Review: Grand Turkey Club from Arby’s

Posted October 8th, 2012 | 4:35pm by Ryan

Within the last month or two, Arby’s has been promoting and re-promoting their line of hot turkey sandwiches called Turkey Roasters. Available in Turkey Classic, Turkey ‘n Cheddar Classic and Grand Turkey Club varieties, the Turkey Roasters line of sandwiches looks to appeal to the lighter side of sliced deli meats (sliced daily btw). I recently had a taste of the Grand Turkey Club to find out if roast beef should be taking a backseat to turkey. Arby’s describes their $4.49 Grand Turkey Club like this:

Served hot on a toasted Harvest Wheat bun with sliced roast turkey, melted Swiss cheese, pepper bacon, leaf lettuce, tomato and mayo, the Grand Turkey Club tastes like it’s more than a sandwich. We like to think of it as a savory, taste bud tingling masterpiece.

Hold on a sec, “a savory, taste bud tingling masterpiece” you say? This is an extra bold superlative if I’ve ever heard one. The words “savory” and “taste bud tingling” feel incredibly out-of-place when talking about a turkey sandwich. There really isn’t much of any wow-factor with the Grand Turkey Club. It’s an OK sandwich that falls somewhere in the realm of average and boring.

While all the contents of the sandwich have nothing overtly wrong about them, they are simple ingredients found in almost all no-frills turkey club sandwiches out there. What’s so special about the Grand Turkey Club? Lettuce/tomato/mayo/turkey/bacon… there ya go. There is no secret ingredient to differentiate it from everything you’ve come to expect from a club sandwich. Is it grand in size to match its name? Well, it’s a decent size sandwich (233 grams), and to give it weight comparison to a familiar fast food item, it’s heftier than a McDonald’s Big Mac (215 grams). This sandwich wants so badly to stand out as something special with that company description, but to me it’s just an average sandwich. The two standouts would have to be the bun and bacon. The hearty Harvest Wheat bun had a hint of sweetness and retained its freshness while working as a strong base to support the ingredients within. It’s toasted more in appearance than anything else. The pepper bacon (2 strips seen above) has always been one of the standouts at Arby’s for a lot of people and its mix of salty/smoky flavors helped support the turkey, which let’s be honest, it’s a bland deli meat on its own. The turkey did however not suffer from any kind of dry-out and I was happy that the sandwich retained an adequate amount of moisture with help from the lettuce, two slices of tomato and smattering of mayonnaise. From the 490 calories and 24 amount of fat in the Grand Turkey Club, the mayo looks to take a big chunk of those numbers… there was a ton of mayo. The fresh produce items of lettuce and tomato helped cut through the salt of the bacon. As for the Swiss cheese, it’s really too mild to call a standout. Cheddar is the way to go if you want to make an impact. The Grand Turkey Club would’ve been better off without cheese as it wasn’t noticeable. The Swiss suffered the same fate in the Arby’s Roast Chicken Club from a few years back too. In closing, the Grand Turkey Club isn’t interesting. With its price closing in on the $5 territory and a small combo coming in near $7, you’ve got to offer up something a little more enticing than the standard fare to make me anticipate a repeat buy. It’s an ordinary turkey sandwich that shouldn’t disappoint you too much if you temper your expectations.