The 'Diners' Speak: Rating America’s Best Fast Food

If you consult the Zagat guide to restaurants in your city, you likely do it when you need an upscale place for a special occasion -- a bistro for Mom’s birthday, a brasserie for Junior’s graduation party, a trattoria to celebrate Dad’s early release for good behavior.

But Zagat also rates burgers and fries, and it recently announced the winners of its 2011 Zagat Fast-Food Survey. Zagat asked diners (or perhaps we should say “diners”) to name their favorites in a number of categories.

Best food in the “mega chain” division (more than 5,000 locations) was Wendy’s, followed by Subway, KFC, Pizza Hut, and Burger King. Best food in the “large chain” division (up to 5,000 locations) was In-N-Out Burger, followed by Chick-fil-A, Papa Murphy’s, Five Guys, and Chipotle Mexican Grill.

Some other winners. Best burger: Five Guys. Best fries: McDonald’s. Best milkshake: Dairy Queen. Best salad (really): Panera Bread.

But our favorite part of the survey is the customer-comment outtakes that Zagat collected, like these:

“Major food groups are well covered: grease, salt, and burned.”
“Always entertaining -- usually a brawl or arrest to watch.”
 “If you want to make one more bad decision on a Saturday night at 2 a.m. -- go here.”

Fat chance. Ever since Congress banned lawsuits by obese people who claim they’re due damages because fast food made them fat (our verdict: duh), Americans have been looking for new ways to score quick bucks by suing fast-food franchises. There was the California woman who planted a severed fingertip in her Wendy’s chili and the self-proclaimed “professional model” in New York who sued Starbucks because a barista spilled hot coffee on her -- five years earlier.

Now there’s an extra-large fellow who’s suing White Castle because he couldn’t cram his 290-pound frame between the seat and the table at his local outlet in Nanuet, N.Y. “I’m not humongous [but] I’m a big guy,” Kessman told the New York Post. “I could not wedge myself in.”

He claims he banged his knee on the metal table post and suffered embarrassment (as if being 290 pounds in public isn’t embarrassing enough already). After limping home in shame, Kessman, 64, fired off numerous complaints to White Castle HQ in Columbus, Ohio, but says all he got in return was several "condescending letters" and coupons good for nine free burgers.

In spite of everything, Kessman, who’s a stockbroker, says he still eats White Castle food -- though now he sends his wife to pick it up because it’s too painful for him to return to the scene of his tight squeeze.

Of course, the question on everybody’s mind is: How did the guy get so big eating those tiny White Castle burgers? The question on our mind is: How much would he weigh if he really loved, say, the KFC Double Down instead?

Kessman’s is suing for an unspecified amount. But it’s not really about the money, he says. "I just want to sit down like a normal person," he told the Post.

(Here’s an idea: Eat like a normal person, then you can sit down like one.)

One final thought on this item. Kessman is suing White Castle under the Americans with Disabilities Act. If he wins, does that mean the two-thirds of Americans who are overweight or obese will be considered disabled? Imagine the ramifications. The rest of us average-weight, nondisabled people would never find a parking spot again.

Heinz to the rescue. Have you ever not ordered fries at the drive-through because you didn’t want to deal with that annoying little ketchup packet? Us neither. But Heinz claims its research shows that some people do just that, so the company has come up with a new easy-to-open packet that it says will make ketchup more car-friendly.

The “Dip and Squeeze” ketchup packet was three years in development. It’s shaped like a mini Heinz bottle, holds three times more ketchup than the old packets and can be peeled open for dipping, if you prefer not to squeeze. Nice to know that Heinz is doing its bit to make it easier for Americans to eat more fries. (How long before the company is the target of a lawsuit?)

Follow Tim and Tom on Twitter @timntom.