Avoid Ordering These 15 Chain Restaurant Desserts

I'll admit, I have an insatiable sweet tooth. It's game over when I go out to eat and the server asks if I'd like to see the dessert menu. Cheesecake, skillet cookies, gelato, crème brûlée – you name it, I'm obsessed with it. This is especially true when I go to a chain restaurant like Chili's or Outback Steakhouse. With locations in nearly every city I visit, I never have to think twice about my order, whether it's drinks, entrées, or desserts — the latter of which is my favorite part of the meal.

It's rare for me to find a dessert I don't like, but much to my chagrin, that doesn't mean it's never happened. I've had several instances where I've visited a chain restaurant and tried a dessert for the first time, only to be left less than impressed. Whether the taste or texture was subpar, the preparation was off, or the presentation was poor, there just wasn't enough to love about them. Here are some of the most disappointing desserts, based on my personal experiences or testaments from other Tasting Table writers. 

Olive Garden's breadsticks are sure to fill you up before your meal arrives, and if you're lucky enough to have room left for dessert, there are plenty to choose from. The Sicilian Cheesecake with strawberry topping may seem like the best option: a plain cheesecake with strawberries is a pretty basic dessert that we're all familiar with, so it's hard to go wrong with this one, right?

Not exactly. After giving it a try, our taste tester was less than impressed. Most notably, it was apparent that the dessert was previously frozen. Former staffers have confirmed on social media that all of Olive Garden's desserts are frozen. Whether that's true or not, nobody wants to pay for something that tastes like it was just pulled out of the freezer.

Other than that, the strawberry topping is too soft, which then makes the crust soggy and lacking the classic texture variation of a cheesecake. The strawberries didn't taste fresh, either. Though staff enjoyed the taste and the creaminess of the cheesecake itself, this particular dessert was ranked the lowest among the other dessert options at the chain.

Since childhood, McDonald's baked apple pies always held a special place in my heart. I used to order the dessert to my dorm room in college when I wanted something sweet and cheap. At some point, though, I noticed the apple pies were more lackluster than before – and I haven't ordered one since.

The filling has become less like apple pie, and more reminiscent of a sticky, gooey mess with minimal fruit. On top of that, there's less crust than there used to be, which does little to balance the filling. The texture of the crust is different, too: it's soft and chewy rather than dense and crunchy. That makes me wonder if something has been altered in recent years, which wouldn't be the first change to the recipe. In 1992, McDonald's switched from deep-frying to baking the pies. Though there's no news about any other potential changes since then, I still wonder if something else has been altered, because this nostalgic dessert just isn't what it used to be.

This list wouldn't be complete without mentioning the king of chain restaurant desserts: The Cheesecake Factory. While the restaurant has a whopping list of incredible cheesecakes to choose from, one in particular — the Cinnabon cinnamon swirl — really isn't worth the splurge.

A partnership between The Cheesecake Factory and Cinnabon sounds like a great idea in theory, but it would appear that this menu item needs a bit more tweaking. The dessert is layered with Cinnabon icing between both cheesecake and a cinnamon bun-like cake, and unfortunately, our reviewer had several issues with it. For one, the icing is far too sweet for the cake to have so much of it, and the cinnamon flavor is extremely strong. Plus, the layers seem to weigh each other down, making the cake collapse in on itself.

Perhaps this is a good choice for those who love intense sweetness and cinnamon flavor, but for most of us, it's overkill. Pair that with the absence of a classic, stable cheesecake structure, and it's probably not the best cheesecake you can get at the chain.

Allow me to introduce my arch nemesis: the bacon milkshake at Five Guys. There's nothing like a good milkshake paired with a burger and fries, and I recently decided to try something other than classic flavors. I'm not sure what came over me when I ordered the bacon milkshake, but I hope it never strikes me again.

Combining bacon with sweet treats has become popular over the years, and while it works most of the time, I personally wasn't impressed by this one. Small pieces of bacon are mixed into a vanilla base, and I didn't exactly enjoy having to stop and chew. That made it difficult to fully enjoy the experience, and I didn't love the flavor, either. The bacon was too overpowering for my taste, and it didn't satisfy my craving for an actual dessert after my meal.

However, this might be better with add-ins like peanut butter, chocolate syrup, or bananas. These ingredients could dilute the overpowering flavor of the bacon, but still — if you're anything like me, you're not a fan of having to chew your milkshake.

Red Lobster is one of the best chain restaurants for seafood, but unfortunately, it doesn't hit the mark with desserts as well as it does with something like a shrimp platter. One item that you should avoid ordering not only from the dessert menu, but Red Lobster's entire menu as a whole is the Brownie Overboard.

It almost looks like a banana split, but instead of a banana, the main event is a dry, unimpressive brownie that tastes quite cheap. The ice cream and other toppings should, in theory, breathe some life back into the dull brownie — until you consider the incredible amount of chocolate and caramel sauces that smother the dessert in far too much sweetness. The sauces are so overpowering that the entire dish is difficult to consume. If you manage to get past that top layer, you'll find the dry brownie waiting for you at the bottom, so the experience doesn't exactly improve as you eat.

I've actually never been to a Red Robin, so I'm relying on others to help me identify one of the more "bleh" desserts on its menu. The shortbread chocolate soufflé cake has been ranked as the second-worst dessert at Red Robin for a variety of reasons, including an overall lack of flavor and disappointing texture.

The chocolate flavor was reportedly very difficult to detect, for starters. There was also no difference in texture between the soufflé and the shortbread, which is certainly cause for concern when we consider the distinctive texture of shortbread in particular. I imagine the dessert to be very soft and almost mushy, particularly when the vanilla ice cream is added to the mix. However, our taste tester found the ice cream to be the saving grace of this dish, which tells me all I need to know. If plain vanilla ice cream is the best part when the titular ingredients are hardly detectable, then I'll definitely be choosing something else when I finally visit Red Robin.

I'm from a small town where the majority of our restaurants are chains, and one of them — Uno Pizzeria — has been there for as long as I have, making it a top choice when deciding where to go out for dinner. I remember dining there not long ago when I was craving one of its famous deep-dish pizzas, and I decided to try the towering chocolate cake for dessert. As a diehard chocoholic, I expected to fall in love with it. That, of course, didn't happen.

Not only is the large slice of double-chocolate cake extremely dry, but the icing is also unfathomably sugary — so much so that I could feel the sugar granules building up on my teeth after just one bite. It left a very unpleasant feeling in my mouth, and I found myself pausing to drink water between bites. The cake was so difficult to get down that I barely made it through half of it before I decided to call it quits. I haven't ordered dessert at Uno since then, and if I do in the near future, I'll be steering clear of the chocolate cake.

Outback Steakhouse is another go-to chain restaurant in my hometown, and while I've tried pretty much everything on the menu, I haven't had the chance to try this lackluster dessert: the salted caramel cookie skillet. I'm a big fan of the cookie skillet from Chili's, plus all things salted caramel, so I figured I'd like this one until I saw that it was flagged as a dessert worth skipping.

The dessert's cookie base is described as being overly greasy with little flavor, and the toppings don't do much to improve it. Whether it's the caramel sauce or the cookie itself, the dish is said to be too salty. Other disappointed reviews claim it's much smaller than advertised, and not at all as hot and gooey as expected.

This would appear to be another dessert that sounds delicious in theory, but the actual execution needs some work. If Outback can find a way to improve the cookie and achieve a more cohesive balance of flavors, then maybe this dish can earn its redemption.

I've mentioned Chili's once or twice already, and for good reason: No meal at the restaurant is complete without its cookie skillet for dessert. But we're here to talk about the desserts you should avoid, which brings us to the molten lava cake. I used to love this dish years ago, and I would alternate between the lava cake and the cookie skillet each time I visited. Not anymore.

The last time I ordered this, the first thing I noticed was the significantly smaller portion size. It used to be enough for me to share it with three or four other people, and now, I could easily finish it myself. I also noticed right away that it wasn't as "molten" as it used to be. The chocolate wasn't warm enough, and there just wasn't as much of it. The cake itself was also notably dry and lacking flavor.

This definitely isn't the worst dessert on our list, but it's nowhere near the best, either. Take it from me: Stick to the cookie skillet if you want a chocolatey dessert at Chili's.

Ah, Arby's. I've never actually been here before, either, so I turned to other taste testers to help me identify any less-than-impressive desserts on the menu. The cherry turnover was identified as something better off avoiding, and its comparability to McDonald's baked apple pies tells me everything I need to know about it. 

Though its quality is said to be much better than McDonald's apple pie, it still doesn't hit the mark when it comes to balancing flavors. The cherry filling is extremely sweet, and if it's anything like store-bought cherry pie filling, I can already feel my body rejecting the sugar overload. That, paired with the white icing drizzle on top of the turnover, means it probably isn't the best choice for people who crave a more subtle sweetness.

I'm cutting Arby's some slack, though. In my experience, I haven't come across many chain restaurants that offer cherry-based desserts, so Arby's gets a few points for creativity.

I was raised in an Italian-American family, meaning I was baking Italian desserts at a young age. Tiramisu was always a favorite in my household. The combination of mascarpone cheese, espresso, and ladyfingers makes for a unique dessert that always leaves an impression. During a recent visit to Olive Garden, I decided to give the restaurant's tiramisu a try, and sadly, I wasn't very impressed by it.

Firstly, the tiramisu was strangely dry, and I immediately knew the ladyfingers hadn't been soaked in espresso. That was due in part to the dryness, of course, but also the blandness of the dish. I couldn't taste the ingredients as much as I'd prefer. One of my favorite things about a classic tiramisu is how several intense flavors are combined in a seamless way — in other words, you can taste each one in moderation, but they're so well balanced that they create a perfect flavor profile. I didn't get that at all with Olive Garden's tiramisu, and though I may be biased, I think I've made it better at home.

It's safe to say that I don't exactly expect much out of Domino's desserts when it's, first and foremost, a pizza chain. The chocolate lava crunch cakes are actually pretty good, though, which gave me high hopes when I decided to try the marbled cookie brownie. I wasn't very happy with it, and neither were other reviewers. In fact, I've even given this dessert numerous chances over the years, and I've always been left with the same disappointment.

To start, it isn't "marbled"; it's just globs of cookie batter haphazardly added to brownie batter before baking. It's also never been consistent when it comes to baking: sometimes it's severely underbaked, and sometimes it's so overbaked that it's nearly impossible to eat. Even underbaked, it's very dry, and it's always thinner than what you'd expect from a brookie. There's also little to no flavor at all with this dessert. 

I visited a Bojangles for the first time during a trip to North Carolina a few years ago, and though I wasn't able to try its peach cobbler, its placing on a ranking of fast food pies made me glad I didn't. It's not all that different from one of the negative aspects of McDonald's apple pies: the filling is so overly gooey that it makes the biscuit-based "cobbler" soggy, thus eliminating the texture distinction that makes a cobbler so delicious.

The peaches are, unfortunately, the nail in the coffin for this dessert. They're described as being comparable to canned preserved peaches in the sense that they're far too sugary, which leads to an artificial taste. With peach cobbler being such a classic Southern delicacy, it's not surprising that Bojangles added this to its menu — especially given how unique it is as a fast food dessert — but again, it's one of those dishes that needs a bit more tweaking before it hits the mark.

Taco Bell's cinnamon twists are a menu item I've always heard rave reviews about, so I finally decided to try them for myself several years ago. I was immediately shocked when I tried them; I couldn't understand how so many people were obsessed with what tasted like glorified Styrofoam, or, as one Reddit user called them, "packing peanuts." This is another dessert that I've ordered time and time again, hoping it'd improve with time, but it still hasn't left a good impression on me.

There was still something off about the texture and the way it felt in my mouth. I think I would've been able to get past the texture if the flavor had been enough to distract me, but sadly, all I tasted was a sugar coating. I didn't get any cinnamon flavor at all. Of the many chances I've given the cinnamon twists, there's only been one instance when I could just barely taste the cinnamon, so I'm fairly certain this issue expands beyond the possibility of getting a bad batch.

I've been saving the worst for last, and I'm finally here to discuss Subway's cookies. Anyone who has been to a Subway can recall seeing the individually-wrapped cookies on display by the register. If you've given into the temptation, then you already know the cookies aren't worth the money.

Insanely sweet, lacking flavor, and pumped full of that artificial, processed taste we're all familiar with, Subway's cookies have been flagged as the worst fast food cookies out there based on their taste and texture. The cookies are described as grainy and undermixed, so there's really nothing redeeming about them.

However, the oatmeal raisin cookie was noted as being the best of them, likely because the sugariness and artificial taste of the others is largely due to their respective chocolate inclusions. Either way, I don't see myself buying a Subway cookie any time soon.

The desserts on this list all have one thing in common: They're a far, far cry from the best desserts you can get at chain restaurants. The reasons for this are numerous, and the conclusions were drawn based not only on my own personal preferences, but on the rankings and reviews from other writers at Tasting Table, too.

The taste is, of course, one of the most important factors considered here. Many of the desserts were too bland, too sweet, or contained ingredients that are too overpowering. Texture is another important element to consider, particularly with items like Red Robin's shortbread chocolate soufflé cake, in which both the soufflé and the shortbread were butchered. Presentation — including smaller-than-advertised portions, pre-frozen desserts, or poor structural integrity — was also grounds for inclusion on this list.