8 Fast Food Coffees, Ranked Worst To Best

Fast food coffee is, admittedly, not anyone's first choice. Sometimes, though, it's what you're working with. Perhaps you're on a road trip in the middle of nowhere, or maybe it's the only thing open next to your hotel when you're dashing to the airport at 6 a.m. When that's the case, fast food restaurants become a bit more appealing.

Now, don't go thinking that we're coffee snobs. In our house, we happily consume cheap coffee brands and regularly drink instant coffee. My favorite coffee shop is Starbucks, which I realize is tantamount to sacrilege for some, and I couldn't care less how my coffee is made. So we weren't particularly wigged out by the idea. Add in a road trip that crossed three state lines and one time zone, and we had the perfect recipe for testing out national chains' takes on coffee.

However, it quickly became clear, as we hit up fast food restaurant after fast food restaurant, that we were not going to be able to provide a straight-across comparison of coffees the way we did with our gas station coffee review. Fast food restaurants tend to have signature drinks, so while every restaurant had something that had coffee in it, getting a hot cup of coffee with cream was not always possible. Accordingly, you should know that this ranking represents a range of coffee drinks, as well as our opinions about where they stand in relation to one another.

As you would expect from the lowest item in our entire ranking, this one was terrible. Actually, it was worse than terrible. Several rude statements were exchanged; there was a swear word at one point, and we had to try not to spit it out. It's just coffee, though ... no matter how bad it is, it shouldn't inspire such reactions. And yet, here we are. 

It was somehow cold, watery, burnt, and flavorless (except for the acrid taste of said burning), all at once. Even the cream didn't give you that fatty mouthfeel you would expect, leaving one with the impression of bitter nothingness. It was actually undrinkable, no matter how desperate one got. We agreed that it was probably the worst coffee we'd ever had, and that's saying something, since before we tasted Burger King's offering, we didn't think anything could be worse than McDonald's.

Boy, this coffee was bad. It was weak, watery, fake-tasting, and had minimal coffee flavor. It was the hot ham water of coffee, I tell you. Plus, it wasn't hot enough, either, and once we added the cream, it was just plain room temperature.

As if the list of our complaints wasn't long enough, the opening in the cup lid was too big, so the coffee splashed out if you drove over 10 miles an hour, which, with this being a fast food item, you know most customers will be doing shortly after ordering. Yes, there was a little flap so that you could reseal the sippin' hole, but it broke almost immediately. Rage, rage, rage.

It is worth pointing out that McDonald's, like many fast food restaurants, is franchised. That means locations are independently owned and operated by people who have the right to set their own prices and some policies, so long as they adhere to general guidelines from the overlords at Mickey D's. As such, you might get a perfectly pleasant cup of coffee at another McDonald's, just as you might have a better (or worse) experience at any of the places on this list. Just F.Y.I. in case you disagree with any of the content here and are considering sending me hate mail.

While I do enjoy a Subway sandwich, and I have since my teenage years, it never before occurred to me to get coffee at a Subway. There's a reason for this, as it turns out. Although the internet promised I could get coffee at Subway, we struck out at the first several we tried. We finally found one tucked inside a Walmart, where a single sad carafe sat over by the soda machine. Definitely don't count on Subway to have your cup of joe; that's all I'm saying.

As for the coffee itself, it was a hard meh. It wasn't as gross as Burger King nor as annoying as McDonald's, but it was nevertheless nothing to write home about. Mostly, it tasted like water with a tinge of caffeine — the coffee version of generic American light beer. It had no distinguishing characteristics whatsoever, especially with watery creamer thrown in, but at least it wasn't burnt.

You know what I've never thought to myself? "I want coffee. I think I'll go to KFC." Nope, never. Which is why it was surprising to discover that its coffee was actually pretty decent. Unfortunately, it wasn't really coffee in the truest sense, since it was mixed with a lot of sweetener and then blended with ice. We felt it was closer to a Frappuccino from Starbucks than an actual cup of coffee, so skip it if you're looking for a steaming cuppa.

However, if you're open to the iced variety, KFC has a pretty good version. It had a nice, strong coffee flavor, was easy to drink, and melted slowly, so it didn't become watery iced coffee right away. It did eventually, but even then, it tasted flavorful and mild and was never at any point cloying. We can safely recommend this one.

Buying Dairy Queen coffee was kind of a weird experience. We asked for hot coffee, and the attendant gave us a big song and dance about how she would if she could, but she couldn't because they didn't do that anymore, which was sad, but would we like their iced French vanilla latte instead? They also had mocha and caramel if we wanted to try them? It was bizarre in the sense that it sounded like we had only just missed the hot coffee, except that we were then assured that there wasn't any and hadn't been for quite some time. So, maybe you'll find it at another Dairy Queen if you look.

That said, the iced French vanilla latte was really good. It certainly wasn't cheap, but that was to be expected; the iced and blended coffee beverages averaged about twice as much as a simple hot cup of drip coffee. The flavor was there, though, with a creamy, sweet taste and a consistency halfway between iced coffee and a milkshake. If you want unhealthy and delicious, you won't be sad at DQ.

Taco Bell was the fourth coffee drink we tasted and the first one that actually tasted like coffee, so we were pleasantly surprised. It was hot and steamy, it came quickly, and they offered vanilla creamer with it. It was far from the world's best cup of coffee, but if you like Taco Bell and want to sample its impressive range of breakfast items at the same time, it's not a bad stop to make.

It's also worth noting that Taco Bell was open earlier than many of the other restaurants on this list. We got there a little before 9 a.m., and it was already in full swing, which is a benefit we couldn't count on when it came to Dairy Queen, Burger King, or KFC. This is likely different depending on the franchise, but it certainly made our lives easier.

Next on our list is Sonic's cold brew. Honestly, we found the term "cold brew" a little misleading, since it was thicker than regular coffee, which the attendant explained was due to the presence of ice cream blended in. That made it super yummy, but it also made it ill-suited for drinking at 9 a.m. and gave us slight tummy aches.

As with Dairy Queen, we were given a long explanation of how the attendant would have liked to give us hot coffee, but they were out of cups. When we asked why we couldn't have hot coffee in the cup we were getting, which was, after all, Styrofoam, she explained that due to the lack of appropriate cups, they no longer brewed hot coffee at all. It was a Twilight Zone type of experience with no satisfactory answer, and it was weirdly close to the conversation we'd had at Dairy Queen, but it was at least tasty.

It's heartening that Wendy's came out on top. I say that because our family has a combined sweet tooth that's roughly the size of Manhattan, so being able to say that Wendy's honestly had delicious coffee — when there were no less than three sweetened, frozen, just-shy-of-milkshake products to compare it to — is impressive. The flavor was mild and smooth, an order of magnitude above any other hot drink we got. Even though it was only lightly creamed with an unsweetened product, it was still so good. For those who love strong espresso drinks or coffee in which you can stand up a spoon, this won't cut the mustard, but for everyone else, it will do very nicely.

On a final note, we just have to mention that Wendy's gave us the cup for free. Why? No idea. When we tried to pay, the attendant just waved us away and said it was on the house. Perhaps this is a franchisee policy. Perhaps the attendant was in a good mood. Maybe they just had an extra cup that the customer before us didn't want; no idea. It just feels nice to be on the receiving end of goodness, that's all.

When we rank goodies (say, store-bought coffee ice cream or grocery store chocolate cakes), we prefer a straight-across comparison. Apples to apples or oranges to oranges, if you will. But as discussed, it wasn't possible to get a hot cup of coffee with cream at every fast food restaurant. We managed to do so at five out of the eight and had to make do with either iced or blended versions at the other three: Dairy Queen, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Sonic. Although we considered cutting the latter three, we felt it was more representative of all the true fast food coffee options to leave them in, so we did.

In an effort to keep the choices as similar as possible, we tried to get standard cream flavors wherever we could. Because all the frozen and blended options had a nonspecific sweetish vanilla flavor, this worked fine. Where we could get regular creamer, we did. Overall, we felt we were able to compare the flavors of each to the other on the basis of its actual coffee flavor and quality rather than what had been added to it, which was the point.

In terms of who "we" are? It's the usual crew of my husband, myself, the small girl, and the small boy. In this case, the small girl dislikes coffee and was only interested in trying the sweet stuff. The small boy loves it, however, and was an active taste tester along with the hubs and me.