Quick Fries Review: Can the European McDonald's Raise the Bar?

Quick is a European homegrown burger chain founded in Belgium in 1971, predating McDonald's in many European markets. Today, with about 250 restaurants globally, and most of them in France, it is now a predominantly French brand. At The Fries Blog, we love finding local chains (Lotteria, MOS Burger, Greggs) that challenge American fast-food empires and throw their flair into creating fries. So we were excited to visit Quick. A fun fact: apparently Burger King had bought out Quick and started to convert the Quick locations to Burger King, but that plan has now been canceled as a new owner is resurrecting and expanding the brand.

This is the flagship Quick near the Louvre and Notre Dame in the 1st Arr.

It was actually difficult to find Quick locations as Paris is now overrun with American chains such as McDonald's, Burger King, and Five Guys. But nevertheless, they were present in many popular locations and we decided to visit the flagship in the 1st arrondissement. Here is our review of Quick's fries.

Texture (3/10)

The fries began with barely any crisp, which made the texture almost feelingless, almost wet, as the exterior couldn’t really be felt properly due to the lack of a crisp. There was also correspondingly no crunch, which made the exterior even worse and unsatisfactory. The interior was dead, being lukewarm and uncooked. The fries felt like the entire stick was just a mush that barely held together as a stick. This was quite disappointing because the marketing pictures on the walls showed perfectly golden fries.

Look at the flop of the stick. We feel like the fries were undercooked overall.

Flavor (3/10)

Not only did they have a subpar texture, but the flavor was arguably worse. The fries did not have any salt nor did they have seasoning of any kind, combined with it being being undercooked, this exemplifies the overall blandness. This is consistent with our observation of using less oil and seasoning, which seems to be common in many fast-food chains in Europe, even the American chains. Honestly, the only thing that could have worsened the fries in flavor was if the flavor left a negative aftertaste instead of being absolutely bland. Bland fries are not new to us, but there's a different between the taste of the potato coming through versus just chewing on some substance. Quick was definitely the latter.

This is the standard wax paper bag. Not much oil stains following the general European trend.

Shape (5/10)

The shape was an ordinary consistency throughout the fries and was nothing special by any stretch of imagination. The fries themselves were only about as long as our fingers and were shaped consistently. On top of that, the fries failed to be sturdy, flopping around quite a lot, and having less structural integrity than the average fry. At certain angles, they looked like they had wrinkles on them as if they were crumpled at a certain point in time. Overall, they resemble the McDonald's fries the most in terms of shape, but the quality of the product eroded the effective shape to some degree.

These fries do not look "healthy" and they shape is almost a bit wrinkly.

Presentation (4/10)

The fries were received in crumpled paper bags that had a fair amount of fries in each bag. These bags were floppy and did not do a great job of holding the fries themselves. This was peculiar as the rest of the meal came in thick, strong, standard cartons like those you would probably expect to be seeing at McDonald’s, while their fries were left behind in a unsupporting paper bag. We do appreicate the fact that they meticulously made the fries in a bag lean on the burgers and thus stand vertically. This is difficult to do with a carton, let alone a wax paper bag. But we can assure you these fries do not look anything like their website.

We appreciate trying to stand the paper bag leaning on the burger.

Experience (4/10)

The fries came out pretty quickly, true to the brand’s name, and the atmosphere was quite clean and pleasant. At least this particular Quick location seemed to have been completely renovated, digital-first, a lot of homage to their burger heritage as the decor, and well airconditioned (which is rare in Paris). What really degraded the experience though was that the fries had no coherence to the rest of the meal and other items on the menu, while not being amazing as a standalone offering. This in turn makes the fries a "deadweight" or an offering that brings down the rest of the experience. Quick needs to really review their overall portfolio and reconstruct how a "meal" is structured.

Clean, modern, and cohesive. We were impressed with the pleasant atmosphere.

Texture	3
Flavor	3
Shape	5
Presentation	4
Experience	4
Overall	3.8 / 10

Conclusion

To conclude, Quick’s fries weren’t necessarily bad because of shoddy concept or a bad menu, but because their fries were just bland in every aspect. From the texture to the experience, the fries were either bland literally, or were not special or memorable in any way that made them stand out as a food. The fact that the fries were not center stage or even a meaningful part of the cast as a whole just makes the fries a meaningless intake of calories, resulting in a dish that there's not much to rave about. We always love rooting for the home team, the local chains. We hope Quick takes this review seriously and revamps their approach to their fries.