expressed an interest in wanting the Enchirito back in online petitions and social media forums. Thus, Taco Bell included it when it held a "smackdown" via its app for customers to vote on which long-lost menu item would come back from the dead. The two discontinued menu items up for a vote were the Double Decker Taco and the Enchirito. The Double Decker was a throwback to 1995, and it had returned to the menu once before between 2006 and 2019.

Ultimately, the Enchirito won the bid to return to the Taco Bell menu, with 62% of app voters saying they would prefer it to the Double Decker Taco (per Today). Unfortunately, when Taco Bell brought back the Enchirito in November 2022, it was only for a short time. Despite the Enchirito being the survey winner, the chain had no intention of keeping it on the menu full-time. Instead, Taco Bell decided to trot it out occasionally to get fans to flock back to Taco Bell after a hiatus.

For customers who are craving something sweet rather than savory for breakfast, most fast food places don't have a lot of choices. Burger King has more sweet breakfast menu items than most of its competitors, with French toast sticks and pancakes. Customers fondly remembered that, once upon a time in the 1990s, they'd been able to get small cinnamon rolls called Cini Minis at Burger King. Cini Minis were actually a Pillsbury product, but BK employees baked fresh batches for customers every day. After Brett Pickett witnessed an online petition help bring Chicken Fries back to Burger King, he decided to create his own petition on Change.org to get Cini Minis back. He wrote, "Chicken fries aren't even worth the hype (nor price); I demand they bring Cini-Minis back so I can once again enjoy the sweet miniature cinnamon rolls of goodness."

Pickett's online petition got Burger King's attention when it ended up with over 5,200 signatures. So, in 2018, the chain brought back its Cini Minis for a limited time. Grub Hub even had a special deal that allowed people ordering at least $10 worth of food from Burger King on its app to get a free box of Cini Minis. Unfortunately, the Cini Minis comeback was just temporary. Burger King brought back the 1998 treat for only a very brief period of time. So far, they haven't returned. But one can hope!

The first run of the Beefy Crunch Burrito was only five months between December 2010 and May 2011, but it was enough to incite absolute chaos when it went away. Fans loved the Beefy Crunch Burrito at Taco Bell enough to name their efforts to get it back on the menu. The Beefy Crunch Movement has a presence on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram along with its very own website. People have shown their love for the burrito online by sharing everything from their Beefy Crunch Burrito tattoos to skydiving in an effort to get it back on the Taco Bell menu.

In April 2016, all the efforts from the Beefy Crunch Movement paid off, albeit briefly. Taco Bell wrote "An Open Letter to the Beefy Crunch Movement" to address the efforts, saying, "This triumphant return would not have been possible without the incredible and unrelenting passion of each and every one of the now 40,500+ members of the Beefy Crunch Movement." After its 2016 return, the Beefy Crunch Burrito made another appearance on the menu in 2018. In 2023, Taco Bell is letting fans vote on its app between the return of the Beefy Crunch Burrito and the Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Tacos. With so many people following the Beefy Crunch Movement (tens of thousands more than in the early days of the movement), it's hardly a contest.

The texture of McDonald's Chicken McNuggets sometimes makes us wonder if they're even made from chicken. While there are enough die-hard McNuggets fans to keep them on the menu forever, customers were thrilled when McDonald's introduced Chicken Selects, which are fried breast-meat chicken strips. Chicken strips are a popular alternative at many fast food restaurants for people not in the mood for a burger, so they were quite popular with McDonald's customers. Sadly, McDonald's decided to discontinue Chicken Selects in 2013. However, since then, there has been a constantly brewing conversation across social media platforms with people lamenting the loss of Chicken Selects and wishing McDonald's would offer them again.

In 2015, McDonald's decided to bring back its Chicken Selects. Unfortunately, even though McDonald's acknowledged via PRNewswire that it was adding chicken strips back on the menu because customers continued to demand it, the plan was never to keep them on the menu for long. Fans will continue to hold out hope and make internet posts about them until they're back for good.

Canadians have lost a lot of favorite foods from the U.S. in recent years, as shipping costs have made them less profitable to import. However, they didn't want to lose their beloved Wendy's vanilla Frosty without a fight. Customers have been dipping their fries in the Wendy's chocolate Frosty since it first showed up on the menu in 1969. As such, the vanilla Frosty is a relative newcomer, not debuting until 2006 Still, fans of the vanilla variety weren't at all pleased when it left the Canadian Wendy's menu in 2020. Fourteen years of enjoyment weren't enough. Canadian vanilla Frosty fans took to the internet to lament the loss of their beloved frozen treat everywhere from Reddit to Twitter.

Wendy's Canada didn't remove the frozen treat from its menu for long. It was back by 2021. The fans had spoken. Unfortunately, Wendy's decided to start switching up Frosty flavors in the U.S. as well. Fans of the vanilla Frosty in the U.S. panicked when strawberry and then peppermint Frosty treats replaced vanilla on the menu. However, Wendy's has assured Thrillist that the only reason vanilla occasionally disappears is that restaurants can only offer two flavors at a time. So, it seems vanilla is here to stay, and we shouldn't panic when it disappears from time to time.

For people looking for eat fewer carbs and trying to stay away from bread, KFC's Double Down was the perfect chicken sandwich. The "bun" was made from two pieces of fried chicken with a sandwich filling of bacon, cheese, and a choice of sauce. When KFC first offered it in 2010, it was a bigger success than KFC could have dreamed. Within a month, the chain had already sold 10 million Double Down sandwiches, and fans kept coming back for more. Sadly, it didn't stay on the menu, and fans took to the internet over the years to beg for its return.

The first time KFC brought back the Double Down was in 2014. In March 2023, KFC brought back its Double Down yet again. In a press release the chief marketing officer for KFC in the U.S. called the Double Down "one of the most buzzworthy fast food menu items ever." In announcing the Double Down's return he said, "After nearly a decade of people begging for its return, we're embracing the chaos, bringing back our most iconic sandwich ever for just four weeks." Fans hoped four weeks would be enough to convince KFC that they're still interested in buying the Double Down, but it was gone from the menu again by April as promised.