Terrifying TikToks, excessive kindness, and extremely wet burritos:
these are the hacks that are driving fast food workers absolutely bonkers.
The foundation of greatness at Chipotle comes from the ability to customize its many fresh
ingredients into the perfect burrito or bowl to suit your own particular tastes. And if you
ask nicely, they can combine the elements of a quesadilla and a burrito to make a quesarito.
Basically, the cheese tortilla is used as the outer wrap for the burrito, creating a massive,
ooey-gooey concoction. But Chipotle workers don't exactly enjoy making it,
especially when it's busy. As a user recalled in a viral TikTok:
"I ordered it once, and the girl literally looked at me and said,
'You are the bane of my existence.'"
Several commenters on that TikTok backed up the claim, with one revealing,
"I'm a manager at Chipotle. We do, in fact, hate making
quesaritos [...] They take forever to make but people are inconsiderate."
The Chipotle overlords apparently heard their employees' pleas and added a standard upcharge
price for the Quesarito in 2015 that was $3.50 more than a normal burrito. Additionally,
some locations have even since prohibited employees from making them.
Chipotle's nearly unlimited customization means a practically infinite number of possibilities for
customers to annoy employees. Case in point: the single taco, which is another trend that
went viral on TikTok. The way it worked is that you could go onto Chipotle's app,
order a single taco, and then order a side of every ingredient you would want
in a burrito as well as an extra tortilla on the side. You'll thus get everything
you need to create your own burrito in a full-sized tortilla at a reduced cost.
Unsurprisingly, Chipotle employees weren't exactly fond of this trend. One of them vented on Reddit,
"I hate the person who came up and posted the single taco into a burrito hack on tiktok."
The post garnered more than 300 comments, with many workers agreeing that it created more
unnecessary work. Chipotle eventually stepped in to put a stop to this hack. On September 7,
2022, the company sent an email to all of its restaurant managers informing them that the
ability to order tacos on the app would be deactivated "until further notice."
Nothing says "hedonistic fast-food mash-up" more than throwing almost every single
protein a restaurant offers into a single sandwich. And that's exactly what the Land,
Air & Sea is at McDonald's. The Golden Arches has actually officially promoted this monstrosity,
which consists of a Big Mac, a McChicken, and a Filet-O-Fish.
So if McDonald's encourages people to buy the Land, Air & Sea, what's the
problem? The issue is that the chain's website states that when you order it,
you'll actually receive the three constituent sandwiches separately
and that you then need to assemble them yourself. Once a hack goes viral, though,
it's probably safe to assume that people aren't going to be reading the fine print.
"Oh! It's gonna tip over. No, it's good. It's good. Very stable."
And that means that workers are bearing the brunt of the complaints. There have
been several reports of customers exploding at McDonald's employees for not assembling
the sandwich for them. In one viral TikTok that has since been deleted, one man actually
called McDonald's to complain that he had to do the work of assembling the sandwich himself.
If there's a poster child for chains that have been ravaged by TikTok hacks, it would have to
be Starbucks. Customized drinks don't always draw the ire of Starbucks employees. In fact,
it's almost expected to have some level of customization for your favorite beverage.
But one specific money-saving trick is reportedly really, really annoying.
The viral hack in question involves ordering an "espresso over ice" and then adding milk to the
drink to get a significantly cheaper version of an iced latte. The original viral post has since been
deleted, but the damage was already done, as this tip continues to spread all over the Internet.
In one post on the Starbucks subreddit from 2022, an employee vented about a customer
making a mobile order of a triple espresso over ice with extra oat milk. When the guest arrived,
he immediately asked for more oat milk. The employee claimed that they warned the
customer that he would be charged for a latte next time. The thread filled
up with over 200 comments agreeing with how annoying this practice is.
A TikTok hack that garnered over 6.8 million views and more than 11,000 comments focused
on one particular monstrosity that has since been dubbed "the Waffle House sandwich." It's
essentially a Texas patty melt with beef patties, cheese, grilled onions, and bacon stuffed between
two waffles instead of Texas toast, along with a big cup of pickles on the side. In the video,
the concoction is split evenly into four pieces and looks to be the size of four small burgers.
Since then, many other aspiring eaters flocked to their local Waffle Houses
to try it for themselves. In another viral TikTok,
a Waffle House employee attempts to dissuade people from obtaining this sandwich hack by
telling them that it costs around 20 dollars. But this only seemed to fan the flames further.
Some Waffle Houses have since taken matters into their own hands. Another
TikTok revealed that one location went so far as to post a handwritten sign that declared in
all capital letters, "Order from the menu we are not making anything you saw on TikTok!!"
"Nah gah do it."
There are tons of Starbucks drinks on TikTok, but one has taken the crown,
and it's thus been dubbed the "TikTok Drink." It consists of an iced white mocha venti with vanilla
sweet cream cold foam and an extra drizzle of caramel. Another variety can include two pumps of
hazelnut. But as you can imagine, employees aren't exactly thrilled. As one commenter declared,
"I work at Starbucks & I hate TikTok for promoting this drink."
Several Starbucks employees have taken to Reddit to complain about not only having to
make the complicated drinks, but also the hate they receive from TikTokers. One barista said,
"Ran across a video of people encouraging other people to order complicated drinks
just to spite baristas for complaining? [I don't care] what you order but if you're
doing it with ill intent that's kinda upsetting."
So the next time you think about ordering a drink that's not on the
menu, try to keep the human on the other side of the counter in mind.
At a popular Mexican grill burrito chain called Pancheros, employees use a special device known
as "Bob" to evenly mix all of the contents of the burrito together so that customers enjoy
the perfect bite every time. Unfortunately, Chipotle does not have its own version of
"Bob." But that hasn't stopped some customers from asking employees to achieve this even mix.
One viral TikTok features a Chipotle worker mixing up the contents of their burrito with
two plastic tops from the side containers. The video also includes the caption,
"This is your sign to ask the Chipotle staff to mix up your burrito before they wrap it."
But then someone responded in the comments,
"This [is your] sign not to do this [because we're] not supposed to now."
Several others commented about how annoying this is for Chipotle employees and how it
holds up the line unnecessarily. So it's probably better to leave
this hack on the shelf — especially if your Chipotle is extra busy that day.
Perhaps you've already heard of the pay-it-forward drive-thru concept. The simple idea behind this
ostensibly heartwarming scheme is to pay for the order of the person in the car behind you
and hopefully inspire a chain of drivers who continue paying for the people behind them.
Although this may seem like a harmless and thoughtful trend,
several drive-thru workers have come out to reveal how much they
hate it. One major reason is that it makes employees have to memorize extra orders.
Another issue is that some workers might lose out on tips,
which can be a big source of income. One TikToker offered a solution to the problem
by suggesting you take the freebie you received and then give the money you were going to spend
on your order as a tip, thereby ending the chain before it gets out of hand.
"Not paying it."
"You have to! The guy did it for you!"
"You're the guy!"
"Oh, just do it! You're rich!"
Of all the hacks on this list, this one is probably the most devious. In a viral TikTok,
a woman went to her local Chick-fil-A drive-thru when it was really busy.
She used a debit card she knew would get declined and then waited for the employee
to get frazzled enough to wave her through with a free meal so that the line could keep moving.
Although this trick seems unethical at best, several commenters replied with their own
variations that relied on the goodwill of an employee to yield a free meal. Unsurprisingly,
several others argued that the hack was a terrible thing to do. One person commented,
"As a former Chick-fil-A employee,
don't do this. Managers will direct you out of the line with no food."
And another commenter chimed in,
"When I worked at Chick-fil-A I would almost never give people
free food. Because as an adult why are you ordering food when you don't have money."
Ultimately, this is a hack that nobody should try, as it's basically stealing.
There's nothing really all that secret about In-N-Out Burger's secret menu. If you're a regular
at the iconic West Coast burger chain, you likely already have your own so-called secret specific
order down pat. Although the employees at In-N-Out are well-known for being friendly and upbeat,
working there can get extremely hectic. Several servers have opened up about how the environment
is very fast-paced, which means it can get quite stressful. As one person put it on Simply Hired,
"When it rains, it pours at In-N-Out, meaning that the bad days can be especially brutal."
And one former In-N-Out associate had this to say
on Quora when asked which secret menu item they hated making:
"Any sort of variance to fries, such as well done, no salt or otherwise,
especially during rush, means a whole new basket of fries needs to get made and checked on,
and while juggling three other baskets it can get stressful."
But there was one troublesome item in particular, as the former employee elaborated,
"The one caused the most trouble was animal fries. Sometimes the cheese fell off the fries and melted
on the plate, sometimes the spread and grilled onions would fly off the side and need to get
cleaned up [...] There always seemed to be way more issues with animal fries than other items."
"Animal."
"What is it?"
"Animal."
"Animal." "Animal."
With the amount of customization that Chipotle allows its customers,
it was perhaps inevitable that someone would come up with a way to procure what's
been dubbed a soup burrito. It may not sound like the most appetizing thing in the world,
but somehow it exists. This so-called soup burrito pretty much just includes a ton of
the liquid ingredients that make a tortilla soggy. As a Chipotle employee explained to Mental Floss,
"An example of one is a burrito that has barbacoa, hot salsa, sour cream, and at times queso.
Wrapping a burrito like that is very difficult and at times customers get annoyed we can't wrap it."
It's easy to see why Chipotle employees would hate making this one. Several of
them have taken to social media to vent, with one demanding on Reddit,
"Stop getting Soup burritos."
This employee wondered how anyone could even enjoy eating something like it, elaborating,
"I get that you might like the flavor of these sauces
but it's damn near impossible to roll this. Not even my GM can roll that."
Another employee agreed by saying,
"I've been telling [the] GM for years we need to limit all liquids to 2
servings on burritos. We get too many negative surveys for soup burritos."
We're inclined to agree with them. Burritos should be burritos, and not soup.