Americans love eating out. It’s practically baked into the culture, right alongside baseball and road trips. Yet something has shifted in a very noticeable way over the last couple of years, and the numbers tell a story that the restaurant industry would rather not discuss at the dinner table.
These restaurants have been hiking menu prices at the same time their customer base has been squeezed by the rising cost of living. Since 2019, restaurant prices have increased by roughly a third, outpacing the overall growth of inflation during that same period, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The result? Diners are voting with their feet, and they are walking right out the door. Let’s dive in.
1. Denny’s: America’s Diner in Deep Trouble
There was a time when Denny’s felt like a reliable safety net. Late night? Denny’s. Road trip stop? Denny’s. Hungover Sunday? Absolutely, Denny’s. Honestly, those days seem to be fading fast.
According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), Denny’s is the worst-rated full-service restaurant chain in 2025, with a rating of 75 out of 100. Its customer satisfaction score has gone down since 2024. That’s not just a bad look – that’s a red flag.
Of 352 reviews on Consumer Affairs, roughly three out of five are 1-star ratings, with many related to inconsistent food quality. Customers have complained about receiving egg white omelets that were brown, and being served undercooked eggs so cold that they didn’t even melt the cheese on top. Other patrons were met with cold coffee, brown avocado, and incorrect food orders.
In October 2024, Denny’s confirmed plans to shut down 150 underperforming locations. Half of these closures were expected to be completed by the end of the year, while the other half occurred in 2025. For a chain that once called itself “America’s Diner,” that’s a painful chapter to write.
2. Red Lobster: Sunk by the Endless Shrimp
Few restaurant collapses have been as dramatic or as widely discussed as Red Lobster’s. It went from an iconic American seafood destination to a cautionary business school case study in what feels like the blink of an eye.
Red Lobster was driven into bankruptcy by mismanagement under a former owner, global shrimp supplier Thai Union. Thai Union cut Red Lobster’s longstanding suppliers, pushed out veteran employees, and infamously made the $20 endless shrimp a permanent menu item for the first time, hurting its profit margins. Let that sink in: a shrimp promotion took down one of America’s most recognized chains.
Consider this: for just the fourth time since 2014, the number of full-service chain restaurants in the U.S. was smaller than it was the year before. Unit count among the 600 largest full-service restaurants was on pace to shrink by about half a percent in 2024, the largest decline since 2020, according to Technomic.
Red Lobster is attempting a comeback under new CEO Damola Adamolekun. Whether that comeback can actually win back the diners who swore off the brand remains one of the more interesting questions in the casual dining world right now.
3. TGI Fridays: Thank Goodness It’s… Closing?
TGI Fridays was the fun uncle of American casual dining. Loaded potato skins, those iconic red-and-white striped awnings, and the kind of cheerful noise that made you feel like you were celebrating something even on a random Tuesday. That spirit seems to be evaporating.
TGI Fridays confirmed it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2024 and has continued shuttering restaurants in 2025. According to its website, only 85 locations remain open. That’s a devastating reduction for a chain that once operated hundreds of locations across the country.
Three large full-service chains – Red Lobster, TGI Fridays, and Buca di Beppo – filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy during 2024. All cited some combination of the 2020 pandemic and inflation, leaving them unable to pay their debts.
Fed up with years of inflation, customers became more choosy with where they spent their dining-out dollars. That gave restaurants little margin for error: if a brand’s operations, prices, or menu weren’t quite hitting the mark with customers, chances are it paid the price. TGI Fridays paid a steep one.
4. Buffalo Wild Wings: High Prices, Hollow Plates
Wings and sports on a big screen. It’s a simple formula, and it worked beautifully for Buffalo Wild Wings for decades. Here’s the thing though – simple formulas fall apart when the quality drops and the prices keep climbing.
At the bottom end of the full-service restaurant industry, Buffalo Wild Wings sank by four percent to an ACSI score of 76 in 2025. That score places it firmly among the most poorly rated chains in its category.
Wing lovers do not play around when it comes to their chicken wings, and with such inconsistent experiences across the board, it comes as no surprise that customers are not completely satisfied with Buffalo Wild Wings. Prices are only going up, adding insult to injury for dissatisfied consumers, with some complaining that prices are excessive for the quality and portion sizes.
Buffalo Wild Wings and Wingstop undercut Hooters’ wing prices, yet ironically Buffalo Wild Wings itself has now become a target for the very same complaints. Paying premium prices for an average experience is not a trade-off today’s diners are willing to make.
5. Sonic Drive-In: The Drive-In That Forgot How to Drive
Sonic built its entire identity around a concept that felt genuinely different – carhops, drive-in stalls, slushes in every color imaginable. It was nostalgic in the best way. Except the nostalgia doesn’t cover for the operational mess customers are now reporting.
Sonic scored a disappointing 73 in the 2025 ACSI rankings, falling well short of the 79-point average for quick-service restaurants. It has fallen considerably from the previous year’s score of 76, suggesting things are heading downhill fast.
Many customers lament the lack of service at the drive-in stalls, which has been such a mainstay of the brand’s identity that it’s literally part of its name. Since the 2020 pandemic, many people have reported that their local Sonic locations have dropped this feature altogether and now require customers to use the drive-through instead.
Customers report dealing with rude staff, shakes that arrive runny instead of thick, and an ordering system and app that is often not working. Getting orders wrong appears to be a regular occurrence, and even worse are the complaints about undercooked food. I think at some point you have to ask whether the brand even knows what it is anymore.
6. KFC: Losing the Chicken Wars
Colonel Sanders built an empire on 11 herbs and spices. That empire, however, is losing ground faster than perhaps anyone at KFC headquarters would care to admit publicly.
The American Consumer Satisfaction Index’s largest drop from 2024 to 2025 belongs to KFC, which fell from a score of 81 to 77 out of 100. The famed fried chicken franchise saw its sales in 2024 drop even as other poultry chains like Chick-fil-A, Popeyes, Raising Cane’s, and Wingstop increased their revenue. KFC fell behind all of those competing restaurants in total consumer spending, placing the once-dominant brand in fifth place among fast food chicken spots.
The fast-casual chicken chain Raising Cane’s surpassed KFC in the rankings, making KFC now the fourth largest chicken chain in the country after its sales declined by roughly five percent to around 4.9 billion dollars.
On the subreddit r/fastfood, while the Colonel has had a few defenders, most commenters have lodged complaints about price increases, smaller pieces of chicken, and lower-quality food in general. Smaller chicken for more money. That’s a hard sell, even with decades of brand loyalty behind it.
7. Chili’s: Viral Buzz, Real Disappointment
Chili’s has been one of the most talked-about chains on social media over the past two years, riding a wave of TikTok virality and nostalgia-fueled marketing. Sales numbers looked impressive on the surface. Look a little closer, though, and a different story begins to emerge.
The American Customer Satisfaction Index gives Chili’s a score of 78, which falls short of the overall score of 82 for sit-down restaurants. What’s more worrying is that it dropped from a score of 80 just the year before.
The ACSI dug into what’s behind this decline, and according to them, around spring of 2024 Chili’s rolled out new promotions and menu items aimed at attracting McDonald’s customers. These customers came in with different expectations than Chili’s typical crowd. Apparently it’s this shift, along with the rapid changes happening at the chain, that is the cause of its decline.
Based on the ACSI, the chain has dropped a couple of points between 2024 and 2025, and more than half of the customer ratings on Consumer Affairs are 1-star reviews. Going viral on TikTok and keeping customers happy are, it seems, two very different challenges.
8. Applebee’s: The Neighborhood Grill Running Out of Neighbors
Applebee’s has been a fixture of American suburban life for over four decades. It’s the kind of place where everyone has a memory attached, whether good or cringe-worthy. These days, though, fewer people seem to want to make new ones there.
Applebee’s faced a difficult year in 2024, with total sales falling by more than five percent and its unit count shrinking. That’s a meaningful decline for a brand that once seemed almost recession-proof.
Comparable same-restaurant sales, an important measure of business health, declined by nearly five percent year over year in the fourth quarter of 2024. Applebee’s laggard performance stands in contrast to dine-in competitors like Chili’s, which has seen skyrocketing sales due to savvy marketing on apps like TikTok.
Consumer reviews paint a harsh picture, with nearly three quarters of reviewers unfavorable and mostly dissatisfied. Pervasive poor customer service, long waits, and rude managers are among the most common complaints. Frequent food quality issues, including undercooked and cold meals, and reports of food poisoning further compound the problem.
9. Cracker Barrel: Selling Nostalgia on an Empty Plate
Cracker Barrel has always leaned hard into a particular kind of Southern comfort identity, and for years it worked. The rocking chairs on the porch. The country store. The chicken and dumplings. Somewhere along the way, the experience stopped matching the expectation.
Cracker Barrel’s Southern homestyle comfort food is not enough to satisfy customers, with one patron on Reddit going so far as to describe the chain as one that “isn’t really selling good food” but rather “selling nostalgia,” which might explain why some older customers do return.
Even the chicken-fried steak, which this chain is known for, is inconsistent, with mushy breading and bland flavor. Poor food quality isn’t the only problem. The chain has also built a reputation for poor service and cleanliness.
Cracker Barrel was also inundated with negative attention and public controversy in recent years. The results have been real: the company has laid off workers and watched its sales and profits plunge. Nostalgia may bring people in once. It rarely brings them back twice when the experience disappoints.
10. McDonald’s: The Golden Arches Lose Their Shine
It almost feels wrong putting McDonald’s on a list like this. It is, after all, the largest fast food chain on the planet. Yet even icons are not immune from consumer backlash when the value proposition starts to feel broken.
According to customer satisfaction data, McDonald’s had the lowest customer satisfaction of any quick-service restaurant chain. That is a striking distinction for a company of its size and reach.
The average price of a meal at McDonald’s increased by a significant twenty-two percent, from $6.21 to $7.57, between 2022 and 2024, according to a study by the personal finance site MoneyGeek. Meanwhile, the food quality didn’t rise alongside those prices.
McDonald’s, the largest chain in the world, grew sales by just 0.6% amid consumer frustration over prices and then an end-of-year E. coli outbreak in Colorado. Starbucks’ sales fell 0.5% in 2024, its worst year since the Great Recession, following strikes, a social media backlash, and concern over the company’s service. The whole fast food value model feels like it’s cracking under the weight of its own price hikes.
