Tyler Krenzin
Hot Take Specialist
In El Dorado, Kansas, it’s a crisp, cool morning, and I had been up for several hours. On my way to school, I decided I needed a pick-me-up. Now getting breakfast quickly is usually a tough task, especially in El Dorado. There I was with an absolute zero chance that I’m going to sit down at a true breakfast place when I need to be at class in 20 minutes. This leaves me with the option of fast food.
I found myself completely off instinct heading to Taco Bell. After I had ordered my food, I started to wake myself up a little bit more. Why hadn’t I just gone to McDonalds? They’re the standard for fast food breakfasts. Why did I want Mexican fast food for breakfast?
Well seeking an answer to my question, I spent the minute on my way and before class thinking about this conundrum. I could only come up with this simple solution: Taco Bell’s breakfast is just better. Now that alone isn’t going to convince anyone that my tired instinct creates fact, so why is Taco Bell the best fast food breakfast in El Dorado? To understand it, we will need to understand the competition.
For this I have devised a ranking system that allows me to fairly judge the breakfasts on a scale of 10, with four categories for each subject: Drinks, food choice, speed and reliability.
McDonalds: 7.2/10
Drinks: 8.2/10
What can be said about McDonalds drink menu that hasn’t been said before? Their McCafé was a genius move by the company, encapsulating the market the Starbucks couldn’t cover. There is a reason why all the older retirees choose to look at their newspaper over a cup of McDonalds coffee.
Food Choice: 7.3/10
Where they excel in the drink category, we get a shortfall when it comes to choices and quality. If I’m going to hit Burger King for having a very standard breakfast menu, I must hit McDonalds the same way. However, it can be argued that McDonalds standardized the menu of breakfast sandwiches. They were not original, just wrapped so they could be on the go. As far as signatures go, McDonalds has the McGriddle, a breakfast sandwich with maple syrup soaked patties. It is in fact the embodiment of early onset diabetes. Nothing at McDonalds screams quality when you eat it, it’s just food.
Speed and Reliability: 6.3/10
Everyone praises McDonalds for their speed, but I’m on to you “Mickey D’s.” Having two ordering stations plus places to park the over flow of cars, won’t fool me. McDonalds pull every trick out of the bag to make you think you haven’t waited 15 minutes in a line of cars just to get to the pay window. Innovative as the two windows they have are, even in slow periods McDonalds is never fast enough during the earlier shifts, and fast breakfast is the whole reason to go in the first place.
Taco Bell: 7.6/10
Drinks: 7.6/10
While morning drinks may not be Taco Bell’s specialty, they only have coffee no frappes here. They have the best soft drink food pairing of all the fast food restaurants. Baja Blast Mountain Dew and all of their spicy food options are the perfect pairing. People used to drive to Taco Bells around the nation for this drink. It doesn’t matter that it’s breakfast that Mountain Dew alone stands above all.
Food Choice: 8.3/10
Leave it to Taco Bell to be the most creative company when it comes to breakfast items. They simply could have offered breakfast burritos, and it would’ve been fine, but the breakfast crunch wrap alone makes Taco Bell unique. Now they have tacos where the shell is an egg. Every item that they add leaves me speechless. How did they think about that?
Speed and Reliability: 6.9/10
Some options at Taco Bell don’t take as long as others to make as they don’t have to rely on a fryer to make most of their food. This is taken into account, and yes, Taco Bell takes longer than McDonalds in the experiences I’ve had. Unfortunate as this is, some would argue it’s worth it.