20 Discontinued Fast Food Items We’re Dying For These Chains To Bring Back

If a more powerful force than the collective nostalgia of millennials exists, we have yet to encounter such strength. Thanks to a generation of adults hyper-attuned to the frills of their adolescence, we’ve enjoyed remakes of countless intellectual properties, the return of baggy jeans, a Sanrio resurgence, and even a Backstreet Boys reunion residency in the Las Vegas Sphere.

As we see our childhoods recycled throughout pop culture, we also grieve for the favorite discontinued fast food items of our youth. Who knows, perhaps like the cult classic McRib or the promised restoration of McDonald’s Snack Wrap, one or more of these 20 abandoned creations from yesteryear will enjoy a reboot. So, slip on your Skechers, fire up your translucent blue Walkman, and pay your respects to the following discarded — but not forgotten — menu items from well-known fast food restaurants across the country. Maybe the powers that be will hear our prayers and return our beloved dishes to us just like they did “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

For anyone who grew up on the West Coast, Taco Bell’s Mexi-Nuggets functioned somewhat like the obligatory fries one can’t help but add to their order while thinking inside the bun at burger-centric restaurants. Replaced with the far inferior Fiesta Potatoes, Mexi-Nuggets were tater-tot-like morsels heavily dusted with a tangy, savory seasoning salt.

Around 2004, the beloved nuggets were stripped from participating Taco Bell restaurants, and longing ensued. A Facebook petition begging the Live Más brand to return Mexi-Nuggets to their ever-changing menu still exists today. But, for the roughly 700 signers, a more realistic option would be seeking out a Taco John’s and ordering a sleeve of their Potato Olés, or hitting up a Taco Time for some Mexi Fries, both of which gussy up tater tots with a sprinkle of salty seasoning in the same style as the long lost Mexi-Nugget. Neither option quite reaches the height of the Mexi-Nugget, however, which will live on forever in the pleasure centers of our childhood memories. 

Perhaps deemed superfluous amongst a menu almost entirely focused on fried chicken, we nonetheless still long for the bite-sized tidbits that were Kentucky Fried Chicken’s popcorn chicken. The crumb-sized bits premiered in 1992, but were ripped away from hungry mouths in 2023, and swiftly replaced with more run-of-the-mill chicken nuggets.

Made from small pieces of white meat chicken and breaded on all sides with a crispy coating, KFC’s popcorn chicken was ideal for sauce lovers. The small bites excelled at delivering a high ratio of sauce per bite, as each little morsel could be dunked to your heart’s content in one of KFC’s many condiment offerings.

Also discontinued at one of KFC’s primary competitors, Popeye’s, popcorn chicken seems to have fallen out of fashion across the board despite its seeming widespread appeal.

Due to Wendy’s recent embrace of seasonal and limited-time flavors, this discontinued menu item — the Coffee Toffee Twisted Frosty — could be the one of the most likely on this list to make a return to our greedy hands. This Frosty had a short lifespan, lasting just two years, but from 2009 to 2011 square-burger lovers could wrap up their meal with this mocha-like delight.

Though Wendy’s classic Chocolate Frosty remains a staple — if not the single best item on its menu board — lately the fast food chain Dave Thomas founded has shown interest in dusting off other flavor options. Frosty Fusions and Frosty Swirls have appeared with flavors like Oreo Brownie Twist, Caramel Crunch, and Strawberry Pop-Tarts, though all of these Wendy’s Frosty flavors pale in comparison to this lightly-caffeinated dessert from the past.

Even after fans circulated a petition begging Taco Bell to retrieve the Quesarito from the trash pile littered with other deserted menu items — the ’80s Seafood Salad, the 7-layer burrito, the Enchirito, to name a few — the fast food giant has yet to revisit the Quesarito since discontinuing it in 2023. (Could it have to do with said petition only showing about 400 signatures? Definitely.)

Exactly as the portmanteau in its name suggests, the Quesarito was a burrito wrapped in a quesadilla. Filled with seasoned rice, sour cream, cheese, chipotle sauce, and ground beef, it was a tightly wrapped cheesy delight perfect for unleashing in the car immediately after receiving your piping hot paper bag of Taco Bell goodies.

Somewhat of an oddball on the Domino’s menu, the Chicken Taco Pizza sought to woo taco lovers to the shareable side by adorning Domino’s famously plush dough with Taco Bell-like ingredients. Toppings included grilled chicken, onions, diced tomatoes, green peppers, three cheeses (American, provolone, and cheddar), and taco seasoning.

Premiering alongside the Cheeseburger Pizza back in 2020, the Chicken Taco Pizza disappeared around only two years after its initial roll-out, quickly becoming a popular subject for Domino’s devotees across the internet. Unique without crossing the line into unappetizing territory, we miss the gimmicky pizza’s presence on an otherwise Italian-focused menu.

A natural inclusion to McDonald’s forever-rotating menu, considering the success of the brand’s Filet-O-Fish sandwich, the bite-sized variation of the pescatarian classic lasted a mere three months on McDonald’s menu before it flopped off the board forever in 2013.

The Fish McBites came housed in a cute carton and were made from the same Alaskan pollock as the restaurant’s beloved fish sandwich. However, even after McDonald’s forked out the money to create a catchy fishy jingle to dominate its commercial slots (“Fishy Fishy Groovy,” it was called), the miniature fish bites were quietly removed from the Golden Arches menu with little ceremony.

Little Caesar’s long departed Bucket of Spaghetti could be considered the edible embodiment of the term “hot mess,” though it arrived years before the term entered the cultural zeitgeist. That said, it somehow seems like this menu item could now save the brand from the brink of obscurity.

Exactly as it sounds, this Little Caesar’s pasta dish traveled home with hungry diners in a branded plastic tub with a handle, almost like a beach bucket filled with sauced-up noodles. Available in three sizes — including the largest option, “Big! Big!” — the pail of spaghetti also included Little Caesar’s Crazy Bread (essentially breadsticks), and the option to pick between a meatless and meaty sauce. The bucket hasn’t been a menu offering since the ’90s, but we root for its sloppy comeback often.

Part of the wave of healthier fast food items invented in the wake of growing awareness over the market’s often unhealthy, sodium-rich junk food, Wendy’s stuffed pita options premiered in 1997. The wraps lasted a mere three years, but the influence on ’90s kids was permanent. 

The pita options included Garden Veggie, Classic Greek, Garden Ranch Chicken, and Chicken Caesar. Fluffy bread encased the meat, cheese, and veggies, the wrap sitting well next to an order of Wendy’s uniquely-seasoned french fries. We could definitely see these beloved pita wraps making a comeback, with a little makeover perhaps, and being a formidable menu item in today’s health-conscious world.

Another attempt to quell outrage over an unhealthy menu, in the spring of 2000, McDonald’s welcomed the new millennium with an innovative salad in a cup. Long before the Kardashian coterie sent social media into a frenzy with their 2022 salad shaking clip, Mickey D’s launched a portable salad that the world perhaps wasn’t yet ready for. 

The Chef McSalad, Chicken Caesar McSalad, and Garden McSalad rounded out McDonald’s triad of McSalad Shakers. Served in clear plastic containers with a domed lid, the concept was simple enough: allow diners to distribute salad dressings by employing the same method they might when making a margarita. However, before the McSalad Shakers could even enjoy a second round of innovation, McDonald’s pulled the plug on the drink-sized salads (in 2003), shifting instead to salads served in more traditional vessels.

To capitalize on its association with the term “footlong,” Subway looked to stun customers with a little bit of stunt marketing. Teaming up with the minds behind Lay’s Potato Chips (a brand with its own long list of discontinued flavors), the chain unleashed a footlong chip mimicking the size and shape of their iconic sandwiches on National Potato Chip Day in 2023. These gargantuan chips were unfortunately only sold for one day at a single lucky location in Frisco, Texas.

A 12-inch churro (a collaboration with Cinnabon) and pretzel (teaming up with Auntie Anne’s) both followed suit and were similarly retired. The brand seems to never run out of ideas, however, with offerings like a footlong rectangular cookie and footlong sleeves of Doritos nachos still on the table. Unfortunately, none of these other offerings visually compare to the spectacle of a single 12-inch-long baked potato chip.

Although Long John Silver’s stands apart from most of fast food’s heavy hitters due to its seafood-focused menu, the brand’s Chicken Wrap offered a poultry-centric alternative for customers not in the mood for the fruits of the sea. As seen in a 1997 commercial that some kind soul uploaded to YouTube, the handheld lunch included rice, breaded chicken, lettuce, and tomatoes, all topped with a choice of five different sauces.

Given that Long John Silver’s and its Alaskan polluck offerings have never quite reached the level of ubiquity and success found by some other fast food chains, we highly doubt these chicken wraps will make a return to the menu board. That said, Long John Silver’s still operates close to 700 restaurants in 38 states, and recently sank significant funds into improving its technology, hoping to stage an unexpected comeback.

In a truly odd move to capture burger connoisseurs’ attention, from 1985 to 1991, McDonald’s offered a burger with packaging intended to extend the structural integrity of the cheeseburger’s every component. The McDLT was comprised of a fairly standard burger patty, cheese, pickles, tomatoes, and lettuce, but, to combat wilting due to temperature and timing, the sandwich came deconstructed.

McDonald’s sought to create the freshest fast food burger possible. While other burgers were served constructed and wrapped, the McDLT was served in a special two-compartment styrofoam container, where one side was dedicated to the hot ingredients (patty and bun) and the other was reserved for the cold elements (cheese, lettuce, tomato, and pickle). But as environmental concerns encouraged many to shun the use of Styrofoam, McDonald’s discontinued the McDLT with its excessive packaging.

The cleverly-named KFC Twister was essentially just KFC’s signature tenders, lettuce, diced tomatoes, and a peppery mayonnaise sauce encased in a soft flour flatbread. Like the McDonald’s Snack Wrap, rumblings started circulating in 2024 that KFC Twisters might return to the U.S. market (coincidentally right around the same time as the “Twister” film reboot). 

The return of the wrap was greenlit in the Nashville, Tennessee test market (and has been available in limited markets outside America, such as Canada and the U.K., among others), but for most the swaddled sandwich has been missing since it suddenly evaporated from the fried chicken chain in 2014. We can only hope that KFC will extend the reach of the latest Twister rendition, bringing the handheld item to its restaurants everywhere.

Chick-fil-A is known as much for its delicious chicken as it is for its choice to close every Sunday (losing over a billion dollars annually). On top of its famous fried chicken sandwiches, the chain once offered a colder alternative: chicken salad sandwiches. The sandwich was served with lettuce on wheat bread, the chicken salad itself a mixture of diced fried chicken filets, celery, relish, mayonnaise, and boiled eggs. 

Although the chicken giant revoked our ability to roll through its drive-thru and take home the chilled sandwich, the brand did recognize the loss and posted the recipe on its website. But with chicken salad’s sudden revival thanks to Bethenny Frankel, Chicken Salad Chick restaurants, and Nicholas Sparks’ bizarre recipe — which contains 16 Splenda packets — we’re wondering if the timing is right to return the chicken salad sandwich to the Chick-fil-A menu board.

Another lost Chick-fil-A item, the Asian Salad, met its fate in 2016, despite customers’ widespread support. Lettuce and red cabbage mingled with oranges, almonds, crispy wonton strips, chicken, and a sweet honey sesame dressing in the poultry chain’s beloved salad. At only 330 calories, the salad also represented a healthier option from a fast food chain famous for fried chicken and waffle fries. 

Today, the chain offers three salad options: a Cobb Salad, a Spicy Southwest Salad, and a Market Salad. Unfortunately, none of these options match the particular flair of the lost Asian Salad, which lasted a paltry three years. It may be gone, but the memory persists on online message boards, where fans wonder why it left and if it will ever return.

Though not a full dish, there has been widespread outcry for Panda Express to return its packets of branded plum sauce to the chain’s condiment offerings. The single-serving pouches of plum sauce contained real plums as well as apricots and pineapple, delivering a fruity, jammy punch to the chain’s many dishes

Gone since 2022 (or thereabouts), TikTokers and Reddit users alike continue to ponder out loud as to why the California-based company revoked such a cherished frill. This minor alteration at the freebies bar reverberates further than many castaway menu items might for lovers of plum sauce. Sure, they could probably recreate the experience by bringing their own bottle, but nonetheless we will mourn the lost convenience of this unique sauce packet.

If you’re someone always in search of an extra item or two to add to your fast food order, Arby’s Fried Mac ‘N Cheese Bites were a welcome addition to a menu largely filled with beef sandwiches. Somewhat like a macaroni and cheese arancini, the gumball-sized spheres combined the undeniable craveability of fried foods with the ultimate Southern comfort food dish. While Arby’s does still offer bowls of White Cheddar Mac ‘N Cheese, fried mac and cheese options have been absent from most menus for years — though they did see a brief return at limited Arby’s locations in 2024.

Today, the “Sides & Snacks” section of Arby’s official menu reflects only the aforementioned White Cheddar Mac ‘N Cheese, as well as potato cakes, mozzarella sticks, jalapeño poppers, chicken tenders, and two varieties of fries. There are at least a couple items on that list that we’d happily trade for the missing cheesy bites.

Burger King may sometimes fail to capture the same fanfare as its peers, but we do have a corner of our arteries dedicated to Cini Minis, a 1998 creation from the fast food chain. Cini Minis were slider-sized cinnamon rolls that Burger King rolled out as part of their pre-Y2K breakfast menu. Despite showing up on the Burger King breakfast menu of old, Cini Minis also held their own in the camp of fast food dessert items. 

Unlike some of the wilder or more niche items on this list, prayers for the return of Cini Minis have already been partially answered by the powers-that-be. The hamburger monarchy relented and re-released the miniature cinnamon rolls at stores in a meager two Florida cities last year. Unfortunately, we’ve heard no rumblings of a nationwide return for the itty bitty Cini Minis.

If you did a double-take when you saw this off-the-wall Jack in the Box burger invention, you’re not alone. The light-hearted fast food giant found a so-crazy-it-just-might-work combination of flavors with its Sriracha Curly Fry Burger. At the height of Sriracha’s cultural prominence, Jack in the Box released a 2014 variation of the burger sans curly fries. Two years later, in 2016, the ultimate late-night hunger quencher was created by adding a handful of curly fries to the spicy sandwich. Sadly, the brand threw its infamous Late Night Munchie Meals menu out the window in 2023, and with it the infamous Sriracha Curly Fry Burger.

Ok, so even if we can’t exactly envision an occasion to order Pizza Hut’s Hot Dog Bites Pizza, we liked having the option. Did the dish resemble something out of “The Addams Family?” Sure. Was the pizza an invention that owed its existence more to gimmick than to taste buds? Probably. But kind of like freezing our eggs, we just liked the idea of a pizza whose crust is comprised of mini hot dogs waiting to be plucked by hungry diners.

What essentially looks like the edible embodiment of a shock jock morning DJ, Pizza Hut attempted to outdo their own cheese-stuffed crusts and other wacky menu items by unveiling the Hot Dog Bites Pizza in 2015. This hybridized menu item was never meant to be permanent, but we can only hope that means it will someday make a return. Until then, Pizza Hut leaves hungry those who long for both a slice of pizza and a hot dog.