WARMINGTON: Uncooked chicken strip latest example of fast food’s decline

As I bit into a raw piece of deep-fried poultry, my first reaction was to quit Canadian corporate junk fixes for good

Published Nov 04, 2026  •  4 minute read

Quality has gone downhill at fast-food restaurants, writes Joe Warmington Photo by ADOBE STOCK /GETTY IMAGES

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If many of these Canadian fast-food joints don’t soon pull up their socks, they may find themselves in double-double trouble with their customer base.

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I have always been a fast-food junky and have tried them all. But this may very well have to change. While I want to help big Canadian fast food find a way to get better, there just may be no helping them anymore. They have to want to help themselves. There is still time. But time may be running out.

It’s not cheap to eat in those places anymore. And what a lot of them are passing off as food is not worth the precious money it costs to pay for it.

There’s nothing grosser than biting into Wendy’s Korean BBQ chicken strip and feeling the cold, uncooked meat on your tongue. There’s nothing more infuriating than knowing your child has already eaten four of them.

Chicken is not supposed to be sushi

I had picked them up for the family as a snack to enjoy while watching the U.S. midterm results. Both the snack and the viewing turned out to be horror shows.

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President Donald J. Trump’s Republicans may have been cooked on this night. These chicken strips were not. The first one I had was raw. Raw chicken is different from raw sushi. It was too late for my son, who scarfed those bad boys down — not knowing if they were pink like my order was.

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He hasn’t got sick so that’s a good sign. I think I spit out most of mine. But this was close.

To Wendy’s credit, the store in Mississauga cordially refunded the $33 order and Wendy’s Canada asked for the store location and said a district manager would investigate. A request has been put into the media office as well. But there has been no comment so far.

I am a regular customer and Wendy’s is a good company. Just not this location with this order on this night.

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Any person or business can have a bad night. But with fast food places, the stories are starting to pile up. Wendy’s is not alone in recent times of lowering the bar. Many of these fast-food giants seem to be having trouble. At Firehouse Subs recently, there was only one person working. He was interviewing job applicants, taking orders and then making the subs.

One employee to take orders and prepare food and hire staff

A team of one. That’s more than understaffed.

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But some of these places seem to only have a couple of people on shift and that attempt at cost savings may be costing them producing a good order and potentially costing them future business.

The quality, taste, service, consistency and value of fast food in Canada has, in general, been on the decline since the pandemic in my personal experience. My patience is running out. It can’t all be blamed on the staff making minimum wage. There has to be quality control and supervision issues contributing.

From there barely being any cream cheese on the untoasted bagel you ordered toasted at Tim Hortons to no coleslaw or macaroni salad available at the KFC, to slow service at the counter of any of these places, everybody I know seems to have their own story.

Screenshot of post claiming to show a barefoot Tim Hortons worker asleep in B.C.

A lot of times these companies are making the more more headlines over incidents such as an employee allegedly having a nap barefoot than or other staff capers than they are for serving their popular menus. 

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Maybe they will start to take it seriously and respect their customers and fix all of this low standard of product and customer experience. They need to. And fast. It’s getting to a point where to break this addiction it’s time to go cold turkey.

It won’t be easy. But when it comes to setting off Canadian fast food, not only is it the right move health wise and economically, a lot of these big name conglomerates will deserve to experience losing their loyal paying customers. It will be their own fault. They will have no one to blame but themselves. Their return loyalty to their customers has long since been discarded.

Many of these famous brands seem to be riding on their previous decades-long reputations but are now a mere shell of what they were in terms of quality, service, taste and value.

If it’s not affordable anymore, doesn’t taste good, isn’t cooked right and there’s no proper service, why bother patronizing these places? Loyalty has to be a two-way street.

I only write this to help them. But have to admit, it’s feeling like it’s time to quit them.

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