Until recently, the fast-food sandwich chain that is Arby’s was merely a myth to me. So many questions swirled in my mind: what exactly do they serve their customers that qualifies as “The Meats”, why did they retire the Arby’s Oven Mitt mascot, and most importantly, why is their food almost universally hated by everyone I mention them to? Well, after my most recent escapade, I now know all of the answers to these questions. (except the Oven Mitt thing, I knew the answer to that before this. Long story short, it was an 85 million dollar marketing campaign that didn’t click).
After hearing all the slander go towards Arby’s and being my ever-optimistic self, I set out to discover what the deal with Arby’s is. Would I come back surprised and happy or physically and mentally scarred? At this point in the decision making process, the possibilities are endless. However, on the day that I decided that this would be my focus for the next few days, I received concerning information about a friend of a friend that, on that exact same day, had gotten food poisoning from eating the Arby’s gyro. This did not set expectations high, but I decided to stay optimistic.
After three days of research and mental preparation, I was all set for my time at Arby’s. I spent my initial time there getting pictures to document the experience every step of the way. After those initial photos, I had one of my close friends put some makeup on my face to make me look like the guy who created one of the most legendary YouTube thumbnails of our time. After this, it was back to the Arby’s to take more photos. Finally, it was time to eat at Arby’s.
As soon as I walked in, I noticed that it was completely empty inside. There were no customers ordering or waiting for food, and there were even few employees at the ready expecting people to order. I do have to give it some credit though, because while I was there, I noticed a few people ordering through the drive-through window.
I ended up ordering the curly fries and the beef and cheddar sandwich to try and get the most standard approach to Arby’s. I considered getting the notorious “Meat Mountain” sandwich, consisting of every meat that Arby’s serves placed on a single bun, but I didn’t feel like spending a hefty amount of money on it; more importantly, not wanting to risk a parasitic infection. I get that’s an overdramatic approach, but my safety was my number one concern, especially considering the results the Arby’s gyro produced with my friend’s friend. Could it have been something else in it? Probably, but I’m not taking any chances.
After ordering my food, it was time for the moment of truth. I started off with the curly fries, and to my surprise, they tasted great. I was genuinely enjoying food from Arby’s, which I never thought I would ever say, but here we are. Honestly, I don’t have much else to say about them. They were high quality, the texture was good, and most importantly, it made me feel like I hadn’t just wasted three dollars. So far, it was going great. It seemed that people were wrong about Arby’s all along. However, it was this thought process that made the next ten minutes all the more miserable.
After finishing the fries, it was time to move on to the sandwich. I was initially somewhat skeptical after actually seeing it unwrapped, but again, the standards had been raised significantly since the time I walked into the building, so surely it couldn’t have nearly the reputation that everyone seems to give it. I was also feeling thirsty at this point, so I asked my friend if he could grab the Monster Energy Drink from my car. Looking back at the situation, I cherish this decision.
One bite. One bite was all it took for me to make up my mind on what I thought of the Arby’s beef and cheddar sandwich. The first thing I’ll mention is the taste. To be completely honest, I can’t recall it tasting like much of anything. Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily, but considering the other attributes it had going for it, this wasn’t doing it any favors.
I could spend way too much time trying to explain why the texture of the sandwich was so abysmal. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do. The first thing I’ll mention is that the meat wasn’t in a very ideally consumable state. It felt like it was primarily all stuck together and hard to separate. If you’ve ever eaten food, you would know this is important because if you’re having trouble getting the right amount of food that you want to eat, it doesn’t make for a pleasant experience.
The second reason the texture was terrible was because it felt like the sandwich was wet. I understand that there’s a certain balance for moisture, where you don’t want it to be too dry or too wet, but somewhere in the middle, having enough moisture to help feel flavorful but also not having too much that drowns the flavor. This would be a case of the latter, but as previously mentioned, there wasn’t any flavor to begin with.
The end result of both of these is feeling like you’re eating a tasteless wet unnamed substance that also unfortunately happens to be warm. I don’t think I need to explain why this is a problem. In that moment, I could see where all of the criticism towards Arby’s came from. Before this, I genuinely didn’t know that a commercially-sold food could be this bad. Every ounce of optimism I put into this ordeal felt wasted.
So what did I take away from this experience? Well, from what I’ve gathered, it’s that you should experience things for yourself. Again, I had no idea that Arby’s had such a lack of quality until I ate it for myself. So I encourage you to form your own opinions with things like these, even if the general consensus is correct in this case.
