Along with the internet and no-spill wine glasses, the modern breakfast sandwich ranks
among one of the most momentous inventions of the 20th century, and you can get a version
of it at most food locations.
Still, some places do breakfast better than others.
Let's go in order from worst to first when it comes to the fast food industry's breakfast
sammies.
Did you know Subway served breakfast?
Neither did 19 percent of Subway customers.
The sandwich chain launched a breakfast menu in 2010, but started letting locations opt
out in the summer of 2018.
The decision to phase out breakfast is probably a good one.
Subway's breakfast offerings consist of four sandwiches with ingredients including bacon,
steak, and egg, and can be served on any one of Subway's signature uninspiring breads.
The meat tastes like it was sitting out on the assembly line all morning.
The egg blend is bland and rubbery, and reportedly contains a disturbing number of scary ingredients
like propylene glycol, also found in antifreeze; glycerin, which is found in soap, and a common
ingredient in Silly Putty.
Not exactly the best stuff to line your tummy with before heading off to school or work.
McDonald's gets the credit for masterminding the breakfast sandwich and spearheading the
fast-food breakfast industry, but Jack in the Box was serving a less successful version
of an egg, meat, and cheese morning sandwich for at least a year before McDonald's rolled
out its Egg McMuffin.
Jack in the Box has also been serving breakfast all day for more than two decades.
So why haven't Jack in the Box's breakfast offerings enjoyed the same lovin'?
Because the chain's morning selection is just a little lackluster.
It's got the standards: English muffin breakfast sandwiches, biscuit sandwiches, croissant
sandwiches, hash browns, and mini pancakes.
All hearty, familiar, and fast, but unremarkable.
It even has a couple of breakfast burritos, one of which is served with a promising sounding
"creamy Sriracha sauce."
While it has a Sriracha-like flavor, it doesn't pack much heat.
This makes it especially disappointing to spice fanatics.
When Starbucks first opened, it served up coffee drinks and not much else.
It wasn't until 2003 that the chain started offering breakfast sandwiches at its Seattle
locations.
These days you can find all sorts of goodies at just about any Starbucks.
Their sandwiches consist of the usual suspects: meat, egg, and cheese on ciabatta, biscuit,
English muffin, or croissant.
What sets Starbucks' food apart is that it's made with high-quality ingredients.
The breads are fresh, flaky, or soft as needed, and not too dry.
There's cheese, of course, but it's Swiss, Gouda, and cheddar, not processed American
cheese.
There are some disappointments, though.
The scrambled eggs are actually "puffed scrambled egg patties" that contain milk, food starch,
soybean oil, and other additives.
Oh, and they're all pre-made and frozen before being shipped to the store and reheated.
The baked goods are also frozen, and include simple offerings such as muffins and bagels,
as well as patisserie items like almond croissants, danishes, scones, and sweets.
If you're looking to be a little more nutrition-conscious, you can try a cup of oatmeal, a yogurt parfait,
or an egg and cheese protein box.
Sadly, none of it is really better than passable.
Beverage offerings, of course, can't be beat.
Coffee snobs can get a cup of single-origin pour over, while their coffee-averse friend
slurps on a strawberries-and-creme blended Frappuccino or tea.
If you're thirsty in the morning or craving a pastry, they've got you covered as long
as you don't mind a re-heated breakfast.
When this east coast chain opened its doors for the first time in Los Angeles, people
waited in line for up to 30 hours to get a taste of the menu.
And it lives up to its name, serving up a selection of donuts, pastries, bagels, and
breakfast sandwiches in the morning, along with beverages.
Though it does have a new menu of handcrafted espresso drinks, where Dunkin' Donuts shines
is flavored coffee.
The chain specializes in seasonal drink flavors like PEEPS Marshmallow coffee.
As anyone from New England, the birthplace of Dunkin, can tell you, the coffee is best
served iced, even if there's snow on the ground.
It's pretty acidic and a little bitter, so it's one of those places that caters heavily
to people who prefer cream and sugar.
“Best part of my day is when I'm at Dunkin'."
But Dunkin' Donuts' breakfast sandwiches are a little lacking.
The basic meat, egg, and cheese numbers come served on an English muffin, bagel, or croissant.
They also have mini Wake-Up Wraps with egg, cheese, and optional meat.
The English muffins have an off taste at this chain, the croissant option is a little too
greasy, and the bagels tend to be dry.
What gives?
The donuts are consistently good, though, and the muffins are out of this world.
For your best bet, order a donut and a flavored iced coffee to start your day.
Only select Wendy's locations serve breakfast.
The franchise began dabbling in breakfast back in the '80's, but pulled the menu from
most restaurants after struggling to make a substantial profit.
You can hunt down the elusive Wendy's breakfast by using its location finder and filtering
results by "breakfast."
But whether it's worth it is up to you.
Wendy's offers its own take on a Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit, a much-sought item on the
breakfast menu of its Texas rival, Whataburger.
Wendy's version doesn't quite stack up.
More successful items on the Wendy's morning menu include seasoned homestyle potatoes and
the Classic Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Sandwich, which is served on a warm breakfast roll with
American cheese, freshly cracked eggs, and applewood smoked bacon.
Wendy's also serves its own brand of Redhead Roasters coffee, which has been lauded among
fast-food coffees.
After some false starts, Burger King unveiled the Croissan'Wich in 1983.
As the name suggests, the sandwich, which is still served today, came on a croissant,
and included egg, cheese, and sausage, bacon, or ham.
For many smaller-town Americans, Burger King's Croissan'Wich was their first experience eating
a croissant.
Of course, the BK Croissan'Wich isn't as magnifique as the croissants you'd find at a quaint cafe
on the streets of Paris.
The Croissan'Wich croissant is soft and often flattened.
Since the Croissan'Which, Burger King has beefed up its breakfast menu to include everything
from breakfast burritos to sourdough breakfast sandwiches.
Some of these items, like the French Toast Sticks with hot syrup, are winners.
Others, like the pancakes, which are frozen and reheated, are...not.
Upon first glance, Sonic's breakfast menu looks pretty average.
There are a few burritos, a couple of breakfast sandwiches, and French toast sticks.
But Sonic adds some touches that make its menu stand out.
For starters, both the SuperSonic and Ultimate Meat & Cheese burritos include tater tots,
a breakfasty spin on the California burrito stuffed with french fries.
The SuperSonic even comes with real vegetables including tomatoes, onions, and jalapenos.
The Breakfast Toaster is another favorite.
It's a breakfast sandwich served between two thick slabs of Texas Toast.
Sonic is another magical establishment that serves breakfast all day.
It actually serves its entire menu all day, which means you could pair a breakfast burrito
with chili cheese fries, or an Oreo peanut butter shake, or your favorite flavor of slush.
One of their infamous roller-skating carhops will even wheel it straight to your car, where
you can chow your breakfast down in privacy.
Carl's Jr.'s all-day menu is not for the faint of heart or the small of stomach.
Its breakfast menu is no different.
It can be divided into three categories: hearty made-from-scratch biscuits, massive burritos,
and other.
The "other" section is actually where Carl's Jr. truly shines.
It consists of the chain's infamous breakfast burger, an impressive tower of cheese, bacon,
egg, hash browns, and a beef patty.
Carl's Jr. claims it was the first major chain to put an egg on a burger and initially offered
the item during breakfast hours.
In 2017, the franchise announced it would serve its breakfast burger all day long.
Now, at 3:30 p.m., you can have a breakfast burger that packs in more than half your daily
recommended calories without waiting for the next morning.
Overall, Chick-fil-A is devoted to one thing: chicken.
And if you think chicken has no place on a breakfast menu, the franchise works hard to
prove you wrong.
The star of the Chick-fil-A menu is its Chick-n-Minis, which consist of Chick-fil-A nuggets tucked
into warm, mini rolls and coated in honey butter.
Chick-fil-A also offers a chicken, egg, and cheese bagel and a hash brown scramble with
chicken nuggets and jalapeno salsa.
In 2016, Chick-fil-A updated its breakfast menu with The Egg White Grill, a multigrain
English muffin sandwich with grilled chicken breast and egg whites.
The new item ruffled some feathers because it replaced the popular Spicy Chicken Biscuit.
If you happened to be disturbed by the mother-and-child-reunion combination of chicken and egg, Chick-fil-A
does offer some chicken-free breakfast items.
Go healthy with a Greek yogurt parfait or fruit cup, or the opposite way with a bacon,
egg, and cheese biscuit.
For its breakfast menu, White Castle stuck with what it knows best: sliders.
The Castle has been cranking out breakfast for over 30 years and currently offers five
breakfast slider choices with some tempting add-ons like hash brown nibblers and mini
Belgian waffles with dipping syrup.
White Castle's waffle sliders are without a doubt the stars of the breakfast menu.
White Castle is pretty secretive about the specific bakery that provides its waffles,
but the company goes so far as to import them from Belgium.
The waffles are sweet, with a smooth vanilla undertone.
And with real eggs scrambled fresh in-house, you can't go wrong with the classic bacon,
egg, and cheese waffle slider.
For something even heartier, the chicken and waffles slider with country gravy is a knockout.
"You guys kept talking about White Castle last night so much, it made me start to crave
it, too."
White Castle was wise enough to start serving its breakfast menu all day back in 2015.
You can also buy items like the sausage, egg, and cheese slider in the frozen foods section
of some grocery stores.
Taco Bell's breakfast menu, launched in 2014, is daring in its omission of classics like
traditional breakfast sandwiches, pancakes, and oatmeal.
At a time when most Americans are foggy-eyed, cranky, and not in the mood for shenanigans,
Taco Bell has boldly experimented with non-conventional morning meals like the Waffle Taco and the
Breakfast Crunchwrap.
The Waffle Taco has disappeared from the menu, but Taco Bell has kept its Breakfast Crunchwrap
and introduced a number of other breakfast creations, like the Grand Scrambler, a breakfast
burrito with your choice of meat plus eggs, potatoes, cheese, pico de gallo, and sour
cream, and the Mini Skillet Bowl consisting of eggs with pico, melted cheese, and potatoes.
Taco Bell also offers Cinnabon Delights, which are basically two donut holes filled with
icing.
You can wash it all down with a Mountain Dew Kickstart Orange Citrus, a sort of carbonated,
fake orange juice.
Regional chain Whataburger's breakfast tour de force is the Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit.
Imagine a biscuit: golden brown on the outside, fluffy and buttered on the inside.
Then, picture a thick, crispy chicken breast tucked inside, drenched in honey butter sauce.
So awe-inspiring is the biscuit that a pastor in McKinney, Texas wrote a soulful, three-minute
ballad to the Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit called "Something About This Biscuit".
"From a honey butter chicken biscuit to that beefy burger, hey, come celebrate with me,
right here at Whataburger."
Whataburger offers an extensive breakfast menu of other winners, like the crunchy hash
brown sticks, Breakfast on a Bun — a typical egg, cheese, and sausage breakfast sandwich,
but on a bun — and its notorious taquitos, revered as manna from heaven by many Texans.
McDonald's still reigns supreme when it comes to fast food breakfasts.
Since making breakfast history with the Egg McMuffin in 1971, McDonald's went on to mastermind
gems including portable hash browns, biscuit breakfast sandwiches, and the majestic McGriddle.
To satisfy the public's insatiable hunger for its breakfast dishes, McDonald's introduced
all-day breakfast in 2015.
No longer do hungover breakfast seekers have to roll out of bed and speed to McDonald's,
only to discover they stopped serving breakfast at 10:30 a.m.
You can feast on a Sausage McMuffin or Bacon, Egg, & Cheese Bagel at any hour.
McDonald's even offers some healthy(ish) options, including fruit and maple oatmeal and an Egg
White Delight McMuffin, made with "100% freshly grilled egg whites and 250 calories."
Though reasonable healthy, they still, somehow, manage to be tasty.
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Mashed videos about fast food are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.