Value Menu

Once upon a time, I sat and watched a group of hungry drunk boys stand at the counter of a Burger King. One of them, a sweaty brute, kept pounding on the stainless steel surface, demanding "another cheeseburger!" The polyester clad BK employees scurried about, attending to his whims as his buddies egged him on. Each time he received "another cheeseburger," he took an animal size bite, then growled through half-chewed meat and cheese: "Dis one's cold too!"
I marveled as this piece of work continued to pound his way through half-burger after half-burger, until the refuse began to pile up in front of him. At this point, he had been served six or seven sandwiches, consuming three or more wholes. Finally, his friends had seen enough. "You're right," he mumbled as he smeared the excess condiments with the back of his forearm. "These guys'll never get this right." He spent a dollar, and ate five bucks worth of food. Franchise owners in the area must have been on the lookout for that guy after that.
Fast forward to this Fall, and Burger King is asking their franchises to sell a double cheeseburger for one dollar. It's a way to get customers to come back to fast food during the recession. Problem is, it costs one dollar and ten cents to make a double cheeseburger. That doesn't turn out to be much of a recession-buster for the owners of the restaurants. As a result, Burger King franchisers are suing their parent company, arguing that they should be able to determine their own maximum cost for each menu item. I wonder if that hungry drunk boy has since earned his law degree and will be sitting at the defense table when the trial opens. With a bunch of cheeseburger wrappers around his ankles.