The Culver's Menu Item That's Been Disappointing Customers Since 2023

Not too long ago, there was a time when Culver's salad had serious stans. Even at the fast food chain that Thrillest once tapped for best burger (ButterBurger Cheese), best sauce (Wisconsin Cheddar Cheese), and best coffee (Signature Roast) — all in the same year — people still skipped those hits and streamed through the door specifically for the chain's colorful garden greens. That is, until 2023, when customers began complaining about Culver's swapping out its Rolls-Royce of a spring mix for the rusty, broken-down tricycle nobody asked for: iceberg lettuce.

According to Culver's, the previous salad blend had featured red and green lettuce from aesthetically appealing heritage varieties like Lolla Rosa, Red Oak, Red Flash, Green Oak, and Bally Hoo Tango (which I didn't just make up). The beloved spring mix was then abruptly scrapped for reported shards of iceberg, a few shredded carrots, and way too much cabbage, which one Culver's assistant manager described on Reddit with, "Looks cheap and tastes meh." The internet agreed.

Some customers claimed the new salad mix felt like "eating water," while others continued to hold out hope that it was just a supplier snafu. Without any word from the restaurant, we can only assume that iceberg is here to stay, at least for the time being. Still, Culver's burgers are the clear front runner around these parts (chefs are trained for months to nail Culver's smashburger technique). So, grab a handful of arugula to dry your tears, and save the never-ending salad (and breadsticks) for when you dine at that other place.

Roughly five years before we got all caught up in disappearing Bally Hoo as Culver's made the unforgivable error of replacing its spring greens with iceberg lettuce, the chain had actually ditched its OG salad base — which starred romaine lettuce — in favor of the spring greens in question. And (Cue the over-the-top Snoopy cry), people hated that change, too.

While some of Culver's leafy history has gotten blurred since the chain opened in 1984, fans still blissfully recall those romaine salad days. On a 2021 Facebook post celebrating the return of Culver's seasonal Strawberry Fields salad (updated with spring greens), a slew of commenters thumbs-downed the impostor lettuce, swearing never to order the salad again. A few years earlier, in 2018, just after the switch from romaine to the spring mix was made, fans swarmed a Culver's Facebook post to comment: "This mix of arugula and some other greens is NOT for me. ... I just ate the chicken and shoved the greens to the side," and "Please go back to your previous lettuce blend. ... It is difficult to eat with a plastic fork and contains many tough stems and bitter pieces."

We may never agree on lettuce, but maybe one day fans will come to terms with iceberg as a fixture of the Culver's salad lineup. For inspiration, please refer to this Reddit comment from a Culver's employee who is totally feeling the iceberg era: "I have no idea HOW you mfs actually liked that GARBAGE heritage blend." When it comes to Culver's salads, one person's trash lettuce is someone else's treasured iceberg.