Ranking the Top 8 Fast Food Chain Lemonades from Worst to Best

Summer is here, and there’s no time like the present for a cool, refreshing, glass of lemonade — and, often times, a fast food chain restaurant is the most affordable place to find one. It’s also the most convenient — trust us, you’d be surprised how many lemons it takes to make lemonade or how much the age of your lemons matter. Whether you’re on the road looking for a quick sip or the perfect beverage for your favorite drive-thru combo, there’s undoubtedly a fast food chain lemonade that can quench your thirst.

But not all fast food lemonades are created equally. In fact, each one boasts a unique flavor profile — and, truthfully, some taste far better than others. If you’re looking for a definitive ranking of some of the best (and worst) fast food chain lemonades on the market, then you’ve come to the right place. I tried eight of the country’s most ubiquitous lemonades from national brands, and there was a massive disparity in their quality and taste. 

The next time you order a cup of lemonade, use this guide to help you pick the right one for you. Keep reading for a worst-to-best ranking of fast food chain lemonades.

This might be a controversial take, but one sip of the Dunkin’ lemonade catapulted it to the bottom of this list. This lemonade has a distinct, artificial taste that’s impossible to ignore — and even less possible to place. When you take a sip of Dunkin’ lemonade, you do initially get notes of sweet and tart citrus, but they’re immediately overshadowed by a strong taste of plastic and a surprising astringence. It’s enough to undo any tastiness you might get on the front end.

Now, I’m not a knocker of artificial-tasting products in general — in fact, many of the higher-ranked lemonades on this list are a far cry from a “natural” lemon taste. But there’s a difference between a drink that tastes like artificial lemons and a drink that barely tastes like fruit. Usually, I’d recommend a drink this overwhelmingly sweet for kids, but I honestly believe that if kids asked for lemonade and received one from Dunkin’, they would be disappointed.

There is definitely a sizeable jump in taste and quality from the lemonade at Dunkin’ and the one at Wendy’s, but Wendy’s lemonade still leaves much to be desired. Like Dunkin’, Wendy’s lemonade is exceedingly sweet (but, at the very least, it does not pack that artificial punch that the Dunkin’ drink does). However, that’s about all it offers, with no sourness or tartness to counteract the sugar. It tastes less like a lemonade and more like a glass of watery simple syrup. 

This is, ultimately, one of the lemonades that I would recommend for children — not because I believe that children won’t be able to tell that it’s a subpar lemonade, but because it is still pleasantly sweet with the slightest hint of citrus flavor, and sometimes that’s all anybody needs. If you’re a lemonade buff, or if you’re looking for something that tastes more like the freshly squeezed good stuff, you might want to skip Wendy’s. 

With Panera Bread’s lemonade, we move from the truly questionable lemonades to the unremarkable ones. There’s nothing about Panera’s lemonade that disqualifies it, but there’s nothing about it that particularly recommends it either. It’s overwhelmingly mild in flavor, but it does have a good balance between sweet and sour flavors — I just think that both could be amped up a little. 

Panera Bread has a fairly diverse menu, with a long lineup of sandwiches, soups, and salads that have slight global influences, so it makes sense that the chain would opt for a more unoffensive, middle-of-the-line flavor to complement (and not undercut) the breadth of available entrées — but I think that the chain could have gotten away with a bit more. If you order a Panera Bread lemonade, I don’t think you will be disappointed, but you might not be as impressed as you would be with some of the others on this list.

Regardless of whether Starbucks is considered fast food, we had to include the almost-$100-billion beverage company in this lemonade roundup. To date, there are over 87,000 drink combinations available at Starbucks; however, very few of those are lemonade. As is expected, it’s not the most mind-blowing option on this list of lemonades, but I’d say it’s still worth a shoutout.

The Starbucks lemonade definitely leans on the sweeter side, but it boasts a far more balanced flavor than any of the lemonades that precede it on this list. It’s mild and refreshing, and I could see it being a great companion to a hot summer day or a dip in the ocean or pool. It would complement many of the Starbucks glass-case pastries while still holding its own if you’d prefer to sip it solo. 

There are fewer disqualifying aspects of this lemonade than Panera Bread’s, especially with how refreshing the Starbucks version is, but there still is not a major wow factor here. If you have a lemonade craving and can help it, hold out for one of the next four options.

Aside from the fact that the mini lemonade from Sonic comes in a paper cup, which becomes dangerously flimsy and soggy almost immediately, this beverage is a solid choice. There is a good deal of tartness in Sonic’s lemonade, which gives it the zing that you’d expect from a fresh glass of this beloved beverage. It still packs plenty of sweetness, perhaps even more than some of the others that precede it, but the fact that it comes through with just as much tartness makes this a deliciously balanced (and extremely flavor-blasted) lemonade.

Notably, Sonic’s is the first lemonade on this list that boasts a rich, golden yellow color. That does not necessarily correlate to higher quality and flavor, but it is worth noticing that richer colored lemonades made it higher on this list, even though I tasted these blindly. Whether it’s more lemon juice or just some byproduct of artificial sweetener, Sonic undoubtedly offers a superior product.

Alas, we’ve arrived at many people’s gold standard of fast food chain lemonades: Chick-fil-A. As someone who had never tried Chick-fil-A’s lemonade before (but was well aware of the many theories as to what makes it tastes different), I was pleasantly surprised by how well it actually delivered. While it didn’t earn the coveted top spot on this lemonade list, third place isn’t exactly a bad place to be.

I see the appeal with Chick-fi-A lemonade — it almost tastes like drinking a liquid lemon bar, with plenty of sweet lemon flavor and a hint of tartness to balance it out. I could see this cup going swimmingly with an order of nuggets and fries (although, if I were ordering a full meal from Chick-fil-A, I’d likely opt for a milkshake). 

Everything about this drink screams classic, old-fashioned Southern lemonade, including the copious amounts of pulp floating at the top of the glass. I suspect that the pulp might be the most polarizing aspect of Chick-fil-A’s lemonade, but as a notorious pulp skeptic, I’ll admit I don’t mind it.

Despite the noticeably lighter hue of the Popeyes lemonade, especially when compared to the Chick-fil-A and Sonic lemonades that trail directly behind it, this cup is the real deal. Popeyes is home to ultra-salty, ultra-savory, and ultra-crispy fried chicken, made even better with Cajun-style seasonings, and this lemonade is the perfect companion for it. 

The best word to describe the Popeyes lemonade is zesty — it’s a bit more tart than many of the other competitors on this list, but it doesn’t assault your taste buds the way straight-up sour lemon juice might. It’s citrusy and sweet while not crossing the line into cloying territory. 

The Popeyes lemonade tastes like a serious beverage, rather than a melted ice pop or a glass of sugary water. It might be fast food, but if you poured it in a glass and added a slice of the namesake fruit, you’d surely fool me into thinking it was homemade.

To my happy surprise, McDonald’s beats out all of the other fast food chain lemonades, with the most perfectly balanced cup on this list. I’ll be honest — as someone who had never tried McDonald’s lemonade, I expected it to be even more saccharine and artificial-tasting than Dunkin’s, but one sip later and I stood, humbled and extremely corrected. Earlier this year, the chain announced a change to its beverage, and for many, the difference between McDonald’s old and new lemonades is noticeable.

I’d go far enough to say that McDonald’s has one of the best restaurant or store-bought lemonades that I have ever tasted — it’s not just good by fast food chain standards. It has the zestiness of the Popeyes cup, but with just a dash more sugar to balance out the sip further. It might have a slightly artificial flavor, but it is not overly strong, plastic-y, or astringent, with a welcome tartness that makes it taste just that much fresher and leaves you feeling energized, rather than bogged down with sugar like some of these other choices. Whether you have this lemonade with a McDonald’s combo, on its own, or alongside a summer picnic or pool meal, you are in for a real treat.

To do this ranking as fairly as possible, I taste-tested each lemonade multiple times and also enlisted my friends and family to weigh in with their favorites, least favorites, and general thoughts about the lineup. Like with any other dish or drink, taste is subjective, and I wanted to make sure that my final ranking was not simply tailored to one person’s (or two or three people’s) palates. As such, I tried to think about which cups had the best balance of sweet and tart flavors. You might like your lemonade significantly sweeter, or more tart, than my No. 1 pick, but there’s no denying that it’s a high-quality cup of lemonade with strong lemon flavor and a refreshing finish and is, in my opinion, the most universally appealing choice on the list.

Each of these lemonades were delivered using a scheduled online delivery service, and they all came within the same hour. To keep them all cool and to prevent any of the drinks from getting watered down, all lemonades were kept in a turbo-chilled refrigerator.