Top 10 Failed Hamburger Fads // random.access

Top 10 Failed Hamburger Fads

// article by Jeff

Do you remember the Arch Deluxe? It was a hamburger introduced to North America by McDonalds in 1996 under the guise of being a burger specifically for adults with its "grown-up taste". It was very much like their other burgers, though with a deep cleft in the bun top and a peppery bacon round. It was not to be, though, as the high price was a real turn-off for consumers seeking lower prices in fast food, and the burger was soon discontinued after being declared a failure. ("If I want an expensive hamburger, I'll go to a nearby pub and get ripped off while supporting the local economy!") Little did YOU know, however, there were actually many hamburgers within the fast food industry that failed even worse than the Arch Deluxe! Let's remind ourselves about them...

The 63-Patty Decimation Burger

Back in 1995, long before the fad of stacking as many patties as humanly possible in one bun in an attempt to literally murder your customers while avoiding liability because "he knew what he was ordering...", the now defunct Pukwana, South Dakota-based Crabby Burger introduced something new for only the toughest, most metallic of stomachs. Putting 63 quarter-pound patties of all-American uninspected beef on one lowly and likely now depressed bun (VERY depressed, under the weight of almost sixteen pounds of grilled meat) and topping with a leaf of Romaine lettuce and a single tomato slice that likely wouldn't be tasted for several hours, the 63-Patty Decimation Burger was a sight for sore, watery, grease-burnt eyes. The restaurant owner, Alfonso Buford, believed it would suffice as a tourist lure for their small town of under 300 citizens. It did not. Only one person ever dared purchase this burger, but it was then used for a large family reunion, feeding 52 people, 3 dogs, and a canary named Benjamin who suffered a major heart attack soon after the third bite.

The Talking Burger

With talking dolls being all the rage in the 1980s, particularly those that would advise its underage parent to change its diaper, feed it some pablum, or pass her a cigarette, it was no wonder that other industries' ears were perking up with ideas and possibilities. One such industry was fast food, and it didn't take long for also now-defunct Virginia-based Hobo Burger to create the Talking Burger, one that would tell you exactly what was inside it, as well as various anecdots about hamburgers and the weather forecast for the following day. This came at a price: each burger cost (at the time) around twenty dollars and had to include a speaker and other related circuitry carefully baked into the sesame seed bun. Within the first week of sales, Hobo Burger was served with a lawsuit from a disgruntled customer who had purchased the Talking Burger. In the lawsuit, it notes that she needed to "pass a transistor", resulting in emotional and physical anguish. The burger was quickly discontinued and replaced with Pickly Pete, a hamburger with eyes embossed on the bun and a long pickle slice hanging out imitating a tongue. (This was also quickly taken off the menu a month later after it was noted that Pickly Pete bore a close resemblance to Delta Burke.)

The Asphalt Burger

In 2004, Indianapolis-based fast food chain Turkley's joined forces with the infamous Indianapolis 500 in an attempt to cash in on the race's vast popularity with an associated Asphalt Burger, a third-pound beef patty on a toasted sesame seed bun, topped with bacon, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise, and two kinds of processed cheese. Oh, and of course, a large chunk of asphalt. Marketed as a "hardcore meal for real men only", their advertising campaign created buzz with its "take a bite out of Indy 500" wordplay. And they weren't fibbing: the asphalt was actually taken from the Speedway, Indiana track before it was repaved prior to the 2004 races. Unfortunately, the product was a major failure, primarily resulting from — you guessed it — customers not liking the brand of mayo used on the burger. In a distant second place was the fact that asphalt was on the burger. Those who had teeth lost the majority of them after taking the first bite, while those without teeth simply found the rocky texture to be "undesirable".

Burger Furniture

"Think big" was the motto of Kylie Sparlingh, the head chef at Chez Volume in Gretna, Manitoba, Canada. Tired of visiting restaurants in her community and being assaulted with lifeless, inspirationless burgers, Sparlingh decided to take the concept and add a grandiose flair. She watched intently at fellow patrons, chomping away at their dinners, then suffering the agony of escaping their vinyl booth prisons. Suddenly, the idea hit: why not have the burger BE the furniture? After nearly three months of experimentation after hours, Sparlingh was finally satisfied with her results and added "Burger Furniture" to the Chez Volume menu, including options for chairs, full-length couches, and loveseats for couples. Public reaction was mild at best; visitors thought the idea amusing but bewildering. Their biggest complaint was that if they ate the whole burger, they would then be stuck on the ground, unable to get up and forced to start a new life hunting for passing tumbleweeds and hair clumps as food. Burger Furniture was another idea shot down by small-town thinking.

The Clam Burger

The owner of a small but popular bistro in Sicily, Il Crostaceo Cantando, created the Clam Burger as a way of reinforcing their general seafood theme and to offer a unique savour to differentiate their establishment from the other local eateries. The burger, which utilized a patty made with clam meat instead of typical beef, chicken, or pork, was initially a major success for the restaurant, bringing in a higher number of elite clientèle on a regular basis. Luck would not be on their side for long, as seafood prices were quickly on the rise due to offshore piracy and overfishing. This bistro owner faced two possible solutions: either significantly raise the price of the meal, or find a cheaper alternative. He chose the latter, discovering that purchasing in-shell clams in bulk required a much lower investment. Greed set in, however, as he sought even more profits during this time, and simply used the clam's natural shell as a bun, opening it up to insert condiments and toppings as requested. Customers were not fans of biting into calcium carbonate buns, and his dream burger was soon clambaked.

The All-Mustard Burger

A 1975 study revealed that the top condiment on hamburgers was not, in fact, ketchup as one would believe, but mustard, and by a wide margin. Buzz began to erupt in the city of Billings, Montana, that one of their top posh restaurants, Fremragende, had officially announced an All-Mustard Burger, featuring a mustard-flavoured bun, a patty made from mustard seeds and dried mustard, topped with mustard. Food critics were enraged over the jocularity of this new item. One critic called it "an absurdity... [the American people] deserve better than this"; another was quoted as saying, "If we let this place serve such a gross product, then we might as well just throw our arms in the air and declare anarchy." The backlash was so great that Fremragende quickly backtracked and retracted the item from their menu and any subsequent advertisements, offering apologies and free mint wafers to those critics upon their next visit. It was later discovered that the aforementioned study was neither scientific nor academic in nature and was actually a ploy by a food distributor to unload a large quantity of mustard shipments he had accidentally ordered the previous year.

The Warren Burger

Warren Earl Burger was appointed as the 15th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America in June 23, 1969, having been nominated by President Nixon. To celebrate this occasion, the top former fast food restaurant in his hometown of Saint Paul, Minnesota, The Snacker Shoppe, created a hamburger in his honour and somewhat cleverly named it the "Warren Burger". Tourists from around the country flocked to The Snacker Shoppe to sample this new delicacy, as public interest in the Supreme Court was actually existent at the time. The owner of the restaurant, Hick Tapper, clearly did not have sensitivity in mind when he developed the recipe. Seeing as how Warren Burger was 62 at the time, his namesake burger was prepared with a slab of liver topped with a generous dose of onions, and little else. Liver had been actively protested against by revolutionists around this time for its unsavoury taste and ageist portrayal in the media at the time, and as such, it was a poor choice for a hamburger meat. Within days, the Warren Burger was removed entirely from the menu, and the Chief Justice was never able to taste his own burger.

The Kale, Spinach, and Authentic Printer Ink Burger

The story of how this particular burger came to be varies between its developers, but legend has it that the Kale, Spinach, and Authentic Printer Ink Burger was actually first prepared in a marijuana grow house in 2011. After an evening of sampling their wares for quality assurance, the three Doonesbury brothers from the aptly-named Stonington, Connecticut apparently mixed together any leftover foods they could find in their kitchen to satisfy "the munchies". They mashed up kale, spinach, and the internal contents of a discarded printer ink cartridge into a blender, poured the resulting batter onto a waffle iron, then prepared makeshift patties. They surprisingly agreed that the flavour was good and devised a plan to sell the burger out of a hot dog cart one of the brothers possessed as part of his day job. The following week, the burgers were sold on the street but to little fanfare. It seemed that unless your mind was floating in the clouds, this concoction tasted like licking the back of a filthy mongoose. In an interview later that month, the brothers admitted, "Maybe we shouldn't have added the kale."

Queen Anne's Burger Cordials

In 2006, 51-year-old Toronto native Jim Escobar had his very first cherry cordial, a chocolate treat with a maraschino cherry in the middle surrounded by the most sugary fruit filling known to mankind, coated with a thin chocolate shell. Delighted by the flavour, he took to his restaurant, Club Funky, where he asked his staff to try and incorporate a cherry cordial with beef. Though his staff was initially intimidated by the request (mostly because they knew cherry cordials were the most awful food product ever created), they complied and soon developed a cooked beef patty with a cherry in the middle, surrounded by gooey sucrose-rich cherry syrup and a chocolate coating. Without even taking a single bite, Escobar approved the product for sale the following morning, naming it after the brand of cordials that inspired him. The following day, many customers were intrigued by the Burger Cordial and even dared to try it. Had Escobar tasted the product first, however, he would have discovered that the dreadful combination of flavours was not one humans could realistically enjoy. The toilets learned the true meaning of pain that night.

The Hot Pocket Burger

Wishing for a truly remarkable way of capitalizing on the emerging success of Hot Pockets in 1984, New Hampshire business analyst Fred Rhomberg met with executives of several major fast food chains, including McDonalds, Burger King, and Wendy's, to try and market a hamburger whose central ingredients were NOT the typical beef patty, vegetable slices, and condiments that people came to know and love. He proposed instead to insert a Hot Pocket containing those ingredients, merely modified in size to suit the standard bun diameter. Though none of the fast food companies showed significant interest (or, more accurately, they laughed, pointed at him in a mocking fashion, and banned him from their headquarters), Hot Pocket originator Chef America Inc. later created the Cheeseburger-flavoured Hot Pocket line. Rhomberg attempted to sue them for stealing his idea, but the presiding judge ruled in favour of Chef America Inc., their defense having been solely that "we don't steal ideas — we just make up new flavours during bathroom breaks".

Widget is loading comments...