why did arbys discontinue jr roast beef

There will always be fast food, but that doesn’t mean the food on the menu doesn’t change all the time. National or even international quick-service restaurant chains are almost always adding to or taking away from their menus. There are many reasons for this, such as to get new customers, adapt to changing tastes, use seasonal or newly available ingredients, or set themselves apart from the competition. With each new menu item comes a chance to promote the fast food chain and let people know that it is still around and adapting to new times.

With that evolution, some offerings get left behind. Arbys, for example, is one of the more active restaurants when it comes to switching up the menu. Over the last couple of decades, the roast beef chain has expanded into numerous other food areas. Sometimes those introductions click with customers, and sometimes they dont. No matter how popular they were at first, some menu items that are taken off the menu leave a lasting impression that moves customers to take action for years after they are gone. These are some long-lost or forgotten Arby’s items that the company’s most devoted fans would love to see once again.

It’s a meat-and-potatoes restaurant because its main goal is to sell a fast food version of a roast beef dinner that you can take with you. Arby’s serves baked or mashed potatoes in a number of different ways, along with beef on a bun. The fries can be seasoned Curly Fries or Crinkle Fries. Until 2021, Arbys sold Potato Cakes. The Arby’s Potato Cakes were shaped like hash brown patties and were made by chopping potatoes and shaping them into triangles. They were then deep-fried until golden brown and crispy.

In March 2021, Arbys customers from around the U. S. reported on Reddit that their local outlets had suddenly stopped serving the side. A poster that claimed to be from an Arby’s worker said that the company had gotten rid of that potato item to make room for Crinkle Fries, which will be a permanent potato option. An Arbys representative confirmed the news to The Takeout. “Although our Potato Cakes have been discontinued (for now), whos to say theyre gone forever?” they wrote. Acolytes moved on the news, supporting an online petition at Change. org to “Bring Back Arbys Potato Cakes. ” As of May 2023, the petition has gathered over 4,400 signatures.

In the 2010s, Arbys enjoyed great success with a line of seven slider-type sandwiches. Arby’s sliders were smaller and had fewer ingredients than its other, taller, more complicated sandwiches. They only had one meat (turkey, corned beef, or roast beef) and a small amount of sauce or melted Swiss cheese. Arby’s added an eighth slider in 2017. It was more like a Subway or Domino’s slider than anything on its regular menu of roasted meat sandwiches. Salami, pepperoni, roasted garlic marinara sauce, and melted provolone cheese were squished into a soft bun to make the Pizza Slider.

The Pizza Slider endured for four years on the Arbys menu, a brief but undistinguished run. In July 2021, Arbys eliminated several consistently low-selling items from its menu. Among the subtractions was the Pizza Slider. It was impossible for the Pizza Slider to stay alive because Arby’s stopped carrying salami, ham, pepperoni, and marinara sauce, which were all necessary to make the sandwich. A Change. The “Re-Continuation of the Arby’s Pizza Slider” org petition only got a little over 30 signatures, so the sandwich probably won’t be back on Arby’s national menu any time soon.

In the 1970s, about ten years after its opening, Arby’s aggressively expanded its menu for the first time. It added the classic Beef n Cheddar, its Horsey Sauce, and a sandwich called the Arby-Q. The Arby’Q was basically the fast food chain’s standard, signature sandwich of thinly sliced roast beef on a bun. The meat was then covered in a smokey barbecue sauce. That barbecue beef sandwich was an Arby’s standard for years, but it lost popularity over time, which was the end of it. After a break, Arby’s brought back the Arby-Q in 2012, but only for a short time and at a low price of $4 for two.

As of the 2020s, Arby’s doesn’t sell the Arby-Q anymore, but customers would love it if it did. Fans who were hungry and excited flooded a Twitter thread in 2020 when the official Arby’s account talked about the long-gone sandwich.

The classic onion ring is a round slice of onion that is battered and deep-fried. The Outback Bloomin’ Onion is onion segments that are battered and deep-fried. The Arbys Onion Petals was in the middle. People mostly bought and ate the Onion Petals as a side dish or instead of the Curly Fries. They were a quiet part of Arby’s long menu until about 2010, when they were replaced by Steakhouse Onion Rings.

The Steakhouse Onion Rings were said to be cooked to order and came in five very large pieces. They cost less than $2, making them one of the more affordable items on the Arby’s “Sidekickers” menu. Then, in 2020, the Steakhouse Onion Rings were abruptly taken off the Arby’s menu, just like the Onion Petals they replaced. Fans and customers were sad about the news on Reddit, but as of 2023, Arby’s doesn’t have any kind of fried onions.

The Loaded Italian Sandwich was one of the biggest and heaviest sandwiches that a chain that used to sell a protein-packed monster called the Meat Mountain had ever made. When it first came out in 2015, the item came with toasted Italian roll, ham, salami, pepperoni, melted cheese, lettuce, tomato, red onion, garlic aioli, dressing, and banana peppers that burst from the bread.

During Arby’s major menu overhaul in the summer of 2021, the Loaded Italian Sandwich was another dish that didn’t make it. Six menu items were taken off the menu for good because they weren’t ordered often enough for the business to make money from them. The Loaded Italian Sandwich needed some ingredients that weren’t used in many, if any, other menu items. When it went away, Arby’s stopped keeping Pepperoni, Salami, Ham, Garlic Aioli, Red Wine Vinaigrette, and Tomato Sauce on hand in case they were needed. Perhaps a Change. org petition from Arbys fans will revive the sandwich some day.

As its long-time marketing slogan announces, Arbys “has the meats. While that chain is best known for its oven-roasted, thin-sliced beef and breaded chicken in different forms, it has sometimes tried to break out with other popular proteins like ham.

In the 2010s, Arby’s sold a lot of different sliders, which are small, simple sandwiches with just meat, cheese, or sauce on one or two halves of a small bun. One of those menu offerings was a Ham Slider, and that pretty much describes it. It came with ham, and maybe some cheese, on bread.

The Ham Slider didnt survive a significant Arbys menu overhaul in the summer of 2021. At that point, Arbys took six items off its national menu, citing poor sales figures. Along with Potato Cakes and the Pizza Slider, the Ham Slider got dropped. It’s no longer possible to make an off-menu Ham Slider because Arby’s stopped sending ham to its stores (except for the few that serve breakfast). A Change. org petition to “Bring Back Ham and Cheese Sliders at Arby’s” wasn’t successful enough to get the sandwich back on menus across the country.

White Cheddar Mac ‘n Cheese

Arbys menu is built around quick, easy, convenient, and modern versions of classic, home cooked comfort food. It makes sense for Arby’s to serve thick and creamy homestyle macaroni and cheese along with roast beef and hot potatoes. In early 2020, Arbys brought out White Cheddar Mac n Cheese. As part of a two-items-for-$6 deal, this side dish came in a moderately sized serving and cost about $3. It was made up of large elbow macaroni noodles swimming in a white cheddar cheese sauce.

Arby’s got rid of the White Cheddar Mac n Cheese in August 2022. They did this to make room for a new, cheaper 2 for $7 Everyday Value board that replaced their popular and inexpensive 2 for $6 Everyday Value sub-menu. The absence didnt last long, to the delight of macaroni-loving Arbys customers. White Cheddar Mac n Cheese was back at Arby’s by December 2022, but only for a short time before it was taken off the menu again.

During the fall of 2010, Arby’s added a new fast food dessert to its board of sweets. In addition to the standard fare of shakes and cookies came the Chocolate Turnover. The Chocolate Turnover was shaped like a stuffed croissant and had a lot of layers of flaky pastry. Inside was a very sweet, smooth, melty filling made from Hershey’s cocoa. A thin layer of chocolate sauce was spread over the top of this rich hand pie to make it look even better.

Intended and marketed as a limited-time-only offering, the response from Arbys customers was so great that the chain decided to make it a permanent menu item in late 2010. “The Chocolate Turnover has been saved!” Arbys wrote on Facebook. It turns out that “permanent” didnt mean “forever,” though. In 2016, a customer queried the Arbys Twitter account, in search of an answer for the Chocolate Turnovers sudden and unannounced disappearance from the menu. The answer, and to the displeasure of Arbys adherents on Twitter: the Chocolate Turnover was excised to clear a spot for two new cookie offerings made with Ghirardelli chocolate chips.

Arby’s wanted to get in on the action with ultra-thick, ultra-sweet fast food desserts like Dairy Queen’s Blizzard and McDonald’s McFlurry. These desserts were vanilla ice cream with name-brand cookie and candy pieces mixed in. After the Blizzard’s popularity in the late 1980s, Arby’s Polar Swirl was created. It was vanilla ice cream with a mix-in of the customer’s choice, such as Oreos, M&Ms, or candy canes.

Though it was clearly based on the Blizzard, the Polar Swirl was said to have tasted more like a Wendy’s Frosty, being smooth and soft like a milkshake that has been let to run. Many people on the internet miss this cold dessert from a long time ago, but the Polar Swirl didn’t last long and is still hard to find. There is still a market for something like the Polar Swirl because Arby’s sells other desserts, like cookies, and a line of milkshakes.

Arby’s is like a fast food version of a steakhouse and a homestyle restaurant. In the fall of 2014, the chain added a fancy and old-fashioned dessert to its menu to support this idea. Most quick-serve desserts are simple, like room-temperature cookies or soft serve with chocolate syrup. But the Cinnamon Apple Crisp was more complicated, with many layers and a lot of different ingredients that needed to be prepared in a complicated way. A piece of cake mixed with baked and spiced cinnamon apples, and gooey granola, whipped cream, and a sprinkle of cinnamon were on top of everything. And that all came at a standard cost of just $2. 39.

However, Arby’s made it clear that the very autumnal Cinnamon Apple Crisp would only be available during certain times of the year. This meant that fans shouldn’t get too attached to the limited-time-only dessert. It sold well enough that Arby’s brought it back to their menu, but not for another four years. In 2018, the Cinnamon Apple Crisp hit Arbys again, albeit in a revised formulation. Warm vanilla cake soaked in spicy cinnamon apples and topped with streusel, caramel, and whipped topping was the dessert this time. It hasnt made a widespread return to Arbys since then.

Country Style Rib Sandwich

The most widely available and most famous barbecue sandwich in American fast food restaurants was McDonalds McRib. The occasionally available sandwich always gets a lot of attention and sells a lot of food. It has a heavily sauced and onion-topped patty made of processed, pressed, and formed boneless pork. When the Country Style Rib Sandwich came out in October 2021, Arby’s became a player in the barbecue sauce and pork rib market. It was advertised as a better and more authentic alternative to the McRib. Ads for the Country Style Rib Sandwich said that the meat was smoked for eight hours over hickory wood fires and came with barbecue sauce, crispy onions, and gouda cheese.

The Country Style Rib Sandwich was only supposed to be on Arby’s menu for a short time in 2021, but sales were good enough to bring it back right away. The sandwich came back to Arbys in 2022 with a bigger rollout than before. Arbys even got rapper Pusha T to record and release an anti-McRib diss track. Nevertheless, the Country Style Rib Sandwich once again didnt become a regular item.

The Truth About Arby’s Roast Beef

FAQ

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