The Real Value of the Fast Food ‘Dollar Menu’ in a Recession

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My Dollar Menu choices had been whittled down to the following: four-piece Chicken McNuggets, a hot fudge sundae, two baked apple pies, a fruit and yogurt parfait and a small soda. It was like a 5-year-old’s last meal request.

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I added a $1.09 hamburger onto the pile for curiosity’s sake. I hadn’t tasted one in decades. And though it arrived pale and pathetic — a thin, grayish patty of spongy meat, which appeared to have been gnawed on one corner, tossed carelessly between a bun — I was surprised to find that, contrary to appearances, it was not completely terrible, with its familiar tang of onion and pickle. That’s the thing, right? Odious as it might be, most fast food is not completely terrible. Can’t say that for the Chicken McNuggets, however; they were stale and lukewarm, and even gobs of barbecue sauce couldn’t drown their mediocrity. (As for the soda, the low-carbonation, high-syrup Diet Coke at McDonald’s has long been my favorite Diet Coke, even in my high-snob years. Yes, I have a whole taxonomy of Diet Coke, and no, I won’t mention it again.)

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Years after I last stepped inside a Wendy’s, I found that its still churns out the most dependable fast food burger fare this side of In-N-Out. Despite the over-the-top Baconator promotions and the gaggle of trendy mixed-in swirl dessert treats, Wendy’s understands what it does well. For those who would slag the chain, I have but one word of defense: Frosty.

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There is something unsettling about the audaciously punctuated “Why Pay More!” Taco Bell value menu. I don’t mean health concerns — though those are aplenty — but the confounding question of how a restaurant could possibly profit selling nachos at 79 cents. The nachos come covered in refried beans and goopy fluorescent orange cheese drizzled with red sauce, a wan imitation of Tex-Mex that made me weep for my years spent in Austin, Texas, but still … 79 cents! Even for recession prices, that feels low.