'The worst McDonald's in the US' is right here in Arizona. Do you agree?

For Tucson residents who rely on quick meals while traveling across Arizona, one McDonald’s in the Phoenix area has earned an especially poor reputation. The restaurant at 23512 N. 163rd Ave. in Surprise was ranked the worst-rated McDonald’s in the United States in a study of Google reviews. Its average score was 1.55 out of five stars, based on more than 700 reviews, including 745 reviews in the ranking published by Arizona Family. The result does not directly affect Tucson restaurants, but it gives Southern Arizonans another reason to compare locations before stopping during a trip north.

The ranking was produced by SEO Backlinks, which examined more than 20 million Google reviews for McDonald’s locations around the country. The company gathered Google Maps listings and ranked restaurants according to their exact average ratings. Oliver Weston, the firm’s founder, said the restaurants generally offer the same basic menu at similar prices, making their customer ratings a key difference between locations. A correction noted that an earlier version of the report had described the study’s parameters incorrectly.

The Surprise restaurant’s score was driven by an unusually large share of one-star reviews. More than 82% of reviewers gave the location a single star, with complaints involving slow service and orders that were not prepared correctly. Some customers specifically criticized the drive-thru. One review described the service as the worst the customer had experienced at a McDonald’s, while another said drive-thru waits could be extremely long even when traffic appeared light. Those comments point to the parts of a fast-food visit that customers can judge immediately, including speed, accuracy and basic service.

The location’s reputation also looks poor on Yelp, where it had a 1.1-star rating from 81 reviews. Its record is not uniformly negative across every platform, however. On Uber Eats, the same restaurant had a four-star rating based on more than 900 ratings. That difference suggests that customer experiences may vary depending on whether people dine inside, use the drive-thru or order delivery. It also highlights the limits of treating any single online score as a complete assessment of a restaurant.

The study placed several other restaurants near the bottom of the national list, but Surprise was the only location with a rating below two stars. A McDonald’s in Goshen, Indiana, ranked next at 1.99 stars from 550 reviews. Other low-rated restaurants included locations in Auburn, Alabama, St. Clair Shores, Michigan, Detroit, Stafford, Virginia, and several additional communities. The list also included an airport restaurant in Detroit, where conditions and customer expectations can differ from those at a neighborhood location.

The top of the ranking showed a different pattern. The best-rated McDonald’s in the country was in Eagle Pass, Texas, with a 4.25-star average from 2,159 reviews. Other highly rated locations included restaurants in Calexico, California, Downey, California, Brownsville, Texas, and several communities in New York, Illinois and California. The study found that border-town restaurants tended to receive the strongest ratings, a trend reflected in both the national results and Arizona’s highest-rated location.

For Arizona, that top spot went to the McDonald’s at 252 W. Crawford St. in Nogales. It had a 4.05-star rating based on more than 3,000 reviews. That result gives Tucsonans a nearby comparison point, especially for residents who travel south for shopping, dining or other errands. Arizona as a whole ranked 32nd among the states, with an average McDonald’s rating of 3.41 stars across 267 restaurants. The statewide figure indicates that the Surprise location is a significant outlier rather than a typical representation of every McDonald’s in Arizona.

The rankings are based on public reviews, not an inspection, corporate evaluation or independent test of food quality. They do not establish why one restaurant performs better or worse than another, and they do not show whether management has responded to the complaints. Still, the large number of reviews at both the Surprise and Nogales locations provides a substantial record of customer sentiment. For Tucson residents passing through the Phoenix area, the findings offer a practical reminder that a familiar national chain can deliver very different experiences from one location to the next, and that checking recent ratings may help determine whether the convenience of a quick stop is worth the risk of a long wait or an incorrect order.