A subject dear to my heart!
McDonaldsThis is a tough one to rate.
On the one hand, their chicken stuff is excellent - usually. Chicken McNuggets are one of the best non-desert guilty pleasure foods in the world, Chicken Selects are actually genuinely pretty good. Admittedly, the quality varies, but it's usually quite high. Their drinks are also superb; compared to other fast food pop, or even canned pop, they're mind-blowingly concentrated. It's like drinking pure syrup, especially the Mr. Pibb.
On the other hand, most of their food is shit. Their regular burgers are tiny, odd-tasting and unsatisfying. Their larger burgers are all specialty types, which means a bunch of crap I won't eat. Their fries are just awful, but that's nothing unusual for fast food. Their milk shakes are kind of unexciting, but the strength of their pop (and coffee) makes up for this.
On the gripping hand, their breakfasts are top of the line. Sausage biscuits (with or without egg) and McGriddles are both excellent (the latter is even fairly consistent!), and McCafe is surprisingly good.
Let's go with...
McDonalds also seems a little pricey for what you get, at least during the day. (Sausage biscuits are nice and cheap, so the breakfast dodges the expensive moniker.)
McDonalds: 7/10
Burger KingPretty much the exact opposite of McDonalds. Most of their non-burger stuff is crap, but on a typical day their burgers are crisply grilled and flavorful. Their dollar menu seems more robust than McDonald's to me - at least, the Whopper Jr. is a good deal.
Still, it's hard to get excited about a place that does basically one thing that's good when none of the rest - fries, chicken products, breakfast, drinks - is even tolerable. Besides, I also hate sesame seeds; admittedly, I don't mind one-bunning a burger.
The way I eat there, a great place for dieting.
Burger King: 5/10
WendysInconsistent.
Especially when it comes to fries, when they're good, they're actually GOOD (whereas most fast food fries at best aspire to "edible"), but when they're bad they're horrid. And they're only good one time in five. On the plus side, they have a neat menu - chili, for instance, makes this a destination more people are willing to go to.
Burgers are ok, nothing else is much good.
Wendy's: 5/10
Hardee's/Carl Jr.The rating here is HEAVILY dependent on whether I'm paying or not.
Carl's is ruinously, ridiculously expensive for a fast food place, to the point I'm left wondering why I don't go to a sit down restaurant instead.
The flip side to that is, they're largely worth it. The burgers are ok, the fries have a high ceiling (and a low bottom, but that's to be expected). The fish, however, is surprisingly succulent - arguably as good as a dedicated fish joint, and I love good battered fish. With that said, I've had some really BAD fish from Carl's, and bad fish is worse than most bad food just as good fish is better than most good food.
The tipping point for me is that their milk shakes are simply the best in the business; no other fast food place comes within spitting distance, and in fact I've never had a better shake home-made or at a sit down restaurant. They are a princely drink, and you pay a princely sum for the pleasure of them.
Carl's: 8/10
Arby'sThe good: When their sandwiches and fries are hot and fresh, they represent the best entree available at a non-fish, non-pizza fast food restaurant.
You can probably guess the bad: they rarely ARE hot and fresh.
Arby's also takes a hit for being as or more expensive than Carl's, without delivering a higher caliber meal on a (fairly) consistent basis.
Arby's: 5/10