Review: The Incredibly Shrunken Arby’s French Dip

I’ve been enjoying Arby’s French Dip sandwiches since the 1980s. While I don’t partake on a regular basis, I have always enjoyed the occasional nice, hot French dip sandwich from the fast food chain. Recently, however, I’ve noticed that the Arby’s French Dip & Swiss looks much different than it did only a few years ago. To say it’s smaller is an understatement.

It’s MUCH smaller. To my hungry eyes, the current incarnation of the Arby’s French Dip looks about half the size of what it used to be!

Let’s compare a photo of the French Dip & Swiss that Arby’s currently has on their website versus a photo I took of one that I purchased just last month.

Here is the official French Dip & Swiss graphic as displayed 1/3/13 on Arbys.com:

Notice how the sandwich looms over the cup of au jus? See how the meat is spilling out of the sides of the sandwich?

Now take a look at the actual French Dip that I bought in late 2012:

In reality, the sandwich appears to be dwarfed by the au jus cup! And there is practically no sign of meat upon first glance!

Sure, fast food chains often present spruced-up versions of their products in advertising, but I believe the Arby’s French Dip portrayed on the website is beyond creative license. They have obviously changed the size of the sandwich to make is much smaller, yet it looks as if they are still showing the old, larger version of the French Dip on their website. Or they are using a trick of perspective. Either way, the sandwich you buy looks nothing like the one on the website – or like the one they sold a few years back.

Don’t just take our word for it. 
2010: Here is another review from 2010 in which the Arby’s French Dip looks quite different.
2011: This reviewer appears to have received the shrunken version of the French Dip, 1200 miles from where I purchased mine. He even remarks several times how small the sandwich was! The French Dip in his photo looks even smaller than mine!

I will say that the taste of the Arby’s French Dip is still quite good, but there only seems to be about half as much as there used to be. It’s quite disappointing.

What are your thoughts of the new sized Arby’s French Dip, along with their misleading photos of a giant sandwich on their website? Let us hear from you in the comments below.