15 Fast Food Scandals You Forgot About

John Schnatter put his foot in his mouth on multiple occasions, which caused him to be ousted as CEO and later removed as a member of Papa John's board of directors. His comments claiming that NFL Player's national anthem protests against police brutality were hurting his pizza chain's sales caused a huge controversy in early 2018.

From 1992-1993 there were over 700 cases of E. Coli reported from contaminated beef patties at Jack In The Box locations in California, Nevada, Idaho, and Washington. Tragically, four children died from E. Coli, and several others were left with significant brain damage and other conditions.

In 2005, The New York Times published an internal report from Krispy Kreme that apparently admitted to over $25 million of lost money through incorrect accounting.

After being investigated by the SEC, it was concluded in 2009 that the chain's executive inflated company profits. The company wasn't on the hook for much, though, and three executives were charged with a $600,000 fine. Krispy Kreme still claims publicly that there was nothing fraudulent occurring.

In the early 2000s, McDonald's was slapped with a lawsuit on behalf of several vegetarians, including two Hindu plaintiffs who could not eat beef for religious regions.

The legal issue centered around fries and hash browns, because McDonald's had claimed in marketing materials that they were vegetarian, but the vegetable oil used to fry them still had beef essence in it. The chain paid 11 plaintiffs $4,000 and made $10 million in donations to Hindu groups as part of its settlement.

Wendy's has been derided by consumer groups and organizations representing farm workers for not supporting the Fair Food Program, which is a campaign that works to give farmworkers a voice and systems to monitor work exploitation for those that work to put food on our tables. Wendy's is one of the only major fast food chains that hasn't signed onto the program, which was introduced in 2011.

Burger King has its own loyal defenders nowadays, but they struggled for a while to compete with McDonald's. From 1993 to 1996 they had a double-patty burger named the Big King which had a bun in the middle and seemed suspiciously similar to the Big Mac from their rival.

They tried to bring the Big King back in 2013, but it was hit with mixed reviews again.

Europeans being snooty about Starbucks may have had good reason for it. Back in 2012, the chain was accused of avoiding tax payments in the UK and Ireland by transferring tax royalties to its headquarters in The Netherlands.

Starbucks was investigated by the European Commission antitrust regulator and was ordered to pay €30 million in overdue taxes.

The late-night classic chain Taco Bell faced a lawsuit from the firm Beasley Allen which accused their meat of being only 35% beef, with the rest being oats, seasoners and other fillings. They countered the claims in this filing passionately in court and with marketing videos, and the plaintiffs eventually withdrew the suit in April 2011.

In 2009, two Domino's workers uploaded five videos called "Disgusting Domino's People." It showed an employee contaminating food in various ways including by putting it in his nostrils, and other areas we'd rather not mention.

These videos quickly gained millions of views in a few days, and Domino's swiftly fired them and filed charges against the employees for food contamination.

It feels like even the biggest corporations are prone to hacks nowadays, and Chipotle was hit with claims by customers that hackers took their credit card info from their accounts in 2019. It may make you think twice about throwing your card on any fast-food app, but now Chipotle has some safeguards like two-factor authentication.

A Dunkin location in Baltimore, Maryland, came under fire when photos showed that a manager put up signs encouraging customers to report employees who didn't speak English with free coffee and pastries.

Not to hit a sandwich chain while it's down, as Quiznos is hardly as big as it once was, but they became unfortunately known for being served with tons of lawsuits from franchisees starting in the 2000s, more than pretty much any other major fast food restaurant.

Several franchisees testified that Quiznos inflated the value and growth of their company, and some even claimed they used personal funds and went into debt to keep their stores open. They have paid out an estimated $100 to $200 million in settlements and filed for bankruptcy in 2014.

The pizza chain Sbarro, a.k.a. Michael Scott's favorite New York restaurant, may have been involved in decades of extortion by mobsters. The New York Daily News said in 2012 that the chain began making payments to members of the Italian mob for "protection," and was then on the hook for years afterward until around 2006 when the FBI closed in on the gangsters.

This was mostly the fault of KFC UK's delivery management company DHL, but due to a logistical error in 2018, KFC had to temporarily close hundreds of restaurants due to a chicken shortage they caused.

The company rebounded in the public eye by running ads in local papers where they rearranged their logo to spell out "FCK," along with an apology.