We Build A Top 10 Fast Food List Without Knowing What Is Next

Watch The Video Version Here.

A single fast food pick is easy. Ranking ten of them while pulling names from a hat, with no clue what’s coming next, is where things get messy. We build our family Top 10 fast food restaurants in real time, arguing value, freshness, “road trip reliability,” and whether a place you eat in secret automatically belongs at number ten. The result is part food review, part family comedy, and part strategy game where every slot you lock in could come back to haunt you.

Along the way we get into the big hitters and the polarizing staples: where McDonald’s and Wendy’s really belong, why Raising Cane’s earns points for consistency, and why Shake Shack is the kind of quick service stop you should literally plan a detour for. We also talk about the fuzzy line between “fast food” and “quick service,” especially once Chipotle enters the conversation and everyone suddenly has opinions about what counts.

Then comes the bonus round, and the gloves come off. Honorable mentions like Chick-fil-A, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and Five Guys turn into last-minute power moves under a strict rule: one change each, and once a spot is changed it’s locked forever. We cap it off with “what was good this week,” sharing thoughts on The Odyssey, new shows, guilty-watch movies, chiropractor weirdness, and recent music drops.

Listen, pick your side, and then help us settle it: subscribe, share the episode with a fellow fast food debater, and leave a review. What chain is your personal number one?

Fighting The Suck Since ©2026 Relatively Terrible

Transcript

Fast Food Top 10 Setup

SPEAKER_02 0:00

This quite possibly will be the shortest podcast we've ever created. Because today we are talking about fast food. And again, we are doing a top 10, our family top 10 fast food list. We've got, I think, 21 or 22.

SPEAKER_03 0:18

Bam! Something like that.

SPEAKER_02 0:19

Different places. Some places that you may have never heard of, because a couple are regional.

SPEAKER_03 0:24

And some of them are just bad.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

Like Sonic. I'm Josh. I'm Rachel.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

I'm Calvin. I'm Jackson. And this is Relatively Terrible. I love you, but you're all terrible. Welcome back to the Relatively Terrible Podcast. We are the Uploads of Fun Family, questioning culture with comedy and just enough dysfunction to feel normal.

SPEAKER_04 0:43

I'm in it again.

SPEAKER_02 0:45

We've got the top 10 fast food restaurants of all time, according to our family, happening today. We're each gonna draw one. When we pick it out, we're gonna say the place that we want it on the list without knowing what is coming next or what is left in the hat.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

I can tell you, like, if we at Burger King or Sonic or something like that, it's 10.

SPEAKER_03 1:06

Yeah, unlike our previous top 10 list, we did not pick our top five to put in here. These are just well-known chain restaurants. So there's a few in here that none of us like.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

All right. I

Bottom Spots And Guilty Picks

SPEAKER_02 1:20

will start it off as always. Here we go.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Come on, let's get Zaxby's first. Shut up, Calvin.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Whoa, which one was it?

SPEAKER_01 1:26

I have Dunkin' Donuts. Nine. Nine. Nine. There's something worse, but Dunkin' Donuts is right at like its bottom.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

Okay, when we're at cons and stuff, if we're in a pinch, the breakfast is pretty good. The coffee is halfway decent, but you have to have a lot of cream and sugar. Sugar on ice. That's all it is. It's not real.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Even on Joe Rogan's podcast, they showed they had this exclusive venti drink that was going around viral because of how much sugar was in it. Yep. Yeah. No. Okay, so Duncan is number nine? Yes. Number nine.

SPEAKER_03 1:58

There's something worse than there's something worse, but yeah, there's.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

I would even argue Sonic is better than Duncan.

SPEAKER_03 2:04

I agree. Okay. Okay. You want to hold that for me? Sure. Alright, here we go. Canes. Brazing Canes. Okay. That's pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Seven. I would say six. Not six.

SPEAKER_03 2:14

I would. This is top five, in my opinion. Whoa. Listen, would you what happens when we put Kane at Keynes at seven and then we get McDonald's and it has to go top five? I mean, come on.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

But then if it's if it's top five, then it's number five. Remember, we have the bonus round.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:31

I think Keynes has to be top five, though.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

In terms of quality, it has always been fresh. And so that alone I will put top. That's fine. Kane's at five.

SPEAKER_03 2:41

I think it has to be five. All right, Calvin.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

All right.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Burger Kane. Ten. Ten.

SPEAKER_03 2:46

Ten?

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Easily teased. Negative a million.

SPEAKER_02 2:49

That place sucks bull.

SPEAKER_03 2:50

Oh, but a fresh Whopper can be so good. Okay. When's the last time you had one, Rach? Yeah. Do you want to know the truth? 22 years ago. Yeah. So after there was one day where I had to take Jackson to work.

SPEAKER_02 3:03

You cheated on me?

SPEAKER_03 3:04

And on the way home, I was going to the post office, I think, to drop to mail something, and it was buy a Burger King. I think it was a Sunday. That one Sunday you worked? And there was a Burger King right there. That was recent. He was working. Yes, it was recent. And I got a whopper, and it was so good. I couldn't tell anybody because I knew you would all look at me like this.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Put out number 10. Yeah, it's not a good thing. Just remember that story. It's definitely 10 now. Yeah, it's 10. Okay, sorry, don't you?

SPEAKER_02 3:33

Something you have to eat in secret is definitely 10. Yeah, all right, Jackson. Jackson, go. McDonald's.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Eight. Wow, really? Nah, seven. Seven.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

I would.

SPEAKER_03 3:45

I would say six or seven for McDonald's.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

Six or seven. I feel like there's something worse coming than McDonald's. I would say six. I think like kind of in the middle. I think six. Alright, six.

SPEAKER_03 3:56

Let's do six.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Six, fine.

SPEAKER_03 3:58

McDonald's. McDonald's. I would put McDonald's top five, but.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

What'd you get?

Regional Favorites And The First Draft

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Shake Shack. Oh. Two.

SPEAKER_03 4:08

Two, right? Two. Two or one. I mean two. I'm almost tempted to put that one.

SPEAKER_02 4:12

If you don't know if you have a Shake Shack near you next time you travel, make sure you Google it, find out where it is, and go. It's one of the best every players.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

There's like only one or two places I can think of that could beat Shake Shack. That's why it's not number one. Come on, we need that Chick-fil-A or something.

unknown 4:26

Chipotle! Woo!

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Four, three, four, three, four.

SPEAKER_02 4:31

It's three. It's a mutiny, Calvin. It's three. It's three. No. And by the way, we should have said this at the beginning, but some of these, by some people, are not considered fast food. Quick serves. Quick service, like Chick-fil-A, Chipotle. Yeah. Quick service is what.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Chipotle now is considered fast food because they have a drive-thru. Drop it, drop it. Um, Wendy's seven.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Seven. Seven. Seven. Seven. Not the worst. Wendy's has better burgers than McDonald's.

SPEAKER_03 4:58

No.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

Yes. Yeah. Depends on what day you go. Wendy's has better burgers. The quality of the burger is better, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Zaxby's.

SPEAKER_03 5:05

Ooh.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

Four? No! Eight.

SPEAKER_03 5:09

So it's either four or eight? I think we're shooting ourselves in the foot without putting a number one.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

Zaxby's is so good.

SPEAKER_03 5:16

What do you think, Jackie? Four or eight.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

I say go for eight because.

SPEAKER_03 5:20

Think about what else is left.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

I'm swapping it for something. I know I am. Yeah, let's play it safe and go eight. Damn. Eight for Zaxby's? Fine. Eight for Zaxby's.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

Mr. Hero. Number one burger ever. A lot of you are like, what the hell is Mr. Hero? Well, if you ever go to Ohio, Southern Ohio, maybe a little bit of Pennsylvania, maybe Kentucky, find Mr. Hero and eat it. Get a Roman burger. Oh! Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Or the fries and the cheese sauce. The bread and mushrooms.

SPEAKER_02 5:53

Anything.

SPEAKER_03 5:54

Anything from there is fire.

SPEAKER_02 5:55

You never had a bad experience. Jackson brought that up, and even before they were born, never had a bad experience.

SPEAKER_03 6:02

When I was pregnant with you, I had to fast for a glucose test. And afterwards, I went to Mr. Hero and got a cheeseburger fries, bread and mushrooms, and went home and ate it all. Lots of good numbers with Mr. Hero. Okay, what's our number four? Number four, number four, number four. What's number four? Dairy Queen. Okay. Okay. Not food, but I nothing beats Dairy Queen's soft servant, Michael. Yeah, I already know.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

That's not horrible.

SPEAKER_03 6:29

Okay, so here we have the list. Starting at number 10, we have Burger King, then Duncan, eight of Zaxby's, seven Wendy's, six McDonald's, five canes, four Dairy Queen, and then third place is Chipotle, Shake Shack, Mr. Hero. I love that top three. The top three is great. Top three is amazing.

Bonus Round Chaos And Replacements

SPEAKER_02 6:49

But this is the bonus round. I'm gonna read off the honorable mentions, and then we are each going to be able to make one change on the board. Now, once something is changed, it can't be changed again. Hold on, I'm going first, Calvin.

SPEAKER_03 7:01

No! I know it honored.

SPEAKER_02 7:03

So honorable mentions, five guys, Starbucks, Subway, Taco Bell.

SPEAKER_03 7:09

Oh, we gotta get Taco Bell.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

Low Jangles, Pizza Hut, Sonic, Chick-fil-A, oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 7:16

Chick-fil-A, Taco Bell have got to get on this list. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 7:19

Jersey mics, Arby's, Popeyes. Yeah, no. So I am going to go ahead and take off Zaxby's.

SPEAKER_03 7:28

For Chick-fil-A?

SPEAKER_01 7:29

For Chick-fil-A.

SPEAKER_03 7:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Whoa. Okay, see, the problem with that is though, you have what? Uh McDonald's and canes over it? Heck no.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

Here's why. When I had my back problems and my back surgery, I ate a ton of Zaxby's and I can only now eat it again, and it is not my favorite. So that's why Chick-fil-A is better.

SPEAKER_03 7:51

But I think what Calvin is saying is that Chick-fil-A should be higher up. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

Yeah, you have Wendy's McDonald's. Oh, that's hor and that yeah, that's horrible. That's just a horrible.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

But it's your family's list, so live with it. That's horrible.

SPEAKER_03 8:03

That's horrible.

SPEAKER_02 8:05

Live with it. Okay. I already know what it is.

SPEAKER_03 8:07

I'm going to live in your shame. I'm going to get rid of Duncan. Okay. Because that's trash.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Yeah. Starbucks.

SPEAKER_03 8:15

And I'm going to put, I thought about Starbucks, but honestly, I was going to put, I think I'm going to do Pizza Hut. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 8:21

Oh. Pizza Hut is good.

SPEAKER_03 8:23

Pizza Hut over Duncan.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

What are you doing, Cal?

SPEAKER_03 8:26

Calvin's gonna get Taco Bell on this list.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

I was gonna put Taco. So I could either piss off my family. Dairy Queen, you could get rid of and put Taco Bell. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not gonna get rid of Chipotle, but I will get rid of Dairy Queen.

SPEAKER_02 8:39

You are very welcome to sleep in the house tonight. Good for you, man. Jackson's last, but certainly not least.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

I personally I would get rid of Wendy's and put five guys.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

I would no, but five guys needs to be above McDonald's. That's the problem. I want, is there You can get rid of McDonald's?

SPEAKER_03 8:58

Just get rid of McDonald's and replace it with five guys.

SPEAKER_02 9:01

But then you have Burger King on there. How badass would it be to get rid of McDonald's?

SPEAKER_03 9:05

I would get yeah, Burger King needs to go.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Burger King. But I'm not putting five guys all the way down at because out of all of I mean five guys on this list has the third best burger. It goes Mr. Hero Shake Shack, five guys. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:18

In terms of Burger.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

In terms of burgers.

SPEAKER_03 9:20

So then it would be replacing McDonald's.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Yes, that's what I'm gonna. But hold on. Can I switch McDonald's to where Wendy's is? Nope. No, you're gonna be able to do that. No, because McDonald's does not belong above five guys. That's stupid. Yeah, I'm gonna get rid of McDonald's and put five guys. Alright.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

Hand it over. Final list. Here it is.

Final Top 10 Revealed

SPEAKER_02 9:42

10 Burger King, 9, Pizza Hut, 8 Chick-fil-A, 7 Wendy's, 6, 5 Guys, 5 Canes, 4 Taco Bell, 3 Chipotle, 2 Shake Shack, and 1 Mr. Hero. That is the official, relatively terrible top 10 fast food list. Top five is great.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

I'm pretty good with that. Even though I'm not the biggest fan of Chipotle, I yeah, in our family's top Yeah. Yeah, it's in our top. And canes, we we do go there often.

SPEAKER_03 10:08

We do, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

I will say, uh every time I get the bread from there, I love it even more with the sauce. It's it's really good. If you have that pizza toast, I want it. Skip it in the sauce. Yes!

SPEAKER_03 10:21

Because that's what you do.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

That's what you do. That's what you do. I will say though, they have some good french fries.

SPEAKER_02 10:26

I do like the French fries. I do like to bathe in their coast law. So, what was good this week?

Movies TV Food Finds And Music

SPEAKER_03 10:31

Uh horrible transition.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Uh what was Oh, we saw The Odyssey.

SPEAKER_02 10:36

Yes, great movie. Good movie. I would say good movie. It's great. It's good. Epic movie, epic, per epically produced movie, in my opinion, that's decent. That's a good way of putting it.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:48

You can't get better with production value in a movie ever. Never seen it ever anywhere. Was never taken out of the story once because of visual or CGI.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

It was great. Oh, speaking of the Odyssey, so you know before the movie they show the company and they have like an animation. Yeah. You know the one company where it's that dude pull pulls out the bow? Yeah. Choose it. Yeah, I saw a video and someone's like, that's Odysseus. I'm like, oh my god, it is. I got Steak Escape while work while working.

SPEAKER_03 11:15

Oh, we should have Steak Escape on the list. I like it then.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Ooh, Steak Escape is good. I like it. At least in the look, when you get the fries fresh, like I've been getting them, they're fresh fries are always the best. They're good. And I'm also starting to become a big Bowie fan. I like David Bowie. He's good. He's like a better version of the Beatles, in my opinion. Which you can't say at the where I work.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

I watched Hunger Games. I watched all four movies except for the prequel. Very good. Had my boy from Finites at Freddy, so. Ooh, I know. Also the movie.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Also the movie where the girl The chiropractor? Yeah, Rachel went to the chiropractor. My chiropractor.

SPEAKER_03 11:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:53

Was it fun?

SPEAKER_03 11:54

No.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

They did crack together. She did crack for the first time. No, she got adjusted.

SPEAKER_03 12:00

It's helpful, but I I would not say it's fun. It's maybe like two steps above going to the dentist for me. I hate the dentist. I don't hate the chiropractor, but it's also um weird. It's weird. But uh helpful.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

So my least favorite part of the dentist is not them poking around in your mouth, it's the light they have in front of you. And they, you know, here's some sunglasses. The sunglasses do not work. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

And that's for a pediatric dentist.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

They give you sunglasses. Because every time I close my eyes, I like my eyes start tearing because that light is so bright.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

You guys are very white and sensitive to light.

SPEAKER_03 12:40

Yeah. Every time I'm at the dentist, the whole time I'm just like tense. Like my whole body tends to ease up the whole time.

SPEAKER_02 12:46

No, but you can't do that at the chiropractor.

SPEAKER_03 12:48

No, at the chiropractor, you have to be gotta ease up. You gotta like you do, you have to be limp. It's weird. It's weird, but how like limp biscuit.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

I started watching a show, a British show called Cuckoo, starring Andy Sandberg, and I'm only four episodes in, and I'm really loving it. I'm shocked that I've never heard of it before. It's so funny, it's not that old, it's really wild and out there, and it's uh it it really keeps you paying attention. I noticed not wanting to get on my phone. Speaking of that, I watched The Hawk on Netflix with Will Farrell. Was that even good? It's entertaining, but it's not very funny, in my opinion. There's a couple funny parts, and there's definitely plot holes. Like, I know people hate those words out there. All those screenwriters who follow us on Instagram and say, you don't know what plot holes are. Gotcha. Um, there's definitely plot holes. Uh and the ending just they had to twist so many things to make it work that it was like but we have only two episodes left of Widows Bay.

SPEAKER_03 13:50

And I can't wait.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

That's a good show.

SPEAKER_03 13:52

It's been so good.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

But Will Farrell doing that show.

SPEAKER_02 13:55

Money. Well, it really seemed like someone all of a sudden was like, why don't we try to copy off of Happy Gilmore 1? That's what it seemed like. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:05

And it also, didn't you also say they they really wasted an opportunity with Fortune?

SPEAKER_02 14:10

Fortune is such a funny comedian and such a good actress or actor, whatever she wants to be called, I don't know. Um, but she's very good, but her role was wasted. She's supposed to be like a hillbilly person who's now a golf caddy, and really the only thing she had was her accent, which is hers, anyways.

SPEAKER_04 14:28

So it was just kind of wasteful.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

But anything else? Oh, well, this was technically last week, but three new albums came out. What were they? Uh, so the bands were Loathe, Boundaries, Emotionless and White. And that is relatively terrible.

SPEAKER_03 14:45

Sorry.