13 Fast Food Trends We Hope Disappear After 2026

There are those of us who are old enough to remember a time before we plunged headlong into the year 2000 with hopes of hoverboards and flying cars, commercial space travel and supersonic jets, and a whole bunch of foodie innovations. Boy, were we silly. Instead, the 21st century has turned out to be a sort of dystopian landscape that we'd like to see about getting a refund on. That absolutely extends to fast food, and recent years have seen the development of trends we would like to see disappear after 2026, thank you very much.

Fast food used to be easy. Affordable. Convenient. Today, things have somehow gotten more complicated, ordering processes are the opposite of streamlined, and don't even get us started on the impact social media has had on fast food.

Actually ... we are going to get started on that and a number of other things. And to be clear, we're not just standing outside, alone, yelling at the clouds to get off our lawn. We headed over to Reddit to see what others had to say about the trends that have somehow taken hold of fast food, and there are a lot that just need to stop. Now, please.

Drive down the street in any city these days, and you'll notice that all fast food restaurants kind of look the same. Personality is apparently so 20th century, and today, grey, featureless boxes are the rage. You'll see announcements from chains like Burger King and McDonald's overhauling restaurants in the hopes of creating something new, modern, welcoming ... blah, blah, blah. You don't have to go too far back to find restaurant chains looked very different before getting a bland, boring, so-called modern redesign, and we're not the only ones that want to see a little more fun coming back.

There was a time when McDonald's PlayPlace was the super-fun (and slightly dangerous) playground you couldn't wait to hang out in, and Pizza Hut managed to be cool, fun, and upscale at the same time. And at Wendy's, you had those sweet, sweet sunrooms. Heck, one of the things people miss about old-school Panera is the cozy seating and welcoming vibes. 

Even the reason for this lack of personality feels a little dystopian, and it's been floated that the generic look makes it easier for a new restaurant to move into a space when one fails. That's dismal. Look, sometimes we just want to go sit on a little hamburger-shaped stool and eat our Happy Meal to experience just a few minutes of whimsy.

We are by no means anti-tech, but it's disheartening to walk into a fast food place only to find yourself confronted with a kiosk dominated by a touchscreen that's clearly Seen Some Things. We already know we're going to have to scroll through 12 menus to get what we want and don't like it any more than you do, Ye Olde iPad. 

There are plenty of Reddit users that take issue with these kiosks for a number of reasons, starting with the fact some aren't programmed to accept particular modifications to orders and instructions. Want extra-crispy fries? Good luck. Others point out it's often a crapshoot as to whether or not you're going to get a receipt, some take issue with the fact that kiosks make paying with cash difficult (and sometimes impossible), while frequent travelers point out that there's added frustrations when kiosks are in a language you don't understand. Le sigh.

Finally, they're gross. Kiosk screens are perpetually and unpleasantly sticky, often smeared with who-knows-what. Do you know how many people touched those things? How many kids licked them? Did any of them just come out of the bathroom without washing their hands? These are the kinds of questions we don't want to have to answer.

Hey! Insert-Fast-Food-Chain-Here has just announced a new, limited-time, extra-special sauce! Is it hot honey? Of course it is. Hot honey has been everywhere for what seems like the last 50 years, and it's safe to say we're ready for something new.

Hot honey exhaustion is real, with plenty of Reddit users taking to the forum to say that hot honey was pretty meh to begin with, and it has become completely overdone. While there are plenty of hot honey recipes you can make at home for an absolutely incredible meal, fast food versions tend to be lacking. There are tons of complaints about how it's not really hot, not particularly sweet, not actually good on many of the foods it gets slathered on, and honestly kind of weird. When we found one Reddit user asking, "Did anyone else think that the new McDonald's Hot Honey Sauce tastes like a cough syrup with antibiotics," we knew exactly what they meant.

We also understand the Reddit user who wrote, "Hot honey sauce is awful. It leaves a lingering taste in your mouth that I would imagine Hell tastes like." People are so over hot honey, and it's time for the next big thing.

Even if you love pumpkin-spiced everything, you've got to admit that things are getting out of hand. We're talking about the fact that pumpkin spice is shouldering its way onto menus across the country earlier and earlier, with many fast food chains — including Starbucks and Dunkin — rolling out the pumpkin in August. 

August! Seriously, in 2026, by the time the first day of fall arrived on September 22, we'd already had a month of pumpkin everything. There's even a term for it: season creep. Analysts suggest it happens because restaurants want to have extra time to take advantage of the popularity of these seasonal items, but there's a danger there, too. When pumpkin spice is limited, it feels special. When you know you've got four months to get your fix, what's the rush?

Pumpkin spice is a flavor that goes along with long nights, chilly weather, and flannel ... not hot and sunny summer afternoons. Reddit is full of people who are sick of seeing those last days of summer being unceremoniously hustled out the door like that one uncle that starts voicing questionable opinions after one too many glasses of wine. Keep seasonal items in season.

Ah, the days when you could walk into a Subway and get a footlong sub for $5, and McDonald's had a Dollar Menu. Yes, things were $1, and not that long ago. It was first introduced in 2003, and in 2013, it expanded to include more sandwiches like the BBQ Ranch Burger and the McChicken, both for $1.

More recently, prices across the fast food world have been rising at a rate that we don't want to describe as a trend, but here we are. In 2025, the average cost of a fast food meal — which varies by state — had creeped up into the $13 range at the high end. Analysts over at FinanceBuzz looked at how much fast food prices rose between 2014 and 2024 and found items went up anywhere from 39% to 100%. During that same period, inflation accounted for a 31% increase in the cost of goods. Fast food, apparently, had accepted the challenge and told everything else to hold its beer.

And it has to stop: Reddit is full of people saying they've stopped going to their favorite fast food chains. Quality certainly hasn't risen alongside prices, and there are plenty who point out that a burger or a burrito at a mom-and-pop independent restaurant is going to be oftentimes cheaper and always better than these once-affordable fast food chains. 

As if skyrocketing prices weren't bad enough, claims of shrinkflation seem to have added insult to injury. It's no secret that popular grocery items have been hit by shrinkflation, and there are plenty of people heading to Reddit to complain that not only are they seeing ridiculous prices, but they're also getting food that seems to be of a size more appropriate for — and perhaps designed by — ants.

Photos posted by Reddit users might be hilarious were it not so troubling. There are a ton of complaints about the sizes of Panera sandwiches (like the one pictured), with some saying they're so sad that even with the occasional BOGO offer, they still walk away feeling like they were ripped off. Should a sandwich be at least a little larger than about two inches square? We say: Yes.

Even fast food chains with a deeply devoted cult following have had customers up in arms over perceived changes in sizes. People have begun accusing In-N-Out of serving smaller-than-normal patties, and shrinkflation is the biggest complaint many have about McDonald's Filet-O-Fish. Rising prices are bad enough; coupling that with smaller portions just isn't cool.

Secret menus might have started out as something perfectly ordinary, and yes, some chains have turned it into the worst-kept secret around. In-N-Out even has the secret menu on its website, which seems like an excellent way to miss the point. However, the so-called secret menus have gotten so out of control that they're nothing short of a headache for fast food employees across all chains.

Stories posted on Reddit are pretty awful. One Reddit user wrote, "I had a guest threaten my job for a sandwich that is not on the menu. It's something we can do, but the details are skewed. How to ring it entails something complex. Nothing satisfied this person. And threatened my job. ... I felt at the moment, here is my apron. Take my job. You can have it. Good luck on you."

Plenty of others have told stories about customers hurling some serious abuse their way when they have no idea what a particular made-up menu item is, and it's been that way for years. Secret menus have had a moment in the sun, and it was a good run. It's time for that run to be over, though.

Buried in the r/LowStakesConspiracies subreddit is a post that suggests, "Restaurants intentionally create uncomfortable dine-in environments to gradually transition to delivery-only kitchens, cutting costs on waiters and rent." Another post is embedded in that one, and it shows a Wendy's that definitely gives off prison cafeteria vibes ... if prisons had less color. The thing is that this is a conspiracy theory that many can get on board with, because countless people have commented on the fact that fast food dining rooms are getting more and more miserable.

Others have posted photos of hard booths and wooden chairs at McDonald's, and you know the ones — they're the chairs that make your back hurt just looking at them. (That's a McD's dining room pictured.) Another Reddit user posted a photo of metal chairs at Taco Bell and confirmed that yes, they actually did make their back hurt.

Studies done by the National Restaurant Association (via Chain Store Age) has shown that by 2024, around 75% of the business done at restaurants involved going elsewhere to eat. Is that because dining in just isn't a comfortable experience anymore? Or are chains putting less care into the dining room experience because there are fewer customers there? That's pretty cold.

Pay-it-forward chains are one of those things that seems like a wholesome idea. But they're actually awful, and you'll find no shortage of people heading to Reddit to say anyone who starts one is a complete and total expletive. 

Times are tough for many people, and sure, going through the drive-thru to find the person ahead of you has paid for your coffee is spiffy. What's not so cool is when you look in the rear-view mirror, see a car with an entire Little League team in it, and get told it'll be $155 to keep the chain going. The pressure to keep the chain going is real, and it makes people uncomfortable. For some, it might put them in an impossible financial situation.

Unsurprisingly, we even found some people saying that they'd seen others trying to take advantage of chains by going through, then circling back around to place a massive order with the clear hopes that the car in front of them was going to feel pressured into paying for it. Others say you're not really doing anything nice; you're just paying for someone's food when they were clearly going to do so anyway. You're not helping anyone, per se, and there's nothing but bad things that can come out of this super-cringe trend.

This one is actually a lot of little trends, but since they're all annoying, we're going to combine them into one and say that we can't wait until this phase of humanity is over. We are, of course, talking about the people who film massive TikTok videos in restaurants and manage to disrupt everyone around them. One Reddit user summed things up with a very succinct plea: "Stop using fast food workers as accessories on your TikTok videos!"

There are plenty of uncomfortable videos that make their way to various social media platforms, and the idea that harassing employees to try to get a reaction from them and filming it for clout is nothing short of abhorrent. That includes a rash — and we do mean that in every sense of the word — of videos pranking drive-thru workers, because really: Throwing food or blasting an air horn at someone working the window is not funny.

Neither is dancing in the drive-thru, in the middle of a restaurant, and around people who are literally just trying to enjoy their burger. Also? Enlisting servers to perform and film along with you needs to stop. Most people are just trying to get on with their day and don't really want to be in your video. 

Every so often, there's a moment where we have to look around and wonder when "Idiocracy" became a documentary, because this is something that feels like we definitely saw it popping up in that sadly prophetic movie. Fast food chains have started partnering with celebrities and releasing special meals; only, people are quick to point out they're not special. 

McDonald's BTS Meal was a Chicken McNuggets meal with fries, soda, and either a sweet chili or Cajun sauce. The J Balvin meal? A Big Mac without pickles. Travis Scott's? A Quarter Pounder with BBQ sauce. Saweetie's? A Big Mac, nuggets, fries, sauces, and Sprite. If you're saying, "But all of those things are already on the menu!" you would be correct.

One Reddit user pulled no punches, writing, "I used to work in fast food and promotions like that were always stupid for us. They're the exact same food we've always had, they just slap a celebrity label and some fancy new name on it. It's shameless advertising." Others have even pointed out that some celebrities featured famously do not eat from the fast food chain they're partnering with, and that just kind of adds a whole new layer of what-the-heck to the whole thing. Customers are ready for some creativity that actually took some original thinking and effort. 

Sometimes, you're not entirely sure what you're in the mood for, and since we have this occasionally wonderful thing called the Information Superhighway, it makes sense that you should just be able to pull up a menu. Good luck, because online menus these days demand you jump through some annoying hoops.

We have some feelings about this. Reddit users complain that sometimes they just want to look at a menu. Starting a fake order will usually get you some kind of access, but given that some chains turn off ordering at night or only allow you to access certain menus at any given time of the day — a breakfast menu during breakfast hours, for example — it's pretty frustrating. What if it's the evening, and you want to plan for breakfast the next morning? It's a thing that should be so easy and yet somehow isn't.

On a related aside, customers are also sick of digital menu boards that constantly rotate. If you happen to glance away or miss the section you're interested in, congratulations, you now have to sit and wait. As one Reddit user wrote, "Hey McDonald's, I don't want to see a full menu ad for your ice cream while I'm trying to decide on my meal, and I'd like to be able to look at a screen for more than 8 seconds. Back in my day we could see the entire menu at once." 

It's a given that a fast food chain is going to have an app. Starbucks and Taco Bell spearheaded the whole thing — so, we absolutely know who to blame — and at a glance, it seems like a perfectly fine idea. There are deals, promotions, saved orders, and it's easy. What's more 21st century than that? Apps that harvest and sell your data for the privilege of getting a free order of fries, apparently.

Fast food apps are monitoring everything from your location to your financials and social media use, and that probably isn't something we should really be allowing companies access to. Even if you're fine with sharing all the dirty details of your browsing history, plenty of people say a lot of the apps are just kind of awful.

For years, people have been complaining about apps that have so-called deals and promotions that leave something to be desired and just don't play nice with certain types of phones. Some hate a lack of location verification. Others hate how difficult it is to cancel an order. Others are frustrated by the drawn-out drama of placing an order through the app, then showing up at the restaurant only to find there's no longer a record of said order. Seriously, get things working here, folks.