We all have our favorite fast food desserts. The iconic Wendy’s Frosty. Taco Bell’s cinnamon-and-sugar-dusted Cinnatwists. We all have a fast food dessert we think is the best–but are they really? Just like all other fast food items, fast food desserts are endlessly tempting. They’re a delicious way to get a sugary pick-me-up when you’re on the go.
But fast food employees say that not everything off of their fast food dessert menu is worth ordering. Yes, some of these employees are simply warning customers about the massive amount of sugar and the caloric value of their sweeter options, but other employees warn against fast food desserts for even more disturbing and disgusting reasons, one of which involves a mouse and a milkshake machine. Yeah, more on that later.
If you really want to look behind the, curtain (or, rather, the drive-thru window), here are 15 fast food desserts employees say you should never order.
1. Sonic Ice Cream
A Sonic employee apologized on Reddit for the state of the chain’s ice cream, saying, “So sorry to ruin this for anyone, but Sonic’s vanilla ice cream is just nasty.”
In fact, the employee revealed that it might not even be real ice cream.
They explained that when they worked at Sonic, they would simply pour bags of milk into a machine that would turn it into soft serve. It sounds like a pretty artificial approximation of ice cream.
The worst part, though, is that the ice cream machines barely got cleaned and mold formed.
The employee said on Reddit, “I worked at one location that just about never cleaned the machine out. We added new milk into the old milk over and over without first dumping the old milk out.”
“At the end of the summer we found mold and a dead fly in the milk tray.”
“Hopefully other locations are better, but I doubt it.” Moldy ice cream? Hard pass!
2. Dunkin’ Donuts Doughnuts
Yes we know, doughnuts are kind of Dunkin Donut’s whole thing, but employees still warn against the tempting pastries. Maybe there’s a reason they took the ‘Donut’ out of their name.
The doughnuts are never fresh.
One former employee was a bit of a buzzkill about the famous East Coast chain. They said, “I’m sorry my fellow East coasters but all of these donuts come frozen in a box and are “baked” for 30 seconds. I used to be a baker.”
The good news is some other food is cooked at each location.
“They sent us frozen dough for muffins and bagels so those are at least cooked on site.”
But maybe avoid the glazed ones.
“Flies love glazed donuts, gnats do too. Anytime I would go to get more donuts from the back, the glazed donuts would always be covered in gnats and flies. Glazed are just covered in sugar so they’re a magnet for bugs,” the Redditor continued. Noted!
3. Starbucks Pastries
In order to get fast food desserts to customers fast, they usually can’t make everything fresh on the spot. Instead, food gets shipped to each location.
Starbucks food is frozen and reheated.
A former employee wrote on Reddit, “All Starbucks food is reheated frozen food. Ridiculous how little people realize that. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t taste good, it’s just not fresh at all and incredibly overpriced.”
Apparently, customers are sometimes upset that the pastries aren’t freshly baked.
Another Reddit user said, “Worked at Starbucks for a while and had a lady ask us if we were baking any more banana bread for the day. The look on her face when I told her it comes to us on a truck.”
4. McDonald’s Milkshakes
You might be getting way more than you ordered when you get a fast food dessert at Mickey-D’s. There have been some reported instances of rodents getting stuck in the shake machines.
That’s right. Someone reported a mouse stuck in the machine.
According to a Reddit user, a mouse died in a McDonald’s milkshake machine and got stuck in the machinery and chopped up.
No one even knew the mouse was there until they received complaints about their shakes.
The employee said, “One day we got a call from a sister store asking if we’d had any complaints about our shakes. I said no. They did if we did refer it to them.”
“Turns out a mouse had died in the machine at some point and had been chewed up by the internal mixer.”
“Yeah, I don’t get shakes from there anymore and I eye the ice cream especially hard.” Oh trust us, we will definitely second-guess the next time Shamrock Shakes come around.
5. Sonic Milkshakes
Maybe the best move is just to stay away from all dessert at Sonic. Another employee talked about another issue with cleanliness at their Sonic location.
Apparently, there’s an issue with the Sonic candy stations.
The employee explained that they were supposed to use ladles to serve candy, but that was rarely the case at their Sonic. So, uh, what’s being used?
They warned that you’re probably eating candy that’s been touched by bare hands.
They said, “We are supposed to use ladles and dig out candy from giant bags from the fridge. It takes some time to fill them so if it’s really busy or half-priced shakes, I’m sorry but we dig out of the huge bags of candy or chocolate with our bare hands and fill up the candy station.”
6. Dairy Queen Large Blizzards
You might think that you’re just getting more sweet, tasty goodness when you order a large Blizzard, but it turns out that you’re probably not getting your money’s worth.
The Dairy Queen Blizzard machines can’t properly make a large.
One former employee explained on Reddit, “The spindles for the blender aren’t long enough to go to the bottom of the cup so it’s impossible to blend it properly.”
When you order a large, you end up with way more plain ice cream.
The former employee said, “You end up getting two or three inches of plain ice cream at the bottom.” That just doesn’t sound fun for anyone.
7. McDonald’s McCafé Items
McDonald’s should maybe look into better ways to clean their machines. According to one Reddit user, the staff and even the managers of most locations aren’t ever trained on how to properly clean the coffee and smoothie machines.
One time, the employee pulled out a “literal fist-full of black soot” from one machine.
“All McCafe beverages run through a horrifically dirty machine – we’re talking 5+ inches of uncleaned, liquid bullsh*t making up its inside parts.”
The smoothie machines aren’t any better.
The same employee noted that the smoothie machines at their McDonald’s location were usually cleaned with glass cleaner. If you’re looking for chemicals mixed in with your fast food desserts, then this particular McDonald’s is the place to go.
8. Tim Horton’s Muffins
This is another instance where customers might be trying to be healthy with their fast food dessert choice but end up taking way more calories in the process.
Tim’s Horton’s muffins are filled with fat.
According to one Reddit user, the muffins have way more fat than the doughnuts, so you might as well splurge on the sweeter treat.
Even though muffins sound like a healthy option, they’re really a dessert.
Another Reddit user pointed out, “You can call it a muffin all you want, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a small cake. The guy who thought up the term muffin was a damn genius. How do we get people to think that cake is healthy? Well let’s just make them smaller and give them a cute name!”
9. Dairy Queen Banana Split Blizzards
Apparently, when you order this fast food dessert, you usually end up with more of a pool of goo than Blizzard.
At least according to one former employee.
Banana split Blizzards are “the messiest thing in the world to make.”
The Reddit user explained, “The end product will be liquid ice cream, because you’re asking us to blend strawberry topping, pineapple topping, chocolate syrup, AND bananas into soft serve.” That is a whole lot of soft stuff blended together.
And real banana splits aren’t much better.
The Reddit user first suggested customer just order a real banana split instead, but then took it back because “banana splits are time-consuming to make.”
10. Dunkin’ Donuts Hot Chocolate
Hot chocolate is usually a straightforward liquid drink. But some customers have noticed that Dunkin’ Donuts’ version is a little thicker than the usual drinkable fast food dessert.
You’re getting a lot more than just chocolate in the drink.
One Reddit user explained, “There are thickening agents in the mix, including Cellulose Gum and Xanthan Gum. I think it’s in there to make it seem creamier/milkier.”
Instead of adding real milk, Dunkin’ Donuts adds thickeners.
Apparently, without the thickeners, “it would probably be a watery product similar to any cheap hot chocolate mix you’d buy for home and mix with hot water.”
11. Jack in the Box Milkshakes
Cleaning ice cream machines seems to be an issue at a lot of fast food restaurant chains, including Jack in the Box. An employee said that the lack of cleanliness in their machines might pose a problem for people with allergies.
If you have a fruit allergy, you might want to stay away from Jack in the Box milkshakes.
Both smoothies and milkshakes run through the same machines. The employee said, “We do not clean the mixer very well, and it’s used for smoothies and milkshakes.”
In fact, the employees were encouraged not to fully clean the machines.
“We’re TOLD to just half-a** it. In the training video. It’s f*cking ridiculous,” the employee said in their post on Reddit.
12. Burger King Milkshakes
It seems like no fast food milkshake is safe. Burger King is another chain that has trouble keeping its machines clean, at least according to one former employee.
The machines at Burger King are “rarely cleaned.”
The employee warned on Reddit that neither the ice cream nor the shakes are safe to order at most locations.
They even said that sometimes the ice cream mix was expired.
Expired ice cream sounds like a very unsafe thing to eat, in addition to the fact that ice cream should really be made fresh and not come from a mix.
13. Starbucks White Mocha
This one probably shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, but the Starbucks White Mocha Frappuccino is not very good for you.
A former Starbucks employee said that the food is safe to eat, but it’s not very healthy.
The employee pointed out that a venti White Mocha Frappuccino has 650 calories. That’s nearly one-third of the calories a person should eat in a 2,000-calorie-per-day diet.
The white mocha isn’t the only unhealthy item on the Starbucks menu.
All Frappuccinos, in general, are apparently pretty highly caloric, and scones are the highest calorie pastry that the coffee chain offers.
15. Starbucks Secret Menu
The internet is filled with tips and tricks to get secret items from Starbucks that aren’t normally offered. But one former employee says you might want to stick to the menu.
Since the menu doesn’t exist, you’ll probably get a different thing every time you order a secret menu item.
The former employee said, “If you just say the name, it’s up to the barista to come up with what’s in the drink, and it may not be what the last barista you ordered from put in there.”
Instead, you should order a drink and then modify it however you’d like.
“If you want a snickerdoodle, Nutella, or captain crunch Frappuccino (or whatever other overly surgery thing someone has since come out with), know the base drink and the modifications, and order that.”
15. McDonald’s Sweet Tea
You might not think that sweet tea counts as a fast food dessert, but when it contains a wild amount of sugar, what else do you call it? This one might hurt since it’s a big fan favorite, but McDonald’s sweet tea is way more sugar than tea. Like, a whole lot more.
A Reddit user claims that there is a pound of a sugar per gallon of tea.
So if you’re choosing tea over soda or even over ice cream in an effort to be healthy, you might want to rethink that decision.
Some people, though, expect that level of sweetness from their sweet tea.
Other Reddit users commented and said that they expect an almost syrupy level of sugar from their sweet tea. One person said, “Only a pound? That’s weak around these parts.”
