- Football season is a time for chain restaurants to draw in customers.
- We tried classic cheeseburgers from four chains to determine the best option for game day.
- Buffalo Wild Wings impressed us with its juicy, double-stacked burger.
The Super Bowl is right around the corner, and restaurant chains are rolling out crowd-pleasing tailgate favorites to win over fans.
In our series “Tailgate Taste-off,” Business Insider is pitting these chains against each other to uncover the best versions of popular game-day dishes.
Nothing says football season like a juicy, classic cheeseburger from your favorite local chain, and while chicken products are one of the biggest fast-food and casual-dining trends as we kick off 2025, the burger still reigns supreme among many US consumers.
Restaurant Business reported that limited-service chains where burgers are a core menu item generated $110 billion in total sales in 2023, more than double the sales generated by limited-service chicken chains like Popeyes and Chick-fil-A.
In 2024, casual dining chains capitalized on America’s need for beef.
Chili’s and Applebee’s introduced value meals that highlighted burgers.
Chili’s added its Big Smasher, a play on the McDonald’s Big Mac, to its “3 For Me” value menu, while Applebee’s released the “Really Big Meal Deal,” which included a chicken sandwich or bacon cheeseburger, bottomless fries, and a drink for $9.99.
“You’re seeing a lot of competitors throwing different combo meals and meal deals out there at different price points. But I think what’s really hard to replicate is we’re delivering all of that, combined with a really excellent experience,” Chili’s CMO George Felix told Business Insider.
We ranked classic cheeseburgers from four chain restaurants — Applebee’s, Chili’s, Buffalo Wild Wings, and TGI Fridays — based on taste and value.
Here’s how the four chain restaurants’ cheeseburgers ranked, from our least to most favorite.
