Honestly, it's a question many of us have.
Gallaga lays out his personal connections to Whataburger as well as all the details of how the chain was sold by the original family to BDT Capital Partners, which has expanded its footprint to more than a dozen new states.
"The sale is blamed in popular Reddit threads for everything from a perceived drop in food quality and service to a less specific complaint that Whataburger is “going downhill” as it opens more restaurants in other parts of the country," Gallaga writes.
I want to love Whataburger. I think many Texans do. In my first couple of years in college, it was one of the few spots open late, which made for some fun times. It was also one of the few restaurants in Port Aransas back when I had fun on spring break. I remember my grandmother taking me to a Whataburger on Telephone Road in Houston. She got me a junior burger, and I wanted to cry (I think I did) because I knew I could handle a regular-sized burger. l, like so many Texans, have a real history with the orange-and-white A-frame and am in no search of axes to grind. Sorta.
For the past decade, when my in-laws come to town and announce their mandatory Whataburger visit, I tilt my head, give them a quizzical "OK" and pass. Thanks to Patrick Mahomes, they now have their own Whataburger in Kansas City, and they, too, have had a few head tilts since.
Now, we only stop at Whataburger on road trips when we can use the app to place an order at least 20 minutes before arriving, a lead time that might work. Under zero circumstances am I committing to the drive-thru lane, especially if there's no opportunity to bail on said lane. What brave souls raw dog the Whataburger drive-thru? That should be the next TikTok trend. No phone. No app. Just pull up to a Whataburger, order and let God decide.
But honestly, more often than not, we're stopping at Buc-ee's or H-E-B for food on road trips, which brings up a crucial and brilliant point Gallaga makes in his article: Whataburger simply has not kept up with other iconic Texas brands.
Left in the Texas Dust
Texas-born H-E-B, for instance, has expanded and absolutely slayed, getting better with each new store opening. Buc-ee's has single-handedly changed road trips while raising the bar for bathrooms across the state (and, soon, the whole country). Whoever thought kids in Michigan would want gas-station pajama pants for Christmas? (According to a recent podcast I listened to, some do.) At California-born In-N-Out, the lines are notoriously long, but at least your order will be correct, the food will be hot and you know exactly what you're getting every single trip with zero variations.
Whataburger hasn't figured out that those qualities are what consumers expect.
One factor that could be preeminent in the decline of Whataburger is management. Someone once told me any business is only as good as the people running it. I take that a step further and link how the higher-ups treat their employees as a harbinger of success.
Chik-fil-A, In-N-Out and Raising Cane's are known as satisfactory places to work, with intentional training, decent pay and upward mobility. Buc-ee's bathroom attendants are paid up to $18 an hour. Have you ever met an H-E-B manager? They're all signed, sealed and delivered.
Pull into a Whataburger drive-thru and you just don't know what you're going to get, although newer locations are generally better — not beaten down by chicken butter biscuits at dawn and grilled jalapeños at midnight. But at some older stores, there is no essence of happiness. No one wants to be there. It gives punishment.
So maybe it's not so much that Whataburger has gotten worse; it's that other chains have worked hard to polish service, food and wait times. Whataburger is wading in a pool of indifference. As Gallaga pointed out, maybe there's been too much concentration on expansion. He reported that the opening of the Kansas City restaurant was so bad in terms of customer service and marketing, they had to call a do-over. Head. Tilt.
In not-good news, a few days ago, a new Whataburger employee complained on Reddit about getting only one shift per week and asked if they should quit (yes!). Another Redditor, Froot_Toot, who claims to be a Whataburger manager, tells them, "So I know with changes coming in the new year, a lot of stores are getting tighter on scheduling."
Great. Even slower.
The WaPo article quotes Whataburger CEO Ed Nelson as saying, "Whataburger has a cult following," and the company had its best financial year ever in 2023. Perhaps the strategy of leaning on that cult following is asking too much: Even the most devout followers can falter. One too many bad batches of Kool-Aid ... and, well, Nelson is retiring at the end of this year.
We hope things turn around, but I'm still not committing to the drive-thru line anytime soon to find out.
