There’s thick queso, and then there’s queso that could double as drywall spackle.
One South Carolina woman encountered the latter when her complimentary cup of queso from Moe’s Southwest Grill came with a consistency so gloopy that she had to wonder if the chain had changed its recipe.
In a video that received more than 2,000 views, @prettyblack508 demonstrates just how thick the cheese dip was. She turns a container of it upside down over a sheet of aluminum foil to wait for it to drip out. It doesn’t budge.
“I’m about to tell y’all how Moe’s had me messed all the way up,” she says. “So Sunday was Moe’s free queso … I went, got free queso, and I got me a burrito.”
The creator explains that she’s been eating at the chain for more than a decade. She immediately noticed that something was off with the queso.
“I’m like, they got a new formula … They got a new recipe. Like something is going on. It looks funny,” she explains.
She says she decided to microwave it to soften it up, but it didn’t seem to do a whole lot.
“I’ve saved Moe’s queso and ate it the next day, and it was still that runny cheese,” she says.
@prettyblack508 tries dipping a tortilla chip shard into the dip, leaving deep grooves in a substance that looks more like Silly Putty than melted cheese. Even a spoon struggles to move it around, scooping up a dense glob that holds its lumpy shape.
At this point, she says she decided to contact the restaurant. “I called them people so fast,” she says. “That thing was like spackle. You know how when you fix your walls, I can use that to patch my walls up.”
Despite the disappointing cheese, the creator was not ready to give up on Moe’s altogether. She returned the next day for another $8 burrito and a replacement cup of free queso.
She concludes, “Moe’s, y’all lost your mind,” before cutting to a fresh cup of queso.
“Perfect,” she says. “Perfect.”
Is Moe’s Queso Supposed to Look Like That?
Moe’s Southwest Grill certainly doesn’t advertise its signature queso as a drywall repair tool. According to the chain’s official website, its famous queso is made using jack cheese and diced jalapeños.
“Wondering why it’s famous? Clearly, you haven’t tried it,” the website quips.
In fact, the chain once launched an entire campaign warning customers off inferior queso. In a 2017 press release, Moe’s described its authentic queso as white, velvety, and liquidy. At the time, the chain said “imposter” queso was yellow, grainy, and presumably without magical pulls and drippings.
By its own standards, @prettyblack508’s cup failed Moe’s queso test.
What Makes Queso Thick and Clumpy?
At least one viewer with alleged firsthand experience working at Moe’s offered up a possible explanation for the unusually thick queso.
“As a former assistant manager … They had it up too high on the warmer and burnt it,” the commenter wrote.
Another chimed in with a similar sentiment, writing that the clumpy queso had been “sitting under the heat too long from being out,” and “that’s why it’s darker in color and that’s why it’s clapped up, because it is burnt.”
It’s impossible to know how employees prepared the queso, but these commenters may not be too far off the mark.
According to the global nonprofit organization Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), holding food at high temperatures for extended periods of time causes moisture loss, which leads to food deterioration. That leads to changes in flavor and texture.
Cheese sauces are especially sensitive to this process—the IFT specifically uses mac and cheese as an example of a food that is particularly difficult to hold on a steam table because moisture loss turns the sauce “tacky and almost sticky.”
Fortunately for Moe’s queso, the consistency of construction material wasn’t enough to drive away a customer of more than 10 years.
@prettyblack508
Subplot News reached out to @prettyblack508 via TikTok message and Moe’s Southwest Grill via email.
