33% Think This Is Red Robin's Worst Dessert
Red Robin is, shall we say, somewhat of a temple to excess, although we mean that in the nicest possible way. Burgers, after all, are best if they're on the sizable side and piled high with all manner of toppings. We're not even sure why the chain bothers with those bottomless fries, though, since only the Joey Chestnuts of this world could actually manage to do justice to that particular freebie once they've made a dent in their burger.
Superfluous though it may seem, Red Robin does also offer a fairly sizable dessert menu, and we're not just talking about their shakes and floats. In this Mashed survey, we asked people to tell us which of the restaurant's desserts was the least worth saving room for. Out of a choice of six items – these being the Blue Bunny Brownie Load'd Bar, Cinnamon Sugar Doh! Rings, Fudge-Filled Chocolate Chip Cookies, Gooey Chocolate Brownie Cake, Mountain High Mudd Pie, and plain old Sundae – the loser was clear: fully 1/3 of our 614 survey respondents (all of these located in the U.S., since Red Robin doesn't have a huge presence overseas), gave a big ol' thumbs-down to one particular mountain of sugary carbs.
The Doh! Rings might be insufficiently dessert-like
The biggest loser on Red Robin's dessert menu is, d'oh! the Cinnamon Sugar Doh! Rings. Could this be due to the insane size of this dessert? Even with an entire table sharing, it's hard to imagine anyone being able to knock down this tower of 8 chocolate and caramel-sauced donuts. Perhaps that's not the only reason why diners don't prefer D'oh! Rings over other options, though, since Red Robin's menu does offer a short stack option just half the size of the original.
The real root of the Doh! Rings' unpopularity may lie in their flavor, or lack thereof. MassLive notes that these aren't really donuts, but are actually knockoff cronuts (are those even still a thing?), and feels that they lean a bit too heavily on the croissant side as they're somewhat lacking in sweetness. The overall impression they got was one of greasiness, which is not the kind of thing you really want on top of a Red Robin meal. Other, sweeter, desserts did better on our poll, with the Mudd Pie, the chocolate chip cookies, the ice cream sundae, and Blue Bunny bar coming in with somewhere between 13% and 17% of the "no" vote. The most popular dessert was something that, in contrast to the D'oh Rings, is very, very sweet and not deep-fried: the Gooey Chocolate Brownie Cake. Only 8% of our pollees did not feel that this dessert would make the perfect foil to Red Robin's burgers and fries.