Customers Say These 10 Fast Food Chains Have Seriously Dipped In Quality In 2025

The fast food industry has been undergoing major shakeups since the 2020 pandemic, and many of these businesses have struggled to adjust. Now with tariffs and other factors causing more economic uncertainty, the climate hasn't gotten any easier to navigate, and value-conscious customers are noticing changes at their favorite chains. From noticeably smaller portions and higher prices to falling customer service standards, slippages have been getting more and more apparent at customers' best-loved fast food joints. According to a 2025 survey by the American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), precious few quick-service restaurant chains improved over the last year; in fact, for every chain that moved up in customer satisfaction, two of them dropped a point or more. ACSI got the results by randomly surveying 16,381 people in the U.S. between April 2024 and March 2025.

Now more than ever, consumers are making their voices heard, and fast food fans are no exception. With fast casual restaurants vying for customers' precious patronage, people have an abundance of options, meaning that any slip in quality can have far-reaching effects as diners gravitate towards spots with better and more consistent food and service. One look at social media sites like Reddit and business review hubs such as Trustpilot shows that people are not shy about expressing their disappointment with recent industry-wide trends that have compromised the experiences at their favorite eateries. Taking into account the ACSI survey as well as customer sentiment from across the web, these are the 10 fast food chains whose quality has seriously dropped so far this year.

The owner of the dubious distinction of the American Consumer Satisfaction Index's largest drop from 2024 to 2025 is KFC, which fell from a score of 81 to 77 out of 100. The famed fried chicken franchise saw its sales in 2024 drop even as other poultry chains like Chick-fil-A, Popeyes, Raising Cane's, and Wingstop increased their revenue. KFC fell behind all of those competing restaurants in total consumer spending, placing the once-dominant Colonel Sanders in fifth place among fast food chicken spots. It's impossible to pinpoint a single reason for the drops in sales and customer satisfaction, but folks around the web have plenty of comments that could explain KFC's decline.

On the subreddit r/fastfood, while the Colonel has had a few defenders, most commenters have lodged complaints about price increases, smaller pieces of chicken, and lower-quality food in general. "It's inedible," said one Redditor, adding, "You could squeeze enough grease out of one piece to fry up a good burger for yourself." Over on Facebook, the group KFC Complaints, started in December 2019, has over 55,000 members voicing similar grievances. One user said, "The chicken is often soggy, drowning in an overly thick batter that sticks to your fingers like glue, while the meat inside remains rubbery and dry." While KFC has announced some major changes coming, for now at least, it seems like there's a long road ahead to win customers back.

Two restaurants tied for second place when it comes to drops in customer satisfaction score, one of which is Sonic, which fell from an already pretty low 76 to a dismal 73. Many customers lament the lack of service at the drive-in stalls, which has been such a mainstay of the brand's identity that it's literally part of its name. Since the pandemic, many people have reported that their local Sonic locations have dropped this feature altogether and now require customers to use the drive-through instead. This has led to long wait times, as one reviewer on Trustpilot describes: "Everytime I attempt to stop in for some food, either on the way to work in the morning or during my 30 min lunch break, I wait in the drive through for 30 min on average. I am done with sonic."

On top of these unwelcome changes, customers don't have many positive things to say about the food and drink quality, either. In 2024, Sonic replaced their standard fries with crinkle-cut Groovy Fries, a move that has irked some customers to the point of starting an online petition to change them back. The Sonic user reviews on Trustpilot are poor across the board, with over three-quarters of them rating their experience one star out of five. "Cold food, melted drink, and super slow service. Sonic ain't what it used to be," says one reviewer on Trustpilot, and those sentiments are repeatedly echoed by many other disgruntled customers. 

Tied with Sonic for second biggest score drop, Five Guys Burgers & Fries fell from 78 to 75. The chain has always been known for its high prices but has maintained a loyal fanbase who are willing to pay a premium for high-quality fast food. Unfortunately, that perceived higher quality seems to have fallen lately, and now customers are wondering what they're shelling out big bucks for. As one Redditor put it in r/fiveguys, "Five Guys is Expensive, and That's OK! But the quality is going down, and that makes me sad." They lamented mediocre-quality burgers and soggy fries and said that a few cheeseburgers, a large fry, and some drinks cost them $40.

Common customer complaints include bland beef and smaller portions, especially when it comes to fries. According to one Trustpilot reviewer, "The fries are so SMALL now. ... Normally a regular is enough to feed 2 people, it's more like an extra large but this time a regular is like an extra small." Redditors noticed the same thing, with one user in r/fiveguys saying, "You ordered a large and they use to do a scoop in the bag. Now it's regular fry no scoop, large fry half a scoop at best." As for the beef, some customers in the r/fiveguys subreddit report that their locations have switched to pre-portioned patties (though Five Guys maintains that all of its burger patties are handmade to order). Whether or not there's been an actual change in beef or in the supply, the sense that Five Guys has slipped in quality is palpable to Redditors like this one, who posted in r/fiveguys, "I went there a couple of weeks ago. ... The hamburger was not like it used to be."

A beloved Midwestern fast food staple, Wisconsin-based Culver's has been serving its famous ButterBurgers since 1984. Since then, the company's expanded with over 1,000 locations in 26 states and Canada, and showed up on the ACSI ranking for the first time in 2024 with a very respectable score of 80. Sadly, in 2025, it seems customers have been less satisfied with their Culver's experience, as the restaurant dropped to 78. That's still not a terrible score and is actually the highest among fast food burger joints, but the fact that it dropped is significant enough to raise some eyebrows. On Trustpilot, Culver's is ranked overall as average, but there are twice as many one-star reviews as five-star ones, which leads one to believe it's consistency issues that are likely bringing customer satisfaction scores down.

On Facebook, one user complained, "The last 4 visits have been a mish-mash of long wait times, inaccurate orders, poorly bagged orders, and a lack of the normal positive vibes one would expect from this chain." Culver's has also seen some customers' frustration over shrinkflation, too, with one Trustpilot reviewer saying, "I noticed that Culver's are cutting down on serving size for same price or increase price." Some Redditors in the r/Culvers subreddit insist that locations outside of the chain's Wisconsin home base are inherently worse, though many out-of-staters disagree. Yet there are Culver's fans in Wisconsin reporting recently declining quality as well, so it may not be just a regional issue.

Dairy Queen, also known as DQ, is perhaps most famous for its frozen treats like the classic Dairy Queen Blizzard, which the restaurant serves alongside more typical fast food options such as burgers, chicken, and fries. While DQ's savory foods have never reached the level of popularity of other fast food places that specialize in them, the chain has always had its sweet soft serve-based items to draw customers in. But according to reports by many recent patrons, the prices of these offerings have risen so high lately that they've become comically expensive for what you get.

When a disappointed Redditor posted a photo of their pricey pipsqueak-sized mini blizzard in the r/shrinkflation sub, other DQ customers jumped at the chance to share their experiences. "The last time I got a blizzard it was $8 for a medium and the medium was the same size that a small used to be. Needless to say, I haven't been back since," piped in one user in r/shrinkflation, while another griped, "Went for blizzards with the family a couple weeks ago. cost me $45. For 4 ice creams." Commenters on the r/DairyQueen subreddit have lodged similar complaints, with one poster summing it up succinctly: "Can someone explain why dairy queen's prices has jumped INSANELY HIGH? But the quality of food and service is still mediocre if not less than?"

While McDonald's only dropped one point in the ACSI rankings, from 71 to 70, it earned the lowest score in 2024 and takes that distinction once again in 2025. The world's most famous fast food empire has suffered from declining sales, recently reporting its worst drop since the pandemic. The company's C-suite largely blames this financial dip on consumers' economic anxiety, but the people patronizing the chain aren't finding many reasons to continue spending their hard-earned money at the Golden Arches. "I think it's safe to say that McDonald's food quality has seriously deteriorated over the past 2 decades or so. Not just the quality, but the value of the meal too," lamented one Reddit user in r/fastfood.

Across the web, people are expressing their anger at rising fast food prices, and McDonald's is often the target of this ire. One Redditor said in r/fastfood, "There's no reason why a fast food meal should be 12-15 bucks. It's pure greed. And the fact that McDonald's introduced a 5 dollar meal and is showing interest in lowering prices goes to show that they were gouging everyone." Another r/fastfood user called out the chain too, saying, "It looks and feels like you're doing everything in your power to make the experience as miserable and as expensive as possible while squeezing every last penny out of customers." Attempting to win customers back by dropping prices and introducing better-value deals seems like a smart move, but McDonald's has to go further than that to convince people its food is as affordable as it used to be.

Although its official name is Panera Bread, the bakery and café chain is ramping down its production of fresh bread and other baked goods. Going forward, the company plans to outsource dough-making on a contract basis to third parties rather than managing the process with its own facilities and employees. Rather than baking goods from fresh dough made every morning in-store, outsourced dough will now arrive par-baked and frozen, then baked as needed at each location. This change hasn't gone over well with many Panera customers, as is evident in sentiment from around the web. As one Redditor in r/AskAnAmerican put it, "Panera is the absolute bottom of the barrel in terms of quality and taste now."

Panera's Trustpilot rating is a bleak 1.8 out of 5, and many recent user reviews bemoan the significant drop in quality they've experienced. "Panera is getting worse and worse," says one reviewer. "The food at Panera is certainly not cheap and you would expect a better experience for the price." One customer who returned to Panera after a long absence described their experience on the r/AskAnAmerican subreddit as, "Absolutely unrecognizable. The bread is garbage. The dishes they had were overpriced and were of extremely poor quality." Many former fans of the chain blame this staggering shift on the company's purchase by a private equity firm, which occurred in 2017, though the brand's relatively high rating shows Panera still has the opportunity to improve customer satisfaction.

It's been decades since founder Dave Thomas introduced the world to Wendy's square burger patties, a symbol that the restaurant refused to cut corners when it came to quality. Sadly, that commitment seems to have ebbed recently, as customer satisfaction dropped in 2025, from a score of 76 to 75. While that's not as steep a slope as some other burger chains on this list, it's enough to be concerned about, and it shows a continued downward trend after the chain reached a high-water mark of 78 in 2023.

The comments section of a r/fastfood post titled "Which Fast Food Places Have Cheapened Their Ingredients Do You Think?" is full of sad elegies mourning the loss of the old Wendy's, with one top commenter saying, "I hate to say this, because I used to really like them, but Wendy's is not nearly as good as it was just a few years ago. I have no idea what happened. It was not like this when Dave was still around." (Wendy's founder Dave Thomas died in 2002.) Many other former Wendy's fans vehemently agreed in the comments, noting that the burgers are "not even CLOSE to the same anymore. Their patties are tasteless now, literally tasteless." Several users bemoaned the chain's move from romaine to iceberg lettuce. Others have noticed it's not just the burger quality, but the size that seems smaller, and the trend seems to be the same with other items like chicken nuggets and even drinks.

The customer satisfaction of Mexican fast food chain Chipotle's has never reached the heights it once held before the company's infamous widespread food safety crisis in 2015. While its ACSI score has fluctuated since, it's been on a slight downward trajectory and dropped again this year, from 77 to 76. While the risk of food-borne illnesses doesn't seem to be a pressing issue for customers anymore, there are now plenty of other problems that have left Chipotle patrons less than thrilled with their recent experiences, leading to many online complaints and a Trustpilot rating of just 1.9 out of 5.

According to one of those Trustpilot reviewers, "The quality of the food and customer service has declined dramatically. ... It's too expensive for it to be that bad." The most common gripes among customers seem to revolve around portion sizes, especially with meats, which various customers describe as "imperceptible," "minimal," and "kid-sized." Another frequent complaint is the inconsistency, not just location to location, but day to day at the same spot. "Every single one I've gone to in a 50 mile radius has gotten worse. Even newly opened locations. The inconsistency is just expected. I've stopped trying," claims one disappointed Redditor in r/Chipotle. Some annoyed customers have even claimed that their burritos aren't rolled correctly anymore.

Of the pizza brands represented in the ACSI ranking, only one had a falling score from 2024 to 2025: Domino's. Previously, it was even with Papa Johns and Pizza Hut, both of which remained the same. Now it's only ahead of Little Caesars, but just barely, as that company experienced a big three-point jump and is now breathing down Domino's neck score-wise. What is it that made Domino's the only pizza place to fall in customer satisfaction? According to many Redditors, something has changed, but they can't quite put their finger on it.

Crust quality seems to be the problem most customers have recently experienced, with various Reddit commenters in r/Dominos describing it as "tough," "difficult to chew," "burnt," and "hit or miss." While not the case in all countries, in the U.S. Domino's pizza dough is made in factories scattered around the nation rather than in each individual restaurant, which could explain why consistency issues would be felt systemwide. The quality of the crust is not the only complaint people had, with customers also noticing skimpier toppings and less cheese. Trustpilot users rate Domino's poorly, with one reviewer saying, "Pizza's smaller, toppings are skimpy, and the crust tastes like cardboard. Delivery takes forever, and when it finally shows up, it's barely warm. Used to be a solid choice, but now it's just disappointing." There's one advantage that Domino's has over most other fast food places on this list, and that's price — it may not taste like it used to, but at least it's still cheap.