What’s it like reviewing fast-food joints with a retired McDonald’s president?
Readers might know Louis Mele from Naples Cyclery or perhaps his hot new restaurant Bicyclette Cookshop, where chef-business partner and recent “Chopped” champ Kayla Pfeiffer helms the kitchen.
But before moving to Naples, he served as one of McDonald’s head honchos, retiring in 2006.
In 1972, he started as a fry guy at 17 in Windsor, Ontario, where he met his wife Deborah, then 16, who worked the counter.
During Mele’s 37-year tenure, he was responsible for 1,800 Canadian locations. He also served as Italy’s inaugural boss, launching its first restaurant in Rome, where the Vatican was its landlord, and expanding the burger giant’s presence by negotiating the deal to take over 100 Burghy’s fast-food shops across the country, then owned by the Cremonini Group, Italy’s largest beef suppliers.
In his role, Mele often would visit multiple McDonald’s in a day, always going anonymously in jeans and a T-shirt to glean the customer experience.
Each location was judged on what’s called QSC: quality, service and cleanliness.
On Feb. 21 for a substantial chunk of the day, we tasted our way around Naples at eight famous fast food brands, judging each on QSC. Price-to-value ratios were also considered.
Feeling confident (and because we ran out of time), I headed to the ninth stop on Feb. 23 with my colleague Liz Freeman, who was initially stoked to go on a restaurant review lunch until I told her to meet me at Sonic.
Stops 10 through 12 were made by my fast-food-loving News-Press colleague Robyn George. She felt it was just plain wrong to skip Checkers, Steak ‘n Shake and Dairy Queen. I’ve never seen her happier than when I told her to include them.
Mele’s top 3 tips for a better fast-food experience
- Order the meal deal because it’s a good discount, usually 20% cheaper.
- Seeing a long line at the drive-thru like we encountered at Chick-fil-A? Order inside, where it’s likely to be much quicker.
- Try the limited-time promotional items, as we did at Wendy’s, because Mele says, “They’re generally pretty good and a good deal.”
Methodology
- We shared popular items each chain is known for at each stop, with Wendy’s as the one exception.
- Excluding Sonic, which doesn’t offer indoor seating, Mele and I dined inside each restaurant to get a better sense of cleanliness and service, checking the restrooms at each and rating them on a scale of 1 to 10.
The list below is in alphabetical order, including the time of our visit and the specific location. Review quotes are Mele’s unless otherwise noted. Meal deal prices include sales tax.
Arby’s
2436 Pine Ridge Road, 239-434-2264; arbys.com
- Time: 1:44 p.m.
- Order: Roast beef sandwich classic includes curly fries and a drink. No upcharge for the terrific mint shake.
- Price: $12.18
- Review: Good service and best views. The “coated” (trade lingo for seasoning) curly fries were good, but our roast beef sandwich? Blah. “I didn’t care for it because it needed some dressing.” First-time visitors (like I was) should know they need to ask for dressing; it wasn’t offered and there are no packets near the napkin/beverage station. Chopped bits of Andes candies in the shake were perfectly sized to slurp with a straw, the best thing I tried all day. I carried the shake to our next stop, Taco Bell; because I am a middle-aged woman, no one there batted an eye.
- Restrooms: 6 out of 10, “needs a good scrubbing.”
Louis also started cleaning nearby tables. “It’s in my blood, I have ketchup in my veins.”
Burger King
6565 Dudley Road, 239-262-2933; bk.com
- Time: 2:32 p.m.
- Order: Whopper combo meal
- Price: $10.17
- Review: For me, it was the best food to price value. Cleanest interior, building seemed new. We could taste the charbroil. Bun bottom hot; bun top cold. Much bigger fries like you’d find in an independent restaurant than a chain; good, but “could’ve used another 15 seconds in the fryer.”
- Restrooms: 7 out of 10. Ladies’ loo trash bin overflowed with paper, but otherwise clean.
Checkers
1628 Skyline Blvd., Cape Coral; 239-922-1070; checkers.com
- Time: 11:54 a.m.
- Order: Medium Big Burford combo with fries and Coke Zero (!!!)
- Price: $11.38
- Review: Robyn went with this two hand-seasoned-patties burger with all the toppings after franchise owners Jason Setzer and Michael Quinn listed it as their go-to. It wasn’t as messy as you’d think with cheese, lettuce, tomato, red onion, pickles, ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise. The medium-sized fries and drink would qualify as large at other fast food joints. Super friendly staff as Robyn was greeted with two hellos before reaching the front door.
- Restrooms: None. Most customers drive thru but there is a small inside space for walkups.
Chick-fil-A
5825 Airport-Pulling Road; 239-594-9777; chick-fil-a.com
- Time: 12:33 p.m.
- Order: CFA signature sandwich meal with fries and Diet Coke
- Price: $10.17
- Review: A hint of sweetness in the roll; waffle fries were hot. “It looks like a $9 meal.”
- Restrooms: 7.5 out of 10
Culver’s
5775 Airport-Pulling Road; 239-596-4640; culvers.com
- Time: 12:47 p.m.
- Order: “Value basket” bacon deluxe double smash-burger style with fries and a fountain drink.
- Price: $12.18
- Review: Fast counter, nice greeting. Bacon is too undercooked and inedible; the cheese tasted and looked like it had just been pulled from the fridge.
- Restrooms: 5 out of 10. “Needs a scrubbing and a new toilet lid.” In the ladies’ loo, one stall was out of order.
DQ Grill & Chill
2525 Skyline Blvd., Cape Coral; 239-458-4410; dairyqueen.com
- Time: 12:07 p.m.
- Order: Double FlameThrower combo with upgrade to small Oreo Blizzard
- Price: $15.65
- Review: Robyn believes she found DQ’s perfect combo. The heat from the signature Stackburger’s pepper jack cheese, jalapeño bacon, and FlameThrower sauce is tempered by the Blizzard’s cooling goodness. The lopsided burger needed a quick restacking to get it all in order. Kick the fine-but-nothing-special fries up a notch by swirling them in the quickly melting Blizzard.
- Restrooms: 9 out of 10. Clean at the very start of the lunchtime rush.
Five Guys
1410 Pine Ridge Road; 239-261-5603; restaurants.fiveguys.com
- Time: 11:53 a.m.
- Order: Bacon Cheeseburger “all the way” which includes every topper available ― bacon, lettuce, tomato, mustard, ketchup. A la carte, we ordered one “little fry” and a regular-sized soda.
- Total price: $21.17. The only stop with a tip prompt made the order $23.29.
- Review: We were ignored for 90 seconds, though the restaurant was quiet; hence, Mele scolded me when I left a 10% tip. A soggy bun made for a “sloppy burger,” impossible to eat after the first bite when it disintegrated in our hands. Imagine dealing with that when eating in a car. Extra fries tossed in the bag.
- Restrooms: 5 out of 10: “Needs a scrubbing.”
- More Mele thoughts: “I always order the cheeseburger, and I like bacon, and I think it’s probably one of their better products. The fries are fresh not frozen, they’re also very good.”
- About that tip prompt? “Tipping is out of hand. I think we should all be paying a fair wage. But when you’re tipping, and they’re not doing anything extra for you, what are you tipping for?”
McDonald’s
5465 N. Airport Road; 239-566-2004; mcdonalds.com
- Time: 1:04 p..m.
- Order: Big Mac meal.
- Price: $10.06
- Review: When Mele helmed the fry station at his first McDonald’s in 1972, he said they cut the potatoes fresh. He first noticed that the fries’ size has changed to smaller cuts, ensuring most are crispy. After cutting the Big Mac in half, the patties were positioned close to the middle but when lifting the bun, its size and three bread-y layers overwhelmed the two patties, McDonald’s standard weight for Big Mac patties is 0.10 pound each.
- Restrooms: 7.5
On our way out, I chatted with Linda and Anthony Malaro. I asked if they noticed the difference in fries.
“I ate them so fast I wouldn’t have noticed,” she answered, adding they special ordered theirs without salt. “They’re nice and hot when we get them because they’re fresh.”
Sonic
3585 Tamiami Trail E.; 239-417-1462; sonicdrivein.com
- Date/time: Feb. 23, 12:47 p.m.
- Order: Liz was doing me a favor, so I let her order a separate lunch. Her bacon garlic butter combo came with a medium-sized cup of tots and a medium Diet Coke.
- Price: $9.69.
- I also ordered a kids cheeseburger but was served a double quarter-pound cheeseburger a la carte for $1.99. Medium tots with the cheeseburger deal were charged separately at $2.99, a small Reese’s “Blast” was $5.39.
- Review: The good: The garlic burger had plentiful cooked onion. Also stellar service. Misty delivered our grub, explaining how what was served instead of my original order was a better deal. She was also the only server anywhere to offer sauces and came to check on us a few minutes after delivering our food. Tots were a nice change from fries. The shake was fine but not as good as Arby’s. The bad: Burgers are very salty. The patio walkway is covered with bird poop. Hangout for the housing challenged.
- Restroom: Without Louis, I could only check the ladies’ room, giving it 4 out of 10.
Steak ‘n Shake
1721 NE Pine Island Road, Cape Coral; 239-772-2357; steaknshake.com
- Time: 3:18 p.m.
- Order: Original double steakburger with cheese combo with small fries and regular-sized Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup milkshake
- Price: $10.89
- Review: Ever the drive-thru fan, this was Robyn’s first time inside a Steak ‘n Shake since it replaced table service with kiosks in 2021. Fortunately, the oversized touchscreens were user-friendly. Robyn had just selected a table when she was called to the counter to pick up the most peanut buttery of all milkshakes ever made. The food quickly followed, brought by a server wandering the dining room and shouting out names. The burger and fries were fine, but tasted somewhat flat in the empty, staffless dining room. We’ll stick to the drive-thru from here on out.
- Restrooms: 7 out of 10.
Taco Bell
2424 Pine Ridge Road; 239-643-7025; tacobell.com
- Time: 1.59 p.m.
- Order: Beef taco meal (3 soft); the deal’s drink size is large.
- Price: $9
- Review: Best part of the taco was fresh lettuce. Though it was my first-ever Taco Bell visit, Louis said “It’s been a while since I’ve been here, the service is fine. We got our food quickly; we don’t need to return quickly.”
- Restroom: 6 out of 10 “needs a good scrubbing.”
Wendy’s
4100 Tamiami Trail N.; 239-262-8351; wendys.com
- Time: 3:09 p.m.
- Order: Fish sandwich and small chili combo
- Price: $11.96, including two upcharges of .99 for the chili and .50 for the drink.
- Review: Was this really a combo deal? This promotional item timed to Lent is a crispy Panko fish sandwich made with wild-caught pollock from Alaska. Ours was made from scratch and took a while, “likely because they don’t get many orders for it.” It was served piping hot and crispy. Chili is spiced nicely with ample beans; no discernable canned taste.
- Restroom: 6 out of 10
Why does fast food look so much better on TV?
For inside info, I spoke to my local pal Lauren’s son, frequent Naples visitor Nick Fugelstad, a tabletop director at MacGuffin Films in New York City.
What, a tabletop director?
For commercials, a live-action director is tasked with people at the table; the tabletop director homes in on details shots of “beautiful food, forks lifting, butter dripping, and things melting and bubbling.”
That’s Fugelstad’s specialty. He’s worked with many brands we visited.
Decades ago, a lot of food enhancement was done for commercials, but “nowadays, with Instagram and all the food channels, you can’t fake them out anymore. Everything must be the real deal.”
Like a great makeup mirror, lighting the set so the food looks gorgeous is top priority. Like Mariah Carey posing on the red carpet, the best angle counts.
Just as important: a food stylist. Each company provides the actual food served to guests. The stylist’s responsibilities include selecting the prettiest unsmushed bun from the pack sent. Are there enough sesame seeds on the bun or did they fall from the top during shipping? That’s where tweezers come in, to put them back on the bun.
Comparing the process to finding a needle in a haystack, everything has to be perfect. Fugelstad recently filmed a pulled pork menu addition for a client.
“We got one good piece in an entire case. We might go through 100 buns before getting one top that looks good.”
There can be minor tweaks. If produce shipped for shooting the commercial was damaged, they’ll replace it with fresher items. If there’s a sauce served under the cheese and the camera can’t see it, occasionally, they put it on top so the viewer can see it, always maintaining the recipe’s accuracy.
“Food stylists use the chain’s actual recipe and there’s always a corporate representative to ensure it’s correct.”
Falling under Mele’s responsibilities: He was that representative in Canada, who also cooked burger patties for commercials. He said it usually took over 12 hours to film a 30-second spot.
Why do burger patties always seem to fit the bun in ads but not so much in real life? This reporter is reminded of Seinfeld’s shrinkage episode: the more time patties spend on the grill, they get smaller as they’re cooked through, ensuring they’re safe to serve to guests.
“I made sure it was always the best-looking one pulled off the grill,” Mele said.
What happened to healthier menu items?
During Mele’s tenure, his usual lunch order was his favorite grilled chicken sandwich.
Mele also launched the company’s first veggie burger, deeming it delicious.
And whither the salad? Mele said his stores might sell one a day.
When they don’t sell, items are removed from menus.
“You either listen to critics or you listen to customers, and it’s important in any business to listen to your customers. Listen to your critics and you’ll go out of business.”
Diana Biederman hightailed it to Whole Foods to pick up salad after her day with Louis Mele. Connect via [email protected].
Robyn George, food and dining reporter for The News-Press, contributed. Connect at [email protected]