These Beloved Fast Food Chains Are Losing Their Edge In 2025, According To Customers

The success of a fast food chain often depends in equal parts on nostalgia and change. On one hand, a fair number of, say, McDonald's customers are perpetually chasing the taste of a Quarter Pounder from their youth. On the other hand, virtually all leading fast food companies continually keep their menus fresh with limited-time offerings or updated recipes, ensuring there's always a new reason to visit. Domino's even overhauled its pizza recipe entirely in the late 2010s and never looked back, permanently altering its flagship offering. Sometimes change is helpful, like in the case of Domino's. But, occasionally, a major change or series of changes at a fast food chain is so detrimental that the classic, nostalgic experience is pretty much lost.

In 2025 alone, more than a handful of beloved fast food chains have changed for the worse and started to lose their edge, according to online comments from customers. Isolating the most significant fast food chains declining in 2025 first meant identifying chains with a pronounced downturn, as opposed to a years-long, persistent lull. Furthermore, since the price of fast food is up across the board, complaints from customers needed to cite more than just higher prices. Based on those criteria, then, the following are all popular fast food chains that customers think have lost their edge.

Signs that Wendy's was struggling were apparent by the end of 2024, and plenty of customers started to notice those struggles affecting the quality of the Wendy's experience the following year. Pivotal to the chain's decline — and something that started to become evident in 2024 — has been a decrease in the quality of the food. Customers have noticed classic items like the Baconator and the Vanilla Frosty, among others, tasting worse than they remember.

Another common critique of Wendy's restaurants is that they're insufficiently staffed. Issues with understaffing recounted by customers in 2025 have included closed drive-thrus, odd hours, and an inefficient ordering system. One Reddit user posted about a series of Wendy's closures in their area, all roughly within the last year, and theorized this was ultimately the fault of the chain no longer delivering on the higher level of quality for which it was once known. "I don't know what the quality control at Wendy's is, but in my opinion, they need to start reigning in the franchises and really look at how the food is getting made," they wrote. "[Wendy's] has always been the more expensive fast food option versus McDonald's or Burger King, but for that price, you used to be guaranteed a certain quality. When the quality is gone, there's really no reason to go there instead of the cheaper option at McDonald's."

While the consensus among customers that Wendy's is struggling is a relatively new phenomenon, the decline of Pizza Hut has taken place on a considerably lengthier timeline. Pizza Hut was disappearing across the country in 2020, for example. Nevertheless, things have only gotten worse for the chain in 2025. In response to a post about a particularly low-quality stuffed-crust pizza, for example, a former Pizza Hut manager on Reddit claimed that the chain's dough, cheese, and sauce recipes all changed for the worse in or around 2025.

Perhaps even more notable to the Pizza Hut story, however, is the fact that the chain switched from in-house delivery drivers to partnerships with third-party delivery apps in 2025. Many customers are unhappy about this change, generally preferring the experience of dealing with a local Pizza Hut store employee over DoorDash or Uber Eats systems. Even former Pizza Hut employees are denouncing the chain and warning other potential customers away. "As a former Pizza Hut delivery driver, because they gave us two days' notice before they told us they were going 100% DoorDash, I agree," wrote a user on Reddit, in response to a critique of the new DoorDash system. 

Chipotle has always been a little divisive. For its proponents, items like the burrito bowl make for a fast, largely affordable, and relatively healthy lunch. But to the chain's critics, there are some secrets Chipotle doesn't want the public to know. Some of these suggest a business that doesn't always live up to its own ethos. As much as Chipotle has always faced criticism, some noteworthy changes to the company have negatively affected its 2025 trajectory in particular.

Emblematic of Chipotle's 2025 struggles, to the extent it inspired a dedicated Reddit thread, was a significant stock price drop in July. Near the end of 2024, Chipotle hired a new CEO, and some commenters blamed him for the chain's downturn. One analysis of his impact suggested that a purported push to increase Chipotle's volume of catering orders was energy best spent elsewhere. More impactful, this analysis suggested, would be increasing portion sizes. Portion sizes decreasing was, indeed, a complaint shared in numerous posts commenting on the stock price drop. "I was a near-daily Chipotle guy for 10 years," wrote one Reddit user. "Not only did the meat quality nosedive, but as others have mentioned, the portion size reduced by about 33%. I'm done with Chipotle."

Like Chipotle, Chick-fil-A elicits strong feelings, both from fans of the chain and those who claim there are better chicken sandwiches at competing restaurants. While Chick-fil-A may cycle limited-time offerings in and out of its rotation, it's the regular chicken sandwich, basic waffle fries, and even its signature chicken nuggets that keep customers coming back — all simple, year-round staples. But as much as Chick-fil-A is reliant on its steadfast classics, some customers are noticing that, classics though they may be, they're just not hitting like they used to.

Chick-fil-A made two notable changes to its most popular items. First, in 2024, the chain replaced its antibiotic-free chicken with chicken it describes as raised with no antibiotics important to human medicine. Whether or not that change is resulting in lower quality chicken is up for debate, but regardless, a fair number of Chick-fil-A customers have found that its chicken has gone downhill. 

Then, in 2025, the chain altered its fry recipe. The big difference compared to the old fries is that the new style of fry is coated in pea starch, intended to keep an order crispier for longer. While that does seem to be working as intended, plenty of fans of Chick-fil-A's classic waffle fries are straight up unhappy with the new recipe's flavor. "Literally tastes like oil, they stick together, and it's not even worth heating up. I'd rather take the soggier ones than what they did this time around," wrote one Reddit user.

Around the start of 2024, there were already signs that Panera Bread might not be around much longer. The issues the soup and sandwich chain was facing at that time seem to have only gotten worse, given the volume of customers who noticed the quality drop off in 2025. In a Reddit thread about overrated fast food chains, for example, the two comments with the most upvotes — more than twice as many as the third-most upvoted comment — mentioned Panera.

While customers have found that Panera has been steadily declining over the years, the chain announced in July of 2025 that it would no longer prepare its own fresh dough. For those who were already starting to feel iffy about the state of Panera in 2025, this decision was just about the opposite of what the chain needed to win back some goodwill. "Panera's initial concept was that there was a lack of neighborhood bakeries in the U.S., particularly in suburban areas," wrote one Reddit user. "That concept is long gone. There's nothing that makes products at Panera better than elsewhere. You can get similar products in so many places. Sometimes the grocery store selling pre-made sandwiches is in the same strip mall, and it's just as good and cheaper."

Sonic Drive-In is sort of a black sheep in the fast-food chain restaurant world. While most fast food chains have a signature item or items, there's no single must-have at Sonic. Rather, it's the chain's old-school drive-in concept that it's most well-known for. Indicative of Sonic's 2025 decline is the fact that some Sonics have closed down the drive-in stalls at times, instead urging customers to order in the drive-thru. A price reason for Sonic's 2025 trajectory is unclear, but that trajectory has been clear enough to inspire multiple online discussions about a sudden lack of quality Sonic restaurants.

It's not just the drive-in experience that has been impacted, either. Customers have reported issues with Sonic's food, ranging from overcooked burgers to excessively sweet drinks to drinks being watered down. "I'd like Sonic if it would build its products right," wrote one Reddit user. "Every time I go, all the stuff is on one side of the main item. Like a chili cheese dog with half the wiener exposed. Full serving of chili and cheese falling off the other end. A burger with a patty in the middle of the bun, but half the patty naked and the other half with full portions of everything. It doesn't matter how slow it is or which location I go to."

The same way In-N-Out is a business in which Californians take pride — even if its footprint technically extends to a handful of additional states — Whataburger is a Texas chain through and through. Discussion of Whataburger's decline kicked off in a major way around the end of 2024, when The Dallas Observer published an article agreeing with a December Washington Post piece suggesting that Whataburger had fallen off.

That sentiment persisted into the following year. Texans recounted issues with the chain in 2025, ranging from cold food to excessive wait times to insufficiently portioned ingredients. Its fries in particular garnered significant criticism — the chain's burgers are cooked to order, sometimes leaving an order of fries to sit out for some time. Even if this practice may have affected orders in the past, customers have shared that in 2025 in particular, subpar fries started to become increasingly common. "Lifelong Whataburger diner here — I am 61," one Reddit user posted. "In my last couple of experiences have noticed a different taste. Last night, I had French fries that were "rubbery," not crisp or fresh like the kind that you find at In-n-Out. I am so disappointed that I want a refund."

California has In-N-Out, Texas has Whataburger, and Chicago has Portillo's. From famously delicious hot dogs to Italian beef sandwiches to a famed chocolate cake shake — made with a blended chocolate cake slice — Portillo's specializes in indulgent favorites from Chicago and the Midwest. In 2025, Portillo's attempted to expand significantly outside of Chicago with restaurants smaller than the average Chicago location, focused on quick service. That plan fell so short of expectations, Portillo's parted ways with its CEO in September.

Amidst this discord and its inevitable financial impact, customers have noticed the quality of the food at Portillo's locations dropping off. One customer, for example, noted that the size of its Italian beef sandwiches is shrinking. Other customers have noticed that items like the beef and cheddar croissant pretty much never include adequate cheese. "Now every time I go, they always mess up my order, sometimes the cheese on my beef and cheddar croissant isn't even melted," wrote one Reddit user. "I've watched my bag just sit on the counter, ready to get pushed out, while other people are getting theirs. Just not the same anymore."