2014's Most Over-the-Top Fast Food
2014 wasn't exactly a banner year for fast food. McDonald's continued its slow descent into irrelevance, Burger King brought back its infamous Chicken Fries and discontinued its much-ballyhooed (and healthier) Satisfries, and KFC brought back its absurd Double Down. And while no new fast food menu item became a viral smash on par with the latter, 2014 saw some pretty wild new items that could mean that fast food is heading firmly in the direction of the weird.
Click Here to see the Slideshow for 2014's Most Over the Top Fast Food
If there was one trend that caught on with a vengeance this year, it was breakfast, which is currently a $50 billion market within the fast food industry. Just about every chain now serves breakfast of some sort, including new player Taco Bell, whose breakfast menu represents the largest menu overhaul in the company's history.
Mashups are also a major fast food menu motif; drawing on the mega-successes of foods like the Cronut and Taco Bell's Tacos Doritos Loco, just about every chain is now offering some sort of "hybrid" food, like Taco Bell's "Biscuit Taco," which was tested in several markets and tucks egg, cheese, and bacon or sausage into a curved biscuit shaped like a taco shell. Apparently, there are still plenty of mashups to mine, and we'll be seeing them for a long time.
Another trend we saw catch on in 2014? Bold, outside-the-box flavors. Sriracha is everywhere, from Pizza Hut to Subway, which is just one sign that fast food companies aren't afraid to dial up flavors and experiment a little bit. It's definitely not a bad thing.
Finally, more chains are veering into "gourmet" territory, with Wendy's debuting Smoked Gouda Chicken on Brioche, Smashburger launching a Truffle & Swiss Burger, Wendy's releasing a Tuscan Chicken Sandwich on Ciabatta, and McDonald's testing a Guacamole Burger in Denver. These all indicate a shift not only in consumers' tastes toward more upscale offerings, but also in chains' desire to go a more high-end route in order to compete with popular chains like Panera Bread.
But onto the most interesting aspect of fast food of all: the weird stuff. Chains know that the weirder a food item is, the more likely that people will talk about it, and the more they'll be tempted to try it, just so they can say that they did. 2014 definitely saw its fair share of weird fast foods. While foreign countries like Japan and the Philippines will always have some extremely bizarre fast foods on offer (Burger King Japan's Black Ninja Burger, anyone?), all of the following menu items were released to the American market. Buckle up, because things are about to get crazy.
Check out the slideshow above for the most over-the-top fast foods of the year.
America's Most Outrageous French Fries
America's Best Fried Chicken
America's Healthiest Fast-Food Breakfast Items
The Coolest Food Trucks Ever
The 50 Top Cupcakes in America
