Wendy's Has Heard Your Complaints: This Iconic '90s Look Is Coming Back

Besieged fast food chain Wendy's, set to close hundreds of restaurants, has made an announcement. It's making a tweak to something customers have been pining for. Nope, it's not the food, but rather, what the food comes in: the packaging. According to Today, Wendy's is reintroducing its yellow cups and cartons, which will harken back to more nostalgic days. The packaging will have that sunflower hue of bright yellow, but the catch is, it won't be for forever. You'll only be able to gaze upon the retro-style packaging until early 2027. 

Users on Reddit have previously posted about Wendy's old look, reminiscing about its sunroom interiors, along with pictures of old advertising, featuring that old-fashioned packaging. Its current aesthetic is decidedly more sleek, modern, and minimalistic, which is sort of a far cry from the chain's old-fashioned sensibilities. The Reddit post title by another fan says it all: "We need yellow Wendy's back." But this packaging stunt is actually puzzling for plenty of reasons.

The fact that Wendy's isn't doing so well business-wise isn't news. The company is aware that there are internal issues driving the chain's sales downward, as the Wendy's CEO even admitted that customers are right: the food used to be better. It's actually somewhat baffling that this is the first move it's making in trying to turn things around. Customers were outraged when it switched from whole crunchy leaf lettuce to shredded lettuce, as well as when it changed to pre-cooked bacon. The difference in quality was very noticeable to fans.

Wendy's has even been focused on competing in segments like the chicken tender space, but it hasn't been addressing the fact that cutting corners on ingredients made some long-time customers stop going. What's somewhat ironic is that the old packaging, though a nice gesture, might only remind people that the food was so much better back in the day.