Limited Edition Fast Food Menu Items, From Worst To Best

In the last decade, it seems like the "limited time offering" wars between fast food restaurants have achieved staggering new levels of outrageousness. Every few weeks, a new product will be announced, offering previously unheard of (and infinitely Instagrammable) levels of drive-thru excess, from tacos made out of chicken, to overstuffed sandwiches piled high with four different kinds of meat, to nachos made out of french fries.  

The race among fast food companies to outdo each other with increasingly crazy limited time offerings has translated into big business. Since 2015, the number of limited-time menu items has increased 64 percent at Top 500 chain restaurants and retail operations. According to a report by Restaurant Business Online, fast food brands comb through thousands of ideas for new limited time offerings each year.

But for every new limited time offering that drives sales and social media buzz, there are others that are dismal failures. Join us, as we take a look at the history of limited edition fast food meals, ranked from worst to best.

You have to hand it to Burger King: On paper, deep-fried wads of macaroni and cheese doused in Cheeto dust and deep fried probably sounded like a great idea. But there have been few times in limited time offering fast food history when the gulf between "idea" and "finished product" has been so vast, and so disappointing. 

First introduced in 2016 and then resuscitated for a second limited run in 2017, Burger King's Mac n' Cheetos never quite caught fire. If we can all agree that macaroni and cheese is delicious, and that Cheetos are delicious, then what could possibly have gone so horribly wrong with these bright orange, Cheetos-shaped chunks of cheese overload?

While the flavor wasn't terrible, most of the issues probably boil down to the unsettling texture of the dish, especially if you were unlucky enough to score a batch that had been sitting under the warming lamp for more than a few seconds. The combination of already-mushy, overcooked macaroni and cheese with a less-than-crisp Cheetos exterior proved unpleasant for many testers. 

"These are bad. Very bad," said one taste tester at Business Insider. "There is no flavor, no crispiness, just a mushy center that vaguely resembles mac and cheese that's been run through a blender coated in something that looks like Cheetos and has also run through a blender."

In a pop culture product mashup that literally nobody asked for, the mad scientists at Taco Bell did the unthinkable in 2017. They added spicy Pop Rocks to a burrito. 

Dubbed the Firecracker Burrito, the product started the way most menu items do at Taco Bell, with seasoned ground beef, rice, nacho cheese, crunchy tortilla strips, and reduced fat sour cream wrapped in a flour tortilla. But then. BUT THEN! Customers were urged to sprinkle the included packet of "cayenne popping crystals" into the mix, resulting in a burrito that literally exploded in your mouth when you ate it.

Though Taco Bell never referred to their secret add-on ingredient by name, the popping crystals are a clear relative of Pop Rocks, the carbon infused-popping candy that you probably haven't had since you were in the sixth grade.

It may have been gimmicky, but was it any good? The popping crystals added an interesting texture to the usual mishmash of sorta-Mexican ingredients Taco Bell uses in all of its food, and lent a sweet and spicy contrast. But you had to be careful in how you applied the popping crystals; eat too many at once and the burrito became overwhelmingly sweet, plus all of that popping tended to wreak havoc on your sinuses.

In April 2010, KFC announced a sandwich that would escalate the drive thru stunt-food wars to previously unheard of levels: The Double Down, a bunless fried chicken sandwich with bacon, white American cheese, a squeeze of Colonel's Sauce, and two boneless Original Recipe filets in place of buns. 

The outcry from the Internet was swift; PETA was quick to brand the new chicken-sandwich-made-of-chicken the "vilest food product created by man," citing the sandwich's "quadruple cruelty" to animals. Legendary New York Times food reviewer Sam Sifton called the Double Down "a slimy and unnaturally moist thing, with flavor ginned up in a lab," and "a disgusting meal, a must-to-avoid." And a reviewer for Cracked found the sandwich to be "crisp, mildly tangy, a little messy and a harbinger of a blood soaked world of unrelenting pain... two stars."

Whether you admire the risk KFC took in bringing this offering to the masses, or regard it as an indicator of everything that's wrong with the fast food landscape in America, you have to hand it to the Double Down: It got us talking.

It seems like Starbucks discovered the raw power of Instagram marketing back in 2017, creating a viral sensation with their photogenic Unicorn Frappuccino. According to a Starbucks news release (via The Washington Post), it was "made with a sweet dusting of pink powder blended into a crème Frappuccino with mango syrup, and layered with a pleasantly sour blue powder topping," and the drink changed from sweet to sour as you drank it, the colors swirling together in streams of blue and purple with each stir. 

But it wasn't the absurd amounts of sugar and calories, or the unique taste of the drink (which one reviewer described as a mixture of "sour birthday cake and Instagram likes" and "a creamsicle dredged in Pixy Stix") that made it so notable. Instead, it's how Starbucks was able to leverage social media to explode images of the beverages onto everyone's phones nearly simultaneously. During the five day window of availability, there were nearly 155,000 Unicorn Frappuccino posts on Instagram, turning ordinary Starbucks customers into an unwitting marketing army.

We can't celebrate the annual rollout of the Shamrock Shake for what it is, because nobody knows what it is. Okay, that's not exactly true; McDonald's describes the unique green milkshake that's released each year to coincide with St. Patrick's Day as "creamy, dreamy vanilla soft serve blended with Shamrock Shake syrup and topped with delicious whipped topping." Helpful, sort of, but what exactly is the flavor of "Shamrock Syrup"?

Though "mint" seems to be one of the flavors, there's so much more going on inside a Shamrock Shake. It's almost overwhelmingly sweet, in that vague, creamy, cookie butter-y sort of way, with peppermint notes that are more like what you'd find in those butter mints sitting in a glass dish in the waiting area of a low-rent Chinese restaurant. The subtle mint flavor allows the creaminess of the vanilla base to shine through, resulting in a home run limited time offering for McDonald's; the chain has been serving its signature shake just one month a year for nearly 50 years.

Taco Bell Nacho Fries were seemingly EVERYWHERE in 2018, following a big marketing push from the chain to insert "cheese fries" into the national consciousness. A single dollar got you a container of the new seasoned fries, with a sidecar of nacho cheese sauce. There was also a "Supreme" version of the french fries, which added seasoned ground beef, diced tomatoes, and the chain's ever-present reduced fat sour cream for $2.49, and a "Bell Grande" version for just $3.49. 

The fries themselves weren't anything Earth-shattering, and pretty similar to seasoned fries at other chains. It hardly mattered, though; once you poured on the included cheese sauce and a few dozen packets of Fire sauce, and Nacho Fries became an almost ridiculously inexpensive, mildly embarrassing, totally satisfying way to get all of Taco Bell's craving-inducing flavors into your empty stomach for just a buck.

Nacho Fries reappeared in 2019, only to be taken off the menu again early in the year. But fear not; Taco Bell seems to think it has a winner on its hands with this limited time offering, and we have a feeling we'll continue to see it trotted out on a regular basis.

Introduced in 1982, the somehow boneless McRib sandwich wasn't a huge sales leader for McDonald's. As sales suffered, the sandwich was retired in 1985. It made limited reappearances throughout the 1990s, and each time, rumors would abound. Rumors that it was made of kangaroo meat. That it was only introduced seasonally, during the heady boom times of a pork surplus. But everyone could agree that it just wasn't very good.

Then, something brilliant happened. McDonald's encouraged the cultlike mystery of its sandwich to take root. It was very upfront about the fact that some people simply wouldn't like it. And with each limited time reintroduction, the marketing got a little smarter. The last time it was "officially retired", there was a "farewell tour" so that everyone could say goodbye.

Fast forward to today, and after 40 years, the sandwich still gets released once or twice a year to much hype and fanfare. Love it or hate it, you have to admire that kind of long-term marketing strategy.