12 Fast Food Burgers We’re Relieved Are Off the Menu for Good

In the world of fast food, burgers come and burgers go. Some stick around for ages, becoming iconic fast food staples that become beloved favorites. Others’ tenures are more short-lived, staying only a few months or years on their respective menus. Some of the latter burgers were downright delicious, and we miss them every time we go through the drive-thru. On the other hand, though, some of those discontinued fast food burgers deserved to be slashed from menus — even some that were generally popular when they were around.

We’ve uncovered 12 different fast food burgers that we’re grateful (or at least hopeful) that we’ll never have to see again, ranging from diet-focused burgers to ones that just had strange burger toppings that didn’t really go together. Maybe some of them will trigger your memories of fast food meals past, or perhaps you’ll just be glad you never had to be subjected to these menu items when they were still around. Either way, these are the fast food burgers we think deserve to be removed from fast food menus.

Diet culture strikes again. In the 1990s, everyone became obsessed with fat. The macronutrient was demonized and blamed for the obesity epidemic in the United States. That’s when food manufacturers started producing tons of low-fat products. The McDonald’s McLean Deluxe just happened to be one of them. Compared to other fast food burgers, the patty in this particular burger was quite low fat, using 91 percent lean beef. Whether it was actually healthy, though, is a bit less clear — it also boasted quite high levels of salt, which was likely added to provide the burger with flavor it was missing from the lack of fat included in the recipe.

But the burger was discontinued in 1996, mostly because it just didn’t taste that good. Fat, after all, is what provides a burger with much of its flavor, and even mountains of salt can’t make up for the flavor that was missing from this burger. It represented only 2 percent of sales when it was on the menu, which makes sense, considering that most people aren’t going to McDonald’s to eat a particularly healthy meal. We should all be limiting our fast food intake, but when we do find ourselves at a drive-thru, the last thing we want to do is choose a semi-healthy option that just doesn’t taste great, which is why we’re glad this menu item is no longer available.

There are a lot of hybrid foods out there that just feel forced, and Wendy’s Loaded Nacho Cheeseburger is definitely one of them. If I wanted nachos, I’d just get that. But this menu item tries to smash two dishes together that objectively don’t belong. Wendy’s only had its Loaded Nacho Cheeseburger on the menu for about six months before news dropped that it was being pulled. While it was still on the menu, this Wendy’s burger contained poblano queso, a spicy chipotle sauce, and corn tortilla chips alongside tomato, lettuce, and American cheese — a strange combo that barely even resembled nachos at all.

This burger was somewhat popular, but to us, it feels gimmicky, not like something that would stay on the menu for an extended period of time. Not only was the idea of the burger questionable, but it was also extremely messy with all the sauces that adorned the patty. Sure, some loved this burger and were sad the day it was taken off the menu. But, ultimately, I can’t imagine that a burger as niche as this one would have lasted very long on any fast food menu anyway.

It was all the way back in 1979 that McDonald’s debuted its Chopped Beefsteak Sandwich. Sure, it wasn’t called a burger, but that’s essentially what it was, although the chain argued that it contained higher-quality beef than the ground beef that went to make its standard burgers. Along with that chopped beefsteak, the sandwich was slathered in steak sauce and adorned with slivered onions and served on a long roll instead of a traditional bun. With so few different ingredients — and so few vegetables, specifically — this sounds like a completely one-note burger, without any of the freshness or flavor that makes a typical burger more appealing than a plain beef patty on a bun.

This burger was more expensive than the more standard burgers available on McDonald’s menu — about three times more expensive, to be exact — which is why it was removed from the menu just a few years later. After all, if you want a premium beefsteak sandwich, you’d be better off going to a local restaurant that probably will produce a much better-quality sandwich. This is one fast food burger we’re not particularly sad that we missed out on.

There have been a lot of boring fast food burgers throughout the years, but Burger King’s Burger Shots are undoubtedly among the most boring of them all. Why? Well, these are about the most basic burgers you could ever dream up — except for the fact that they’re quite a bit smaller than full-sized burgers. If you think that sounds exactly like a slider, you’re right. These sliders were just under a different name, and their tiny size is about all that made them special.

The burgers were adorned with a topping of ketchup, mustard, and pickles, which is an incredibly common — and arguably incredibly bland — combo of flavors. There weren’t even any onions to give the burgers some sharpness or freshness, which made them fall flat on the flavor front. These burgers may not have been particularly bad, but there’s no reason that they should make a reappearance on the Burger King menu when there are so many other, more interesting burgers the chain has featured on its menu since. Although Burger Shots may have been cute, it’s not a surprise that they were eventually discontinued.

There are too many instances of fast food joints adding Mexican food to burgers without changing the actual burger recipe at all, thinking that it’s a combo that will lure Mexican food lovers to their drive-thrus. But more often than not, these attempts at creativity are lackluster at best (and downright gross at worst). McDonald’s Pico Guacamole Burger is a great example of one of those burgers. Perhaps the execs at McDonald’s noticed how much diners had started to flock to restaurants like Chipotle when they released this burger, which, as the name suggests, was topped with pico de gallo and guacamole.

The first issue is the fact that the guacamole that McDonald’s used for this recipe was downright vile. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that a fast food joint basically known for having nothing fresh on its menu wouldn’t be able to deliver a decent guacamole, the flavor of which essentially hinges on its freshness. The pico de gallo may not have been that bad, but how hard is pico to pull off, anyway? That’s not to mention the fact that this burger just seems too desperate, too try-hard, like McDonald’s doesn’t know when to stay in its own lane. The burger was blessedly dropped from the menu back in 2020, and we don’t miss it at all.

The Taco Bell Bell Beefer is yet another example of a fast food restaurant not knowing when to stay in its own lane. When you want some cheap, questionable tacos, you go to Taco Bell. When you want a burger, you go to Burger King or McDonald’s. But who’s going through the Taco Bell drive-thru specifically because they’re craving a burger? Certainly not us, but enough people bought the Bell Beefer that it spent decades on the Taco Bell menu.

This was a simple burger, with meat, diced onions, lettuce, and a mild sauce and provided an experience that was closer to eating a sloppy joe sandwich than an actual burger. At one point in the burger’s tenure, it was quite a popular menu item, but by the 1980s, it had begun to wane in popularity, perhaps as eater’s palates became more accustomed to a wider range of foods and realized that this burger was nothing to get excited about. Although the burger had a resurgence in the 2010s, it has again been scrubbed from the menu, banished to the annals of Taco Bell history. For that, we’re grateful, since this strange burger was just a distraction from better, more sensible menu items at Taco Bell.

Burger King’s Hot Toppers were actually three separate burgers, but none of them were particularly exciting. One of them was adorned with bacon and BBQ sauce, which truly sounds like the worst thing a college boy in his dorm room could ever concoct after a night of partying. Another flavor was topped with mushrooms and Swiss cheese. This is a classic combo, of course, but it’s also one that offers a relatively bland flavor profile, without anything acidic to break up all that fattiness and richness. And still another Burger King Hot Topper came complete with a slice of ham on top. Yes, just a slice of ham. If you think that sounds strange, you’re not alone — it really feels like the chain was just throwing random ingredients together to see what would stick.

These strange burgers, which appeared on the menu in the 1980s, are no longer with us, and for that, we’re glad. After all, we could probably just slap a slice of ham on a homemade burger at home if that were what we were really craving.

Fast food companies are always in competition with one another to create the tastiest (and, let’s be honest, the cheapest) meals possible. Two of the giants in the fast food burger business — Burger King and McDonald’s — have frequently gone head to head in their offerings, and McDonald’s DLT is one such example. The sandwich landed on menus as the restaurant’s attempt to one-up Burger King’s iconic Whopper, but it reportedly failed, unsuccessful in its attempts to topple the King’s most recognizable and beloved menu offering. The sandwich featured lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise, and cheese, meaning it was pretty standard as far as burgers go.

However, what really set this burger apart from others was its specialized styrofoam packaging that kept the different components of the burger separate from one another in an attempt to reduce wilting and sogginess. Eventually, though, the chain removed the burger from its menu largely because of its innovative packaging, which environmentalists complained was unnecessarily wasteful. We’re glad that this burger was removed from the menu, even if it only slashed McDonald’s negative environmental output by a nominal amount.

When fast food restaurants try to offer healthier choices, they often fall flat. After all, you don’t go to a fast food restaurant for a healthy meal — it’s a place to visit when you just want to indulge. Perhaps that’s why Burger King’s Turkey Burger isn’t still on the menu today. Admittedly, when the burger was rolled out in 2013, the chain declared that it would only be available for a limited time anyway. However, although many reviews claimed that the turkey burger was juicy (perhaps surprisingly so, since turkey is known for being incredibly lean and sometimes quite dry), it was generally regarded as somewhat lacking in flavor.

Compared to many of the other burgers on this list, Burger King’s turkey burger doesn’t sound particularly egregious. However, there’s nothing about a turkey burger that’s going to get us excited enough to pass over a standard BK burger the next time we’re going through the drive thru. It may not be a particularly bad idea to have a turkey burger on a fast food menu in case customers are specifically trying to choose a leaner option, but we certainly don’t mind that it’ll probably never reappear on the Burger King lineup.

McDonald’s is absolutely not the kind of restaurant you go to when you’re looking for luxury — or really quality at all, if you ask us. This is one of the cheapest and most accessible fast food restaurants out there, which is why you’re not going to see anything remotely fancy on the menu. However, there was one point in the chain’s history in which it was trying to capture a supposedly more sophisticated clientele, which is how the McDonald’s Arch Deluxe was born. This burger featured ostensibly higher-quality products, like stone-ground mustard and a roll somewhat reminiscent of bread that you would find in an actual bakery.

The burger got its start back in 1996, but by 2000, it was off of the menu, only to be forgotten by most McDonald’s-goers. This is a burger we absolutely don’t miss at all. After all, if you want a better, higher-quality burger, you can simply go to any other restaurant that boasts better quality ingredients. The point of going to McDonald’s is to enjoy those specific, cheap, but arguably tasty patties, processed cheese slices, and questionable sauces for an at least relatively affordable price — the Arch Deluxe just didn’t align with that vision of the restaurant.

Sure, you can find blue cheese-topped burgers at some slightly nicer restaurants, but it’s not the kind of thing you’d probably ever expect to find at a fast food joint. That’s why Wendy’s Bacon and Blue Burger feels out of step with what the restaurant usually serves. It boasted common burger toppings, like tomatoes and onions, but the applewood smoked bacon and blue cheese is what really made it stand out. The blue cheese added a tangy, complex element to the burger, of course, and bacon rounded it out and added a fatty richness to the sandwich. But, ultimately, it was a combination that just never felt fully formed, even with the special sauce that was served with the burger. Plus, it was especially messy, which is likely part of the reason it was eventually discontinued.

A blue cheese burger might be good when you get it from the fancy burger joint across town, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it sort of fell flat at Wendy’s, even if it was celebrated as a unique menu option when it debuted in 2010. Although it’s one of the more creative burger options on this list, we’re still not sad if it never reappears on Wendy’s menu.

Back in the day, McDonald’s was known for some pretty simple — and pretty average — burgers, and the chain’s Cheddar Melt was certainly one of them. This boring burger made its debut in the 1980s and was about as simple as a burger can possibly be. The burger patty featured cheddar cheese sauce (no, not actual melted cheddar, despite the name) and grilled onions. Those ingredients, plus a patty, were all stacked on a rye bun. There was no element to provide any acidity or freshness to the sandwich, so it was undoubtedly quite a heavy option. That being said, the rye bread sounds interesting, at least, although it doesn’t make us crave this burger as a whole.

There’s really nothing exciting enough about this burger to make us hope that it would ever make a reappearance on the menu. Even if McDonald’s were to offer an incredibly basic burger with nothing more than some cheese and a few grilled onion slices, we hope that they would at least deliver a real slice of cheddar cheese instead of some slimy sauce.