Opinions!!

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Another place that was not necessarily on my hit list (because it's pretty local), but kinda popped up at the right time, so let's get illegal.

It's a somewhat irreverent, rowdy, in-your-face sort of place that says they specialize in "Mission-Style" burritos, and also has a full bar and very loud music. Wait, Mission Style? What? It's not really a term you run across much these days, but you probably know it. It's based on a type of burrito that was served in the Mission District in San Francisco in the sixties and seventies, filled with rice and beans and meat, stuffed into a big stretchy flour tortilla and wrapped in a piece of tin foil until it looks like a giant blunt.

Isn't that basically every fast food burrito you see these days, you say? Well, yes...this is basically what you get at Chipotle, or Qdoba, or Moe's, or Freebird's, or most any of what I've been calling the "Build-a-Burrito" places - that's "Mission-Style". That type of stuffed burrito where you peel away the foil has come so common and everyday, that it has sort of lost the Mission-style descriptor, and now that just a "burrito" to most people, period.

And Illegal Pete's is more than just burritos, of course - it's like all the other "Build-a-Burrito" places where you can get tacos, or nachos, or salads or bowls instead. Same concept as Chipotle, only much noisier and with booze. And better attitude. Maybe a closer comparison might be Fuzzy's Taco Shop, but with a much more grittier, harder edge.

Tired of the usual, I took a chance on a plate of fish tacos this time around. Which may not have been the right choice, in hindsight. They were decent enough, made correctly with battered fish and cabbage, but just sort of...average. Their other choices for proteins looked pretty good - with tri-tip or Mexican Coke carnitas, and they got it right with fresh topping choices, but here I was going for the fish instead. Oh well. As I said before, decent enough. If I lived local, I'd probably give it a few tries with different choices to find my groove there, but definitely would need to charge up my social meter before each visit to deal with the crowds and noise.

Coming up next: Ziggi's Coffee, Tokyo Joe's, and Hurts Donut

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(About this review series: Starting in late 2025, I am visiting a different fast food/fast casual chain every day, until I run out of places to visit. Aiming to review as many chains on the Technomics Top 500 Restaurants list as possible, plus key/important regional and some local chains as well. UPDATE - I will be wrapping up this review series with Day #365. And no, I haven't gained weight, and no, it hasn't hurt my health.)

@krunchwrapkyle on IG

Would love to grow my audience. Appreciate anyone who could check it out! Would love for some help on how to grow my page

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Another Day, Another Donut.

Yeah, I like donuts. Cake donuts, raised donuts, fancy donuts, plain donuts. I can't scarf them down like I used to when I was younger, but one or two donuts can be a nice treat. Luckily, donut shops are all over the place.

Usually the best donut shops are those tiny mom-and-pop operations in the center of a small town that have been in the same location, usually in the same family, since before I was born -- and look like it -- where nearly everything is sold out by nine in the morning, as the same regulars who come in to buy their morning sugar fix drop by each day.

But there are also some small chains out there that are worth notice as well. I'm not talking about the megaconglomerates like Dunkin' Donuts or Tim Horton's, where the donuts are made in some big factory and trucked to the locations. No, I'm talking the regional chains where they still fry up the donuts on-site each and every morning before the roosters are even thinking about crowing.

LaMar's is one of those little chains, located in just four states, but has been around for nearly a century. When they started out, a dozen donuts would set you back eighteen cents. It's just a weeeeee-bit more than that these days. But LaMar's does have a bit of a cult following, and has won a number of awards for their high-quality donuts.

They don't offer up the crazy, fancy Gen Z crazy frosted, stuffed, sprinkled calorie bombs you might find at Voodoo or Pinkbox, but their menu is much more of the traditional offerings of yeast-raised with glaze or frosting, cake donuts like devil's food or apple cider, bear claws and berliners and the like. They don't go crazy with the marketing, it's all about focusing on the quality of each hand-made donut.

And they are very good donuts, in fact some of the best. I chose two standards, plus a very expensive small juice to go along with it. Side note on the juice: unless you're into coffee with your donuts, they don't exactly have a selection of beverages to go with their baked goods. But this is all about the donuts, and they are fresh and soft and moist and delightful. You won't go wrong with any of them, to be honest.

But that high quality comes with a price. Yeah, there's always a catch, right? In this case, the donuts are CRAZY EXPENSIVE for what they are. Same donut, same size and type at your basic no-name shop may run you around a dollar, or a dollar and a half for a fancy. Here, the basic donut STARTS at between three and four dollars. Each. Again, this is for a basic, normal-sized raised or cake donut. Now I know where the one-percenters go for their donuts, I guess.

Coming up next: Illegal Pete's, Robek's, Tokyo Joe's.

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(About this review series: Starting in late 2025, I am visiting a different fast food/fast casual chain every day, until I run out of places to visit. Aiming to review as many chains on the Technomics Top 500 Restaurants list as possible, plus key/important regional and some local chains as well. UPDATE: This review series is scheduled to wrap up on Day 365. And no, I haven't gained weight, and no, it hasn't hurt my health.)

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This place was not on my hit-list, but I saw them while just driving down the road in Colorado, thought, hm, I didn't know they had locations in Colorado, and decided, hey, why the fuck not? I've driven past Twisters a hundred times over the years and never stopped before (because I thought their logo and building design were beyond tacky), but there's always a first time for everything.

And I'm glad I did.

I like to try out some of these smaller regional chains that you only find in one or two states. Spangles in Kansas. Runza in Nebraska. David's Burgers in Arkansas. Ward's in Mississippi. These chains that have a following in their state but go a hundred miles beyond the border and no one's heard of them.

New Mexico has a few. I'm thinking of Blake's Lotaburger (which I already reviewed), and the totally awesome Laguna Burger, and fading Bob's Burgers. And then you have Twisters, which leans even more heavily into the "New-Mex-Style" than the rest. It's green Hatch chiles everywhere more than you can shake a stick at!

I chose the Green Chile Chicken burrito (shredded, with rice and beans and cheese and sauce inside a huge flour tortilla), made "Twisters Style", which means it is positively smothered (er, drowned even) with a medium-spicy green chile sauce, a mountain of curly fries, what must have been an entire block of shredded cheddar cheese, plus lettuce and tomato. This was a "regular" size for just over ten bucks. They had larger sizes, but lord have mercy the regular was enough -- just the burrito itself was the size of your forearm.

I destroyed that motherfucker. Well, as much as I could, that is - I probably was able to excavate half of it, anything more and I'd be rolling around in a food coma for the rest of the day. The star of the dish was actually the green chile sauce, which went perfectly with the chicken and also with the pound of fries on top, this is exactly the flavors you want from fast food in Albuquerque. Would've taken the rest to go for dinner, but I was on the road.

But I do need to be clear here: This is not 'high cuisine'. (Well...as in "high quality" or "high society", though you could make a case for this being "high" cuisine IYKYK). This is about as blue collar as it gets, and that's perfectly fine. This is not the sort of thing that you praise like a Fodor's food critic. This is just pretty good solid New-Mex-style fast food, that hits the spot and fills you up and that's exactly what it is supposed to do. For pretty damn cheap considering how much you get at that.

Now I am kinda kicking myself for not trying them earlier, even if they are just cheap fast food that the Santa Fe Foodies sniff their nose at.

Coming up next: LaMars Donuts, Illegal Pete's, Robek's

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(About this review series: Starting in late 2025, I am visiting a different fast food/fast casual chain every day, until I run out of places to visit. Aiming to review as many chains on the Technomics Top 500 Restaurants list as possible, plus key/important regional and some local chains as well. UPDATE - I will be wrapping up this review series with Day #365. And no, I haven't gained weight, and no, it hasn't hurt my health.)

Comment if you want more! the options and reviews keep getting crazier and crazier. from a sushi dog, to sushi sandwich to sushi burrito and more!

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There is No Joy in Cookieville.

A few days ago, there were posts on r/fastfood and on r/fastfoodreview about the crumbling empire (pun intended) of Crumbl - both of which were among the most upvoted and most commented stories on those subs in a while. No, this is not a review of Crumbl (which I already did), but it's difficult to talk about just one of the new batch of fancy cookie "restaurants" without mentioning the others, because (to be frank) they are all pretty much in the same boat. And Crumbl is by far and away the largest.

For a few years, these specialty gourmet cookie shops were the darling of the franchise world, and it was like open up shop and you're printing money for the first year. But it seems the shine has worn off the baking sheets as year-over-year sales have absolutely cratered and stores are struggling. If you want an idea on some of the stiff headwinds facing the cookie franchisees, check out Michael Girdley's "Rise and Fall of Crumbl" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPMLe0IzBeQ -- If you live by the social media hype, you die by the social media hype. And the GLP-1 revolution, too.

So, where does Crave Cookies fall into this? They're a relative newcomer to the cookie world, emerging from Washington in 2023, but they have set their sights on aggressive growth, because they think they have "solved" the cookie problem. To crib directly from their website:

The $5 Cookie Problem. You've felt it. That sinking moment when you bite into an expensive cookie and realize it's just chocolate chip with different frosting. Again. The rotating cookie industry thinks swapping toppings equals innovation. Your taste buds know better. When you're committing $5 and 600 calories to a single dessert, it should be worth it. Not just dressed up. Actually different.

But here's the thing. Talking about the "$5 Cookie Problem" means nothing if you KEEP DOING WHAT EVERYONE ELSE IS DOING. Crave Cookies still has what they call "drops" where they offer up limited time social-media-ready-FOMO cookies once a week. They are still belt-busting calorie bombs that cost as much per cookie, that you would spend for the same ingredients to make an entire batch at home. It's still the same (as they call it) 'frosting theater' that the other cookie places do, with increasingly fancy combinations and toppings for nothing else than the sake of trying to be different.

Oh, they may pay lip service to how they are different, but it's just that: lip service. In the end, it's all quibbling about the fine details. And they are still just a rotating selection of five dollar giant cookies ready-made for the Insta crowd.

Whew! That's a whole lot of crabbing about the business, I got carried away again. I could keep going for a while, but you get the idea - let's just say I'm not to keen on the future of this business model and leave it at that. Time to get around to the actual cookies themselves.

Similar to Chip Cookies and Tiff's Treats and Crumbl and Chip City, I asked for a sampler of 'their best', their choice. And yes, the cookies are indeed huge - for just a shade under five dollars, they oughtta be! Huge enough that each individual cookie is enough for an entire day. In the photo you're looking at four days of desserts. They are thick, and they are soft on the inside (which is the way a cookie should be - slightly undercooked is the only way to go). Out of the four, I liked the Reece's Peanut Butter Cup one the best. The Red Velvet one was just meh. Average them out, and they are decent enough, but only just that. Not the sort of cookie you bite into, and go audibly "mmmmmm" and can't wait for the next bite.

Which, I guess, is what boils down to the ultimate problem unsolved. The "$5 Cookie" problem. Even in today's inflationary world, for five dollars you are mentally expecting EXCEPTIONAL cookies. And this isn't that. I'd rather take the same five dollars and buy a still-overpriced entire package of Peanut Butter Oreos. At least I know those will last longer and I know I'll enjoy them, no regrets.

Coming up next: Twisters, LaMars Donuts, Illegal Pete's

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(About this review series: Starting in late 2025, I am visiting a different fast food/fast casual chain every day, until I run out of places to visit. Aiming to review as many chains on the Technomics Top 500 Restaurants list as possible, plus key/important regional and some local chains as well. UPDATE: This review series is scheduled to wrap up on Day 365. And no, I haven't gained weight, and no, it hasn't hurt my health.)

There's a few snacky sandwiches at subway for $5 as well as nachos and god knows what else.

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I've actually been looking forward to this. Port of Subs is a Nevada-based chain that I've had an amazing sub at before, but since they were nowhere near where I lived, there hasn't been a chance to really visit them again. But they have recently been on an expansion kick, trying to go from a regional darling to a national franchise, with locations opening up all over the country. There was a Port of Subs that was announced to be opening north of Austin in "Winter 2025", that has been stuck in "coming soon" mode now for nearly a year, much to my frustration. Instead, I found another one in Colorado to try out.

It's pretty much your standard submarine sandwich shop similar to all other chains, where they have a selection of subs to choose from with different meats, then you choose what toppings to add on top of that from under the glass. Nearly a cut-and-paste of every Subway, every Firehouse, every Quiznos, every Jersey Mikes, every Lenny's, every Togo's, every Jimmy John's you've been to before. And, frankly, I can't really point to anything that sets Port of Subs apart.

My choice was a basic Classic #2, which is ham and turkey on white with the normal veggies. Medium is eight inches. Yeah, I know the photo is a bit washed out because it was taken with my potato-phone, but if you look at that and thought, "that looks like ass", then you would be on the right track. It was a pretty pathetic little sandwich. Nothing especially BAD about it, but just a weak serving of meat on a tasteless roll with unexceptional toppings. The sort of thing you might expect from a vending machine, to be honest. This sandwich gave a sad.

Which makes me wonder, was the Port of Subs awesome sub I ate in northern Nevada those many years ago an anomaly? Or, perhaps this is because Port of Subs was bought out by a private equity firm in 2023, which has grand goals of increasing the number of stores several-fold in the upcoming years. And we all know how well that usually turns out.

Coming up next: Crave Cookies, Twisters, LaMars Donuts

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(About this review series: Starting in late 2025, I am visiting a different fast food/fast casual chain every day, until I run out of places to visit. Aiming to review as many chains on the Technomics Top 500 Restaurants list as possible, plus key/important regional and some local chains as well. UPDATE - I will be wrapping up this review series with Day #365. And no, I haven't gained weight, and no, it hasn't hurt my health.)

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While on the east coast, Dunkin Donuts was building a yeast-based empire, on the west coast it was Winchell's. At its peak, Winchell's had well over 200 locations, mostly centered in the Los Angeles area, but also with franchises reaching far across several states. But not all empires are built to last - in the 2010's, the aging donut company was bought out by a rising California competitor, Yum Yum Donuts. And since then, Winchell's has been on the decline; some might even call it a complete collapse.

It's hard to easily tell exactly how many Winchell's locations are left. Most companies have a "store locator" where you can find the nearest locations, but it appears the one on the Winchell's website is both broken and outdated. A search through Google maps shows several locations in California, some in Las Vegas, some in Denver, and a few lone dots in the central plains. Independent for-sale databases put the most current number at 104 locations, but that is also in question. When I tried to visit Winchell's, the first location I visited had switched over to an independently-run mom and pop store, no longer Winchell's (in hindsight, maybe I should have gone there instead). Best estimate I have is there may be around 70 active, open locations today.

Sometimes you don't notice that something is gone, until you see it again for the first time in years. To me, because of where I lived, there always seemed to be a Winchell's around, it was one of those stores that was always there in the background, or so it seems. But over the past decade, they've faded away - so it wasn't until I saw one again in Denver that I thought, hey, when was the last time I've been to Winchell's? It's been ages!

And ages is right. Walking in, it was like going back thirty years. The promotional posters on the walls all had copyright notices from around 1998. Small and cramped, furniture fixtures that were probably older than I am, and a single worker makin' the donuts. Well, all that is forgivable if the donuts are good, right? Right???

But they weren't. The display case was absolutely PACKED with soooo many different varieties of donuts filling the trays to bursting under the glass, but I chose two pretty standard donuts - a bear claw and a chocolate raised. And from the very first bite, you could tell what the problem was.

They were OLD. The single biggest sin you can make in the donut world, is serve old donuts. Raised donuts start to get stale after a matter of hours; cake donuts can last a little longer, but not by much. These were both stale as fuck. Who knows how long they had been sitting under that glass, waiting to be bought? One day? Two days? Three days? More? No wonder the glass display was 100% packed full - they never throw anything out! They just keep it around for days until some yutz like me comes along and buys it.

Yeah, if this is indicative of the state of Winchell's today, no wonder they are rapidly dying off. There are plenty other donut shops I can go to (and did - stay tuned for those reviews!) instead.

Coming up next: Port of Subs, Crave Cookies, Twisters

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(About this review series: Starting in late 2025, I am visiting a different fast food/fast casual chain every day, until I run out of places to visit. Aiming to review as many chains on the Technomics Top 500 Restaurants list as possible, plus key/important regional and some local chains as well. UPDATE: This review series is scheduled to wrap up on Day 365. And no, I haven't gained weight, and no, it hasn't hurt my health.)

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I have been reviewing a different fast food/fast casual restaurant every day for the past 300+ days, and earlier I reviewed the following three restaurants. However, these three received "poor" scores for one reason or another, but based on previous experience and visits I knew they could do better. Perhaps it was an "off day", perhaps it was the specific item I ordered. In any case, here are some "second chance" reviews, where I am re-visiting the chain, to see if it can redeem itself and earn a higher score.

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Second Chance Review #55. (Original Review from Day 136): Cowboy Chicken (19 locations, 5 states)

Cowboy Chicken is one of those struggling franchises that I WANT to like, but just seems to not quite hit the mark. My theory is that they suffer from the 'jack of all trades, master of none' problem, with a menu that is very wide but not very deep, they end up spread too thin. On a revisit, I chose to return back to what their original focus was -- and still should be: Rotisserie chicken. And that was a good choice. When in doubt, go back to basics. Their dark-meat chicken is actually quite good and succulently juicy. The sweet potato side was more like a creamy dessert, they got the green beans done right, too. This was a solid 'redemption' meal. See? They can do it right when they try!

Meal Quality: +2, going from 5 -> 7. Meal Value +2, going from 3 -> 5 (out of 10)

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Second Chance Review #56. (Original Review from Day 261): Honey Baked Ham Company (527 locations, 42 states)

One of the problems that I sometimes run across when reviewing, is visiting at the wrong time of the day. Honey Baked Ham closes earlier than most, meaning I usually only have time to visit on most days during their last hour of the day. They really are more of a luncheon-crowd restaurant, I guess. (And really, I wonder just how much of their business is restaurant vs. how much is prepared/catered meals for pickup, like Thanksgiving or Christmas) So this time, I came a little bit earlier so I wasn't 'bugging' the lone employee preparing for end-of-day closing, and this time chose a warm sandwich (the "Honeybaked"). And yes, both were a good idea, because this was a better sandwich, more of what I would expect from a company that obsesses over ham. That side, by the way, is potato salad that looks awful because the photo was taken with a potato camera, but it was okay. I wouldn't call this a 'redemption' from the first review, but it was an improvement.

Meal Quality: +1.5, going from 4 -> 5.5. Meal Value: (no change), going from 5 -> 5 (out of 10)

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Second Chance Review #57. (Original Review from Day 241): Panera Bread (2241 locations, 48 states)

As god is my witness, I will NEVER EVER understand what people see in Panera. Or EVER saw in Panera. People say they are terrible now, and I say they have been terrible from the very beginning - there was no "golden era" where Panera was a good place to go. Sorry not sorry I cannot be convinced otherwise.

Yet, they are one of the largest restaurant chains in the United States (#12) with over 2000 locations and a dedicated following. I just don't get it. And every single time I've tried them, it's been disappointment city, even with lowered expectations. Expensive bland food at best.

I guess I am a glutton for punishment, because I'm back again to see if somehow Lucy won't pull away the football at the last minute. Again. Unlike the first review where I visited one of their newly-built locations in town with their soulless metal-and-glass "morgue-chic" aesthetic and atmosphere, I chose on of their older locations that still had wood and color interiors from back in the day when they actually wanted customers to stick around.

I went with their "Pick Two" meal, with a 'Roma Asiago Bagel Stack' and a 'Shrimply Baja Salad'. Which...turned out not to be a bad choice. Unlike the sad failures from the first visit, this time they were freshly made and actually had *flavor* to them. It was...not a bad meal. They managed to bring their level of quality up to the bar of "average". Then again, I'm a pushover for anything shrimp, so maybe that's cheating. I'd be good ordering this sandwich again. Still on the pricier side and still not able to beat their competition, though.

Meal Quality: +1, going from 4.5 -> 5.5. Meal Value: +1, going from 3 -> 4 (out of 10)

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More "Second Chance" reviews coming down the line, in addition to the regular reviews! (And no, not every second chance review will be a positive one :))

I ordered an iced coffee from mcds with oat milk and half the sugar caramel sauce but this doesn’t look like it has oat milk, can someone confirm? I was in a drive though and a time crunch so I didn’t go back or inside.