Listen, I'm circling the drain here. Carl's Jr offers a surprisingly wide range of sandwich and meal offers for a restaurant chain that appears to be hanging on about as well as that last brain cell we're all collectively rooting for, and they seem to be the only place left that hasn't moved all of their deal advertising exclusively into their app. Which is probably for the best, considering their app is hot garbage.
Literally burned myself on the bag their app was in, that garbage is so hot.
Also, isn't it fun how literally can literally mean the opposite of literally these days? Seems unlikely that shift has happened more than once but if we take a look at the etymology for...
No. No, bad. This is about Carl's Jr. Just read the script you dork. You can do this, just one more time. We won't make you write a review of the Western Bacon Cheeseburger even if you get it. Just tell the people about the California Sunshine Meal or whatever backhanded reference to In-N-Out they dreamed up under the throne of SMILING STARS
So yeah, Carl's Jr has a burger meal they're selling for $5.99 around these parts called something something California something and it's a pretty blatant attempt to cash in on the continued expansion and ongoing success of that one southern California burger chain that isn't McDon... McDoooooon... McDawn's. Sorry. It's early. Or late. Or maybe Monday. Can't bring myself to say the name of that place on a good day, and you want me to force it out while I'm actively circling the drain under the disused playplace at a Carl's Jr?
So yeah, I did the thing. The whole-pants thing, where I got the menu item from the actual restaurant (In-N-Out, in this case, a double-double animal style with fries and a Dr. Pepper) as well as the knock-off from Carl's Jr (which appears to just be their double cheeseburger with some fry sauce and grilled onions on it). The meal from Carl's Jr cost the same as it used to cost to get a #2 at In-N-Out in the before times circa 2019, while the In-N-Out meal cost just under double that because in my optimism I assumed that I'd have to actually get the double-double to compare against a Carl's Jr burger with two patties (spoiler alert: nope).
The long and short of the review here is that for the money the Carl's Jr meal is fine. It didn't actively offend me, and it's not exactly gross. Also, it was incredibly fast and the woman at the drive-thru was, genuinely, very good at her job. She was cordial, accurate, and prompt, which is a stark departure from the usual experience at my local Jr's, where your drive-thru service is typically provided by a moderately stoned sea lion suffering from rapid-onset dementia.
She must have been new there.
But "it's an okay value for the money" isn't exactly a glowing review, and it came nowhere even remotely close to touching the food from In-N-Out. That said, if you're after more than just the burger and you've only got six bucks, I wouldn't mock you for going to Carl's. He's a nice guy. But the larger issue at hand here is that, with my local franchises displaying every sign of imminent demise and a rapidly diminishing supply of sea lions willing to work there, Carl's Jr doesn't appear to be doing anything at all to stave off the reaper. This is a repackaging of the same completely average ingredients they were already serving, with beef patties that are waffer-thin and as juicy as Death Valley sitting underneath such a half-hearted attempt at mimicking "animal style" that doctors are probably still baffled how this thing keeps limping along with so much of its heart missing.
Carl's Jr, what are you doing? What happened to 3rd pound patties on basically every premium burger? What happened to the ads where everyone who tried to eat one of your burgers wound up wearing it instead because there was so much sauce and fat and cheese that it was impossible to not make a mess just from taking a bite? What happened to the pomp? The circumstance? Now you're just an empty play-place with a drain for me to circle and a single remarkable employee who's probably just putting together a resume so she can trade up to Chick-fil-a.
All right, I'm done. I wanted to believe. I gave this place every chance I reasonably could. They sell Western Bacon Cheeseburgers for less than three bucks on Wednesdays, so maybe if that blows my socks off I'll report back with good news. But as it is I'm out. Lock the doors all you want, Carl, you can't keep me here any longer.
You forgot to block this drain.
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