Mashed's Exclusive Survey Reveals The Fast Food Chain With The Most Wrong Orders
Picture this: You're leaving the office after a long work day and decide to head to your favorite fast food eatery. You pull up to the drive-thru order screen, where you're greeted with what, at that moment, might be the sweetest phrase in the English language: "Hi, welcome to [insert fast food chain]. May I take your order?"
You browse the menu despite knowing you'll get the same combo meal you've ordered for the last 27 years. "May I please have a number one, hold the mustard, and a coke to drink?" you ask before pulling around. An employee takes your payment and sends you off to window number two for the long-awaited meal pass-off. Bag secured.
The final minutes of your commute are filled with glee. However, that quickly fades upon taking a bite of your meal and realizing a grave mistake has been made. That mustard you asked them to hold is slathered all over your sammie, casting a dark cloud over your post-work treat. It's hard not to be bummed even though you know it was an honest mistake, and as you try to scrape the tangy condiment off of your food, you can't help but wonder: Is there anywhere you can go to be spared from this fate? Probably not, as a 2021 study by SeeLevel HX found that drive-thrus actually became less accurate in recent years (via CNBC). However, consumers do have some thoughts on where mistakes are made the most.
McDonald's makes the most McMistakes, according to survey respondents
Fast food workers always strive for accuracy. However, even the most well-organized restaurant crews are bound to mess up an order from time to time — employees are only human, after all. And while the occasional slip-up is to be expected, a recent survey conducted by Mashed found that consumers believe one brand, in particular, messes up more than the rest. Out of 599 respondents, 181 people, or 30.22%, pegged McDonald's as the fast-food chain that gets orders wrong the most. "Once they gave me a cheeseburger but forgot the meat so it was just a piece of cheese between the bread," one Redditor recalled, while u/FelineExpress said that, in their experience, "extra pickles gets translated to no pickles more often than I can count."
Of course, Mickey Dee's isn't the only culprit of this fast food crime. For 22.54% of survey respondents, Taco Bell was seen as the chain that makes the most mistakes with orders, while 16.19% placed blame on Burger King. Fingers were also pointed at Wendy's and Dunkin', which received 13.19% and 11.35% of the vote, respectively.
With nods from only 6.51% of survey respondents, KFC was the chain that consumers perceived as the most accurate with orders. Interestingly enough, however, a 2019 study by QSR Magazine found that the fried chicken joint was actually most likely to mess up, which just goes to show that accidents can happen anywhere.