Guy Fieri Circle K Menu Review: Better Than Average Gas Station Food

Celebrity chefs don't typically team up with gas stations, but then again, Guy Fieri has never been like most celebrity chefs. With his distinctive bleached hair, tattoos, and love of comfort food and homestyle cooking, he's always stood out from the rest. Now, he's working to bring "Flavortown," to everyone across the U.S. through a partnership with Circle K.

Currently, the partnership includes 11 breakfast, lunch/dinner, and snack items, and is available in 10 states: Alaska, Idaho, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Since I'm firmly based in Minnesota, I took up the challenge of testing each product.

Full disclaimer: It took trips to nearly half a dozen different locations before I found all the items, and many of them weren't available hot. For my taste test, I ended up using my air fryer for most items, as the microwave was making things mushy. As a result, your experience with the texture of some items could be a little different than mine.

I'm from Minnesota, home of the Juicy Lucy, so I love a good burger. Unfortunately, whatever was going on with this Cheeseburger Burrito was ... not that.

The description for the burger reads, "Flour tortilla filled with diced beef burger, cheddar cheese, pickles, and fries." To be fair, it did taste like someone had wrapped a burger and fries in a burrito, just not a good burger. The texture was the first thing that threw me off; the meat managed to be dry while the fries were soggy. Additionally, including the fries inside the burrito just threw the whole thing off. I'm a big fan of carbs, but in this case, it felt like the carbs overwhelmed the more flavorful aspects of the burger.

There was also a sort of strange, artificial taste, like what you get when eating a fast-food burger as opposed to a sit-down restaurant burger. It didn't feel even, either, like I couldn't get a bite with a good balance of the cheese, meat, and pickles. While it wasn't nauseatingly bad, I definitely wouldn't buy it again. That being said, it did have one thing going for it: the burrito was HUGE.

I knew I was going to have an issue with the Mac n Cheese Burger before I even opened it, because I could tell it was ginormous. Taking a bite into the "beef burger with bacon mac & cheese and jalapeno American cheese" took effort and kind of hurt my jaw. It was also messy, with noodles falling out all over the place. I can't imagine trying to eat that while driving, which tends to be the point of gas station food.

Aside from the impracticality of the burger, it had a few other options. Now I love a good mac n cheese, but I'm never a big fan of adding it to things like burgers and pizza. It's the same issue that the cheeseburger burrito had: too many carbs. That's the major downfall of this mac n cheese burger. The bun and noodles overwhelm everything else, and I couldn't taste the bacon or jalapeno at all, and could barely taste the burger. While something with bacon and jalapeno shouldn't be bland, this definitely was. Personally, I think using a thinner bun or cutting out the noodles entirely would have made this a much better option.

I was apprehensive about the All-American Breakfast Burrito, which has "Scrambled eggs with bacon, sausage, ham, potatoes, cheese, pancake, and syrup in a flour tortilla," for two reasons. One, because I'd just had the disastrous taste test with the cheeseburger burrito. Two, I'm not really a syrup girly. I love my sweets, but maple syrup has never been my favorite; I usually find it overly sweet.

So I was surprised when I bit into this burrito and didn't hate it. The sweetness of the syrup is definitely there, but isn't as overwhelming as I thought it would be, and balances well with the savory flavors of the eggs, meat, and cheese. And while I usually don't like the carbs-on-carbs thing, I didn't mind the bits of pancake and potatoes in the burrito. They were small enough and scattered enough throughout the mixture that they didn't overwhelm or take away from the other flavors. If I had my way, I could probably do without the potatoes and pancake, and I'd reduce the sweetness of the maple syrup just a bit, but overall, this was a decent breakfast option.

At first glance, the Chicken Fajita Sausage is completely unappetizing. I'm not sure if this is because it's sausage in the shape of a hot dog or because, you know, it's gas station food and was sitting in the warmer for god knows how long. The skin is dark and wrinkled but tight, like someone did a poor job of vacuum sealing. My first bite, I had trouble getting past how tough the skin was.

But thankfully, I pressed on and took another, which is when I got a better idea of the flavors. The initial taste comes from the savoriness of the cheese and sausage, followed by a deep smokey flavor. After that, while the sausage didn't taste particularly spicy before I swallowed, I could feel the capsaicin lingering on my tongue. Overall, the flavors meshed together pretty well, although the smokiness was a little overpowering at times. It definitely helped enhance the other flavors, but maybe a little less would have balanced things out better.

Despite that pretty decent flavor, I still had a hard time getting over the texture. While the inside of the sausage seemed pretty moist, the toughness of the outside combined with the gas station hot dog bun made each bite feel like it was stuck in my throat a little bit.

If you don't know what a Denver omelet is, the short answer is it's an omelet made with ham, onions, bell peppers, and cheese. It's not my usual breakfast order, so I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about this sandwich.

My first thought when opening up the sandwich was "wow, that's a lot of cheese." The description said, "Cheddar bun sandwich with egg, ham, and cheese," but it vastly underestimated the amount of cheese in this thing. The egg and ham are sandwiched between melty cheddar cheese on both sides, as well as a bun sprinkled with cheddar. I took a bite and it was indeed very cheesy, but otherwise, a little on the bland side. The wrapper's ingredients list shows peppers in the egg, and I could definitely see them, but couldn't really taste them. The predominant flavor was really just cheese and a little egg.

Now, hey, I have nothing against cheese. I'm in the Midwest; cheese is practically its own food group here. But in this case, it was just a little too much and made the sandwich taste unbalanced. While it wasn't bad by any means, I would have liked to see a little less cheese and a little more flavor in the eggs.

While the origin of churros is messy and hotly debated, one thing is clear: people love churros. A typical churro is fried dough usually rolled in cinnamon sugar. Guy Fieri's Churro Crunch Roll for Circle K is a little different. It's a "filled tortilla pastry with cream cheese and caramel sauce."

To start, it doesn't really look like a churro, but more like an egg roll. It smelled amazing, though, and since I love sweet treats, I was excited to dig in. My first thought was that it reminded me a lot of cinnamon rolls, specifically the kind they make at Cinnabon. My second thought was "holy crap, there's a lot of filling in this thing." That's the downfall of the churro crunch roll. The caramel-cream cheese filling is good, but it's pretty intense. It doesn't totally overpower the cinnamon sugar, but by bite two, it was too sweet for my taste. I ended up squeezing out some of the filling before eating more.

That said, the crunch roll probably had the best texture of everything I tried (although that could have been due to the air fryer, who knows). The outside was crispy and flaky, and the filling was smooth, not too thin and not too thick.

Minnesota hot dish, particularly tater tot hot dish, is iconic, but I've never personally been a fan of tater tots. And despite calling them Jalapeño Potato Nuggets, that's basically what these are. They're tater tots with jalapeño and cheese, and while they're not bad, they're not great either.

My biggest issue was texture with these. I tried heating them in the microwave first, and that was a terrible idea, as they turned out mushy and soggy. After that, I popped them in the air fryer, which was a much better choice. This made the outside delightfully crispy, but the center of the potato nuggets still seemed a little rubbery, like the potato hadn't cooked all the way through.

Aside from that, though, I enjoyed the flavor. It's got the cheesy potato mix with just a little kick of spice. My only complaint is that I wish they were a little bit saltier; even though I'm not a big tater tot person, I do like the salty, crunchy outside. And while the outer shell was crunchy (after a trip to the air fryer), I could have used a little more salt to make it pop. I will add that this seems to be the best option for people on the go; the little cup would fit nicely into the cup holder of a vehicle, you can pop one in your mouth while driving, and they aren't particularly messy.

The Chicken Royal with Swiss and Jalapeño is a "crispy breaded chicken sandwich with ham, cheese, and jalapeño on a Hawaiian bun." My first bite made me instantly think of chicken cordon blue. For those who don't know, chicken cordon bleu is breaded chicken stuffed with ham and Swiss, and that's exactly what this sandwich tasted like.

The second bite was even better, because I got a little jalapeno in it this time. This was a definite improvement because without the jalapeno, the sandwich was just a little bit bland, and maybe even a bit too sweet with the Hawaiian bun. The jalapeño added the perfect kick to balance it out a little bit. My biggest complaint is that my sandwich only had four small jalapeño pieces on it. While I don't think it necessarily needs to be spicier, it would be nice if the spice could be more evenly spread throughout the sandwich, maybe with some type of spread or by incorporating the peppers into the cheese. All in all, though, it was a decent sandwich, and if you're a fan of chicken cordon bleu, you'll probably be a fan of this too.

This was the very first item on the menu I taste tested, which influenced how I tested these products going forward. The first thing I noticed when unwrapping the sandwich was the smell. It smelled less like a standard fried chicken sandwich and more like I'd just walked into a breakfast buffet. That is, it smelled like maple syrup. The product description reads, "Spicy breaded chicken sandwich with jalapeno American cheese," but makes no mention of where the sweetness comes from (turns out it's the waffle).

The next thing I noticed was the texture. While I prefer my waffles to be a little crispy, this poor thing was a soggy mess. That didn't translate well when I took my first bite; it was thick and kind of mushy. It was at this point that I gave up on the microwave and hauled out the air fryer.

That all being said, the taste was pretty exceptional. As I've mentioned, I'm usually not big on maple syrup, but the sweetness in the waffle was balanced nicely with the spices from the cheese. While the chicken itself was fine, it was definitely elevated by the surrounding flavors. I could definitely see myself grabbing one of these for an on-the-go breakfast. I'm not the only one, either, since these were the only refrigerated items completely sold out at the first two locations I went to.

I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about the Roasted Poblano Chicken Flavor Roll, which the package describes as, "tortilla pastry roll filled with chicken, poblano pepper strips, and cream cheese."

It looked appetizing enough, although I never would have guessed it was a pastry roll, since it looked more like an egg roll. I was really impressed with my first bite, however. Although not listed in the description, there's clearly some sort of taco-like seasoning mixed in with the chicken. Even in bites that didn't include poblano peppers, you could still clearly taste some spice. The cream cheese gives the chicken a nice texture, but you don't really taste it, which I think works in the roll's favor. The pastry portion itself tastes a little like a Pillsbury crescent roll, but otherwise doesn't add much to the taste department. In this situation, it works, creating a way to encompass the chicken mix without hijacking the flavor.

If you're a fan of peppers, you might be a little disappointed with this roll, because I didn't notice a lot of peppers in it. Personally, I didn't mind, and the roasted poblano chicken flavor roll was one of the only items I actually wanted to finish, despite having more taste tests to run.

The Chaos Cookie was the menu item I was most looking forward to (I like my treats, okay?) and it didn't disappoint. The cookie, described as "a wild mix of candy pieces, chocolate chips, potato chips, peanut butter chips, pecans and pretzels," is pretty delicious. It has a solid cookie base that tastes good even if there's nothing in it. That being said, though, it's chock full of fun stuff.

The different elements blend together quite nicely. Admittedly, I didn't really notice the chips or pretzels as they didn't have a distinct flavor or crunch, but I'm guessing their saltiness helped elevate the peanut butter and chocolate flavors. The peanut butter wasn't overpowering, the way peanut butter can sometimes be, and instead left a lingering flavor even if there were no peanut butter chips in the bite.

The mix of different elements also led to a slightly different taste each bite, and none were bad. It made for a fun eating experience. The cookie was a decent size, too, so although it was pretty delicious, I don't think I could eat more than one at a time. That said, I might go back and pick up another soon.

Going into this, I wasn't sure what to expect. On the one hand, Guy Fieri is known for fun, tasty food. On the other hand, it's still gas station food. I tried to keep an open mind as I sampled the various menu items, and admittedly, some of the results of my taste test really surprised me.

There were only two items that I really disliked, a few that I really enjoyed, and several that I felt were okay but not great. I had to remind myself several times that it's gas station food, not restaurant food, so there's not generally a very high bar for quality. That being said, as far as gas station food goes, Guy Fieri does raise the bar a bit here. If you're on a long commute or taking a road trip, his Flavortown items with Circle K are probably some of the best gas station options you're going to find.