7 Burger Chains with the Most Food Quality Complaints in 2022
If there's one thing above all other factors that keep loyal patrons returning to burger chains, again and again, it has to be a good reputation from satisfied customers. Restaurants also have to offer tasty foods, menu items available at decent prices, and consistent delivery of the same food in terms of quality and taste. But when they can't deliver these things customer complaints pile up and soon word spreads.
This is precisely why so many customers have stopped going back to the fast-food burger chains we're featuring here today because, based on our surveying of countless reviews and customer comments, these chains blew it time and time again in 2022. From a lack of proper hygiene in the facilities to menu items that varied widely in quality from one visit to the next, these burger restaurants served up all sorts of problems this year, and we can only hope they clean up their act for the next one.
Burger King
Perusing a page on the subreddit "FastFood," we came across more recent complaints leveled at Burger King than at any other burger joint. One user said: "Burger Kings in general all have extremely poor service, always dirty, food is never fresh." Another said: "BK is so inconsistent I never go much." And among the many, yet one more commenter posted: "Burger King has been on a downward spiral in terms of quality for a long time."
White Castle
White Castle has its share of fans, but it has also had its share of food poisoning cases in recent years. To make matters worse, it seems that in the past year, the chain has seen a marked decrease in customer satisfaction with the service. Reading even a few of the comments about White Castle on the site Customer Service Scoreboard is a depressing undertaking, with people sharing things like: "I had a longgg curly dark hair in my 1 sandwich. I had to pull out of my mouth, DISGUSTING!!" and "the service was terrible … I was not pleased at all" and "lady in the window was rude and wasn't friendly at all didn't say a word to us and slung our food at us."
Steak 'n Shake
Steak 'n Shake has been sliding out of public favor slowly but steadily for years. Once seen as one of the more upscale burger joints (and milkshake joints), today the chain is more frequently seen as a target of customer complaints. Just look at even one recent post, among many, from the site Complaints Board: "Service inside was terrible. When we asked to cook the burger right we were told that is how they cook them and it would be a problem if they were to cook it over again. We got a refund but I will probably never go back again. We have been going to stake n shake [sic] for over 30 years [but] is not the stake n shake we have known for years."
Dairy Queen
Despite trying to up the game by releasing a new burger in the spring of 2022, Dairy Queen remains one of the least-respected and often complained about burger chains. Customers report bad service, unhygienic kitchens, and dining rooms, and cases of food poisoning. And as for that new burger, the Stackburger, most critics found it quite lacking anyway.
Jack in the Box
You can scroll through literally dozens of pages of recent customer complaints about Jack in the Box on the Better Business Bureau site alone—and it's just one of many such sites. Among the complaints we spotted that were filed just in recent months were these: "The whole meal was a total disaster and I can promise and guarantee that I will never go back to another jack-in-the-box no matter how much they pay me" and "basically they just stole $10 from me because anytime you request a refund from the app you never hear back" and "I don't know how you can mess it up so bad, but they did and disappointing. I just want my money back."
Carl's Jr.
Many recent complaints leveled at Carl's Jr. via the site Complaints Board are so savage that you can also taste the disappointment. The worst part? The customer service. Among the posts, we spotted complaints like staff acting aggressive, disinterested, rude, and very unprofessional. Numerous patrons vowed to make their most recent visit their last.
McDonald's and Wendy's
Actually, McDonald's and Wendy's both tend to do pretty well with customers, both chains being known for their consistency of product. So why are they featured here, and why together? Because, per Reuters, both burger chains, America's #1 and #2, respectively, were sued for the same practice in 2022: falsely inflating the stated size of their burgers. A man named Justin Chiementi brought a suit against the two chains in May of 2022 stating that the companies used much larger, juicier burgers in ads than they did in real life, and that such represented a defrauding of customers.
