Fast-food facts
This article appeared in Eat in or out?
Sixty-two percent of our survey respondents who got their food to go. One in four stopped at the chain while traveling.
Have it your way?
Roughly a quarter (24 percent) of readers cited food made to order as a reason for visiting a particular chain. Yet only 20 percent of patrons at Burger King, creator of the ad slogan, cited customized offerings as a reason for their visit.
A better burger?
Thirty-six percent of Burgerville diners in our survey said they ordered a healthful meal. No other burger joint came close. Though its burgers are about as nutritious as the rest, the chain may benefit from a "halo" effect from what it calls its "fresh, local, sustainable" food and reliance on "pastured, vegetarian-fed, and antibiotic-free" beef.
Pizza snobs?
In the Boston-to-New York corridor and in Chicago, you're likely to find a mom-and-pop pizza shop on almost every corner. Readers who live in these areas gave pizza chains much lower scores than those who live in the rest of the U.S.
Service with a smile?
Readers in Austin, Dallas, Dayton, Detroit, Green Bay, Minneapolis, Portland, Ore., and Sacramento rated service the friendliest. Pickiness wasn't a regional trait. New Yorkers, for example, judged staffers no less polite than readers in Atlanta, Houston, and Phoenix.
