Checkers Secret Menu Items And Hacks You Need To Try

If you love Checkers, you're already likely very well aware of this chain's decadent fast-food options. Whether you're craving something fried, covered in melty cheese, or topped with bacon, you can find it at Checkers... and, well, actually at Rally's, too. The two restaurants are extremely similar, thanks to Checkers' acquisition of Rally's in the late 1990s, but the decision to keep the Rally's name. Aside from the two different names, Checkers and Rally's share the same menus, same ingredients, same food distributors, same customer support center, et cetera. All that said, you can expect them to share the same secret menu items and hacks, too.

While some restaurants boast big secret menus that aren't-that-secret (looking at you, Shake Shack Animal-Style Fries), the Checkers (and Rally's) secret menu is a little more covert. It doesn't get as much attention — maybe because there aren't any secret menu items with risqué names? Whatever the case may be, these secret menu items and hacks get a lot of love from the people who actually try them, and even from the Checkers and Rally's teams. Here's what you need to know (and try).

Many great menu hacks and secret menu items require you to do a little extra work. For example, you order a McDonald's Land, Air & Sea and the restaurant will serve you a Big Mac, McChicken, and a Filet-O-Fish and, from there, you have to make the "secret menu" sandwich yourself — by sliding the fish patty onto the Big Mac's first burger bun and removing the top bun from the Big Mac, swapping it out for the McChicken's chicken patty, lettuce, mayo, and bun.

The concept is the same with Checkers' cheesecake funnel fries. You'll have to order the chain's funnel fries, plus a cheesecake sundae of your choice. Then, you have to gently scoop the layer of cheesecake off the top of the sundae, along with the other sundae toppings (the options are strawberry, fudge, or caramel), and place that on top of the funnel fries. The result is two ultra-tempting desserts combined into one culinary experience that channels all the childhood-favorite flavors of fair food.

Another Checkers menu hack that combines sweet and salty flavors and that's also oh-so-simple? The funnel cake fries combined with the famous seasoned fries. This food hack was introduced on the Checkers Facebook page, showing an employee dumping one order of seasoned fries into a Checkers paper bag, followed by one order of funnel cake fries, before rolling the bag closed and shake it to combine.

This is arguably one of the easier Checkers menu hacks to put together on your own, especially if you're going through the drive-thru and don't really want to start dumping out ice cream or mixing sauces in a moving vehicle. It's no mess and no fuss but gets the job done when you want a sweet-salty snack that's one-part seasoned potato and one-part fried dough covered in powdered sugar. Just make sure you don't order the loaded funnel cake fries by mistake; the upgraded funnel cake fries come topped with strawberries and whipped cream — not exactly suitable for tossing into a paper bag.

To recreate the Checkers-introduced bacon mozz dog (another product of the Checkers and Rally's TikTok feed), you'll need to order a chili dog with no onions and an order of mozzarella sticks (or, as Checkers calls them, "Monsterella" sticks), plus a side of bacon. Then, remove the hot dog from its bun and, in its place, add two mozzarella sticks, plus the bacon.

This particular menu hack can be a bit divisive, as the responses to this particular hack video showed. As one commenter pointed out, why get rid of the hot dog? Admittedly, it does make sense to keep the hot dog on the bun and then just add on the extra mozzarella sticks and bacon, for a new take on a chili-cheese-bacon dog, especially when you consider that losing the hot dog doesn't come with any benefits, like, for example, making the dish vegetarian. This might be a Checkers menu hack that needs a little individual tweaking, for the best results possible.

Checkers' burgers are known to be on the big side and the same can be said for the chain's fish sandwiches. These are definitely not your wimpy fast-food fish filets. The Deep Sea Double sandwich comes with not one, but two fish filets, combined with — what else? — the classic accompaniments of shredded lettuce, melty American cheese, and tartar sauce.

While the Deep Sea Double is pretty good on its own, fans say you can upgrade this sandwich with a little menu hack — by adding the angry buffalo sauce that's intended for the chicken wings to the sandwich's top fish filet. The sauce is just spicy enough to lend an otherwise pretty tame sandwich a little bit of a punch. While you're at it, consider using that angry buffalo sauce elsewhere, too, like on the fully loaded fries or the chili cheese fries, the latter of which comes topped with, of course, chili and cheese, and the former of which comes topped with cheese, ranch, and bacon crumbles.

You've got chicken bites with cheese sauce. You've got chicken tenders with cheese sauce. Now what about the chicken tenders with every single Checkers sauce? That's the combination that the Rally's and Checkers TikTok account presented.

To be clear, the video doesn't feature quite all 10 sauces that are available across the Checkers menu. However, it does feature all of the sauces that are intended to be served with the chicken tenders. As the TikTok video showed, a hand covers a box of tenders with original barbecue sauce, buffalo sauce, ranch, and honey mustard, and then closes the box and gives it a good shake, mixing it all up. If that doesn't seem like sensory overload to you, go ahead and request all 10 sauces and add them in for a truly unique concoction. The only caveat? If you're watching your sodium, maybe bypass adding the angry buffalo or Frank's Buffalo hot sauces, as both come in with more than 700 milligrams of sodium per serving — nearly half the American Heart Association's ideal daily limit for adults.

This is not your average chicken parmesan. On TikTok, Checkers introduced this menu hack that incorporates a few different sauces, as well as a base of a three-piece order of chicken tenders. In order to make the cowboy parm, add a side of cheese sauce onto the three-piece chicken tenders, then, throw on a side of marinara sauce, followed by a side of garlic parmesan sauce, and then you're done.

Some of the commenters on TikTok did throw in a few valid ways that this particular menu hack could be even upgraded further. One recommended swapping out the marinara with ranch. Another wondered why the saucy chicken strips weren't added to a bun — which is a good point. For Checkers' take on a chicken parm sub, you could easily keep the cowboy parm formula, but then slide it all on the abandoned hot dog bun from the bacon mozz dog hack above.