The chain that brought you the "Whopper Whopper" jingle you couldn't escape in 2023 has now rolled out a premium burger line that costs, in some markets, north of twenty bucks for a single sandwich.
But there's a certain comedy in watching a chain whose entire brand identity was "we're the cheaper, weirder McDonald's" suddenly act like it's running a Michelin-starred tasting menu out of a drive-thru in Ohio.
The new offering, which the company is calling its "most premium" burger yet, features wagyu-blend beef, aged cheddar, and some kind of onion jam that sounds like it was invented by a guy named Kyle who just got back from a food festival in Portland.
It comes on a brioche bun, because of course it does.
You could put a flip-flop on a brioche bun and charge eighteen dollars for it.
The internet, predictably, lost its collective mind.
Reddit threads filled up with people doing the math on how many Whoppers they could buy for the price of one of these fancy boys, and the answer was "like four, and you'd still have enough left for a sad little order of mozzarella sticks." Others pointed out that if you're paying twenty-plus dollars for fast food, you've officially crossed a threshold where you could just go to an actual restaurant and sit down like a civilized human being.
To be fair to Burger King, inflation is real.
Everything is up except our collective will to cook dinner, which remains firmly in the gutter.
Maybe in five years we'll all be paying thirty dollars for a McDouble and reminiscing about the good old days when a burger cost less than a used Honda Civic.
Burger King spent years being the chaotic gremlin of the fast food world.
It released a burger with purple ketchup.
It had that whole "we don't care, we're weird" energy that made it kind of lovable in a deeply unhinged way.
The real victims here are the drive-thru workers, who now have to explain to confused customers why a burger costs more than their hourly wage.
And also the customers, who will absolutely still buy it, complain about it online, and then buy it again next week.
Anyway, if you need me, I'll be in the parking lot eating a regular Whopper and pretending I'm not thinking about the wagyu one.
I'm not made of money, but I am made of curiosity and poor financial decisions. **The Take:** Charge whatever you want, Burger King.
We both know I'm going to try it eventually and then complain about it to anyone who'll listen.
Final Thoughts
That's not a business model, that's a hostage situation with extra pickles.