There’s a huge number of reasons to not praise a fast food restaurant, but Wendy’s deserves it for their strides in the value menu. It hasn’t been a huge effort, but it goes to show how far a little creative initiative can take you. While McDonald’s is looking to cut costs by taking off a slice of cheese from the double cheeseburger, Wendy’s is evolving their value menu just to better serve the customer. They first took to the standard Crispy Chicken Sandwich and created the Monterey Ranch variant featuring the cheese and dressing of its namesake. Then for all of the late-comers to Atkins, ditched the bun altogether for the Crispy Chicken Caesar Wrap. That alone was enough to sway my opinion when looking for some cheap fast food, but just in case that wasn’t enough Wendy’s is even stepping their burger game up.

Luckily I stumbled across some interesting information while ordering this burger at a Wendy’s that didn’t have it. Turns out that not only do we get a bunch of new items, they’re actually making the patties they make the burgers with better. While the quality of a value menu burger can only get so high, it’s definitely bigger in size and of increased quality. It’s not a huge difference, but it’s at least a noticeable step in the right direction and seems much closer to the meat on the classic burgers Dave seemed to love so much.

My guess is that’s the main goal of this burger – to show off how much better the new product is, because they didn’t do anything else special to it. At this point we all know what Wendy’s chicken is going to taste like, so that’s why they feel more free to go crazy with it. It may be called the Cheesy Cheddar Burger only because Plain Cheeseburger wouldn’t sell as well. The Cheesy Cheddar Burger is made with a generous dripping of the liquid cheese they use for the baked potatoes, which has a slight cheddar tang to it but not much else. It really excels at being delicious in the most simple of ways, yet that will also be its downfall. Most people looking for a quality, simple burger are willing to spend more than a dollar on it. While it’s a welcome addition to the menu, I can only hope they’re willing to jazz it up a bit more in the future.

5/7