Always overshadowed by more popular choices like burgers and chicken nuggets, a fast-food hot dog isn’t typically a top-choice menu item. Most of the time, eaters don’t realize that a lot of fast food chains even serve them. Fellow diners might cast a judgmental glance in your direction if you casually bring up that you might order one. A hot dog? Really? But I’m here to represent we happy few, we band of brothers who bond over brats.

I love a good dog and have been an unwavering supporter of them since early childhood. I’ve eaten plenty, from the boiled Ball Parks mom would make for weekend lunches to the grilled wieners at neighborhood cookouts to the ridiculously cheap, better-than-heaven sizzling franks at a favorite local hot dog joint operating inside a tiny red caboose off the side of a busy highway outside Pittsburgh.

But the frankfurter fun is far from over. I wanted to give myself the tasty challenge of trying them in the format of fast food. If you’re also curious about how this underrated selection tastes at different spots, I’m your gastric gal. In this review, I taste-tested hot dogs from seven fast food chains and ranked them from worst to best. Find out which ones are top dogs and which ones belong in the dog house.

Read more: 12 Fast Food Burgers, Ranked

Dairy Queen

Though Dairy Queen rules over sweet treats with great success, its kingdom comes to a resounding halt at hot dogs. I’ll stick to the Blizzards and Dilly Bars from now on when I get a hankering for some ice cream, because the all-beef hot dog at Dairy Queen was a big, bitter disappointment — literally. The burnt taste of the hot dog was obvious and overpowering. The nasty, dried-up ends were blackened nearly to the point of inedible consumption, and I was struggling to try to figure out the “flame-grilled” markings on the top of the dog. While I can’t confirm how my local Dairy Queen Grill and Chill cooks its hot dogs, the pattern consisted of bizarrely deep (also excessively blackened) grooves that seemed most likely created by a fake imprint on each dog to mimic grill marks.

The burnt taste wasn’t the only thing wrong here, as the textures were also gravely unappetizing. The meat was dry, bouncy, and rubbery, and the bun was stale. A small positive is the thoughtful to-go container the hot dog was placed in, but given the tough, overdone state of both the dog and bun, this was a woefully unnecessary accessory.

Sheetz

I anticipated that a gas station hot dog would be pretty low on my ranking list, and I wasn’t wrong with this assumption. Other expert opinions also agree, since Chowhound lists hot dogs as one of the items you should never buy at a gas station. As for this Sheetz Made-To-Order hot dog, I was first taken aback by the size: It was so tiny and skinny, like an eraser head on a No. 2 Pencil. And then I was baffled by the appearance of the cross-cut section: It was dense and homogenized, also like an eraser head on a No. 2 Pencil. And then I was completely weirded out by the texture: It was quite waxy, oddly enough, just like an eraser head on a No. 2 Pencil.

Needless to say, there was a theme, and it wasn’t a good one. But I’m not surprised because you get what you pay for. After all, a Sheetz hot dog is only a buck and some change. It tasted cheap and lacked the savory, meatier flavors of the other higher-ranked hot dogs. The eraser-like look and consistency of the hot dog was pretty alarming, which was further unnerving after some light sleuthing in the Sheetz Nutrition Calculator available online to figure out exactly what ingredients are in the plain dog: Beef, pork, chicken, dextrose, corn syrup, and lots of sodium variables. It was a bad dog that ended up close to the bottom … but at least the bun was soft and fluffy.

Sonic

The all-beef, All-American Dog at Sonic had an oddly gray-pink, anemic color that literally paled in comparison with many of the other wieners, which didn’t give it the best first impression, seeing it through the acetate window of the well-marketed foil bag. But other than the pallid color, the appearance was pleasantly standard — it played the part of looking like a classic, plump hot dog perfectly placed in a cleanly cut, equally plump bun. The textures and flavors weren’t nearly as atrocious as the previous two, as I am happy to report that it was just a little juicier and more tender than the disappointing offerings at Sheetz and Dairy Queen.

However, the Sonic hot dog was still not anywhere close to being as bold and flavorful as the remaining participants. I’m honestly not surprised that the fast food employee responsible for assembling my plain hot dog order made the mistake of giving me a fully dressed dog, complete with diced onions, ketchup, mustard, and relish. On its own, the hot dog was a mediocre bore at best. There are far more exciting items to try on the menu, and lots of Sonic secrets to discover to keep you entertained.

Five Guys

While not a beauty to behold — quite frankly, it was the ugliest one — the hot dog at Five Guys was still a sizzling, griddled delight to consume. Five Guys butterflies a particularly long and girthy all-beef dog to maximize the caramelization on the griddle. The same cooking technique is applied to the bun, griddling each exposed side to gently toast it. The frank itself has an impressive flavor, with an evident mix of salt and spices that amplifies its savory qualities. A slight downside was its slightly mealy texture, an odd abnormality of the smoother, more homogenized forcemeat I know and love.

While I can shrug my shoulders and overlook the meat’s consistency, arguing that it’s a positive sign of a more natural and less processed product, I couldn’t ignore two other major issues: First, the hot dog is nearly a jaw-dropping $8 purchase, which is triple — even quadruple — the price of the other inexpensive choices. Second, I was let down by how poorly mutilated the bun became after such a short amount of time post-purchase. As one of the many Five Guys secrets revealed by Chowhound, the brioche-esque buns are purposely soft and delicate, an ode to the now-closed bakery that made the sweet, pillowy bread for the original Five Guys location in Arlington, Virginia. Although a sentimental gesture, this style of bun was not executed well. The signature look for all the hot dog orders at Five Guys, the bun was split entirely into two separate pieces, so there was no anchoring base to keep the hot dog in a compact unit. And because of how heavy the frank was, the dough was quickly flattened and became gummy under its heated weight.

Rally’s

Whereas the hot dog at Five Guys is an expensive, misshapen behemoth with an unbridled power to mercilessly crush its bun, the hot dog at Rally’s scales back the extreme to focus on a more demure, more traditional, and more affordable style. It maintains its appropriately-sized composure with disciplined respect for the balance between wiener and bun, which ultimately was the reason why I favored it over the more gourmet Five Guys hot dog for third place. Its well-proportioned components help create its neat and classic all-American appearance, with a deep red all-beef dog nestled snugly in a split and expertly toasted fluffy white bun.

And though the flavor of the dog was pretty darn good, especially when paired with an order of Rally’s high-quality Famous Seasoned Fries, it wasn’t as succulently beefy and delicious as its remaining competitors that were able to snatch second and first place. There was an underlying taste of a subtly sweeter, processed deli meat bologna that knocked it down a few notches from a higher ranking.

A&W

As one of the oldest chain restaurants in America, in operation since 1919, A&W has been developing and improving its menu for over 100 years, with hot dogs playing a prevalent role on the menu when the company first opened its drive-in restaurants. Nearly identical in appearance to Rally’s hot dog, A&W’s all-beef hot dog is another classic selection of a small and humble handheld.

Unlike Rally’s, however, the A&W hot dog had a surprising punch of savory, meaty flavor that secured its second-place standing. My only beef with this dog is that the bun was left untoasted. It’s a small complaint given how tasty everything was, and the bun was still fresh, fluffy, and delightful as is. Even though that wishful update still would not have been enough to earn A&W first place, a little toasty bite on the bread would have thoughtfully amplified a typical fast food order to a more gourmet culinary experience.

Shake Shack

May I present the best in show: Shake Shack’s hot dog! A rarity amongst its competitors, Shake Shack offers its customers full transparency by publicly promoting the specific brand of hot dog used, which is currently a 100% beef hot dog from the Chicago-based company Vienna® Beef. This was the only dog in the whole lineup that actually had a thin, snappy skin, which swiftly tore away to reveal tender, juicy, beefy, and well-seasoned meat.

The type of bun Shake Shack uses is another unique feature that helped this top dog win top place by a landslide; the potato bread was rich, fluffy, and subtly sweet, but was hearty enough that it did not succumb to the weight or heat of the sausage. Similar to the Five Guys cooking technique, Shake Shack’s hot dog and bun were butterflied and seared on a griddle. It was a meaty masterpiece, Shake Shack’s quiet muse amongst all the boisterous burgers and finicky fries. And as a diner delighted by the often-ignored, often-forgotten hot dog, I thoroughly enjoyed every single bite and will rave about this menu item to anyone who will lend an ear.

Methodology

For the most unbiased approach, I ignored the bells and whistles of assorted toppings and tested each hot dog plain, unadorned by popular condiments like relishes, onions, chili, cheese, ketchup, or mustard. For the dog itself, I analyzed the ingredients, the style of cooking, the smell, the temperature, the appearance, the flavor, and the texture.

As per the FDA, because restaurants and food retail establishments part of a chain of 20 or more locations are required to disclose calorie, allergen, and nutritional information, it was not difficult to research the list of ingredients for the hot dogs, which were all directly located on the websites of all of the fast food chains. I also analyzed the type of bun used, its quality of freshness, whether it was toasted or untoasted, and how it paired with the meat.

I cross-cut each hot dog before eating, as the interior paste was a defining feature to reveal how processed/homogenized the dog was. And since the ends are just as important as the middle, I made sure to take a hearty bite from both sections for the most complete hot dog-eating experience.

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Read the original article on Chowhound.