Best Burger on Earth

Today, I went to Carl's Junior for lunch. Like a good Asian family, we were never going to buy anything full priced if we could help it, so of course we brought along a couple coupons.

Anticipating some version of the McDonald's incident, we split up our orders, hoping that the cashier wouldn't notice that we were part of a group.

After my dad had purchased his order, I was next in line. I presented my "$1.00 OFF the Original Six Dollar Burger" and placed an order for a sandwich only, because only non-Asians would ever buy a combo meal and get rip offed for some syrup in carbonated water and puffed up potatoes.

The guy behind the counter rings up my order and then hands me back the coupon, "Use it again?"

Did he just say "Use it again?" I was shocked. I looked up and the guy was looking at me with a raised eyebrow, holding out the coupon, my receipt, and my change.

"No, that's all right; besides, it expires tomorrow."

"It's ok, take it."

I take it. Unbelievable. Now this is the customer service I'm talking about. If every restaurant was like this, the world would be a much better place to live in.

But that's not even what this post is about.

This post is about the Six Dollar Burger, what has to be one of the greatest burgers on Planet Earth.

My friend Turkeyface and I once went to a Carl's Jr. after school. We ordered the Original Six Dollar burger. When it came, we greedily opened the box. Inside was the tallest creation of edible joy I had ever seen. We reverently picked up the burger and brought it up to our mouths to take our First Bite.

We opened our jaws and brought them around the burger, but then we encountered a problem. The burger was so big that we simply couldn't fit sandwich in our mouths. What to do? We could try to dislocate our jaws like snakes do, or we could take a fork and knife and carve up the burger into more manageable pieces. Finally, we decided to take our most of the lettuce, because we figured that it would have the least impact on our experience.

Finally, we were able to take the First Bite. Our incisors cut their way through three inches of food; buns, patty, and greens alike.

The meat, the entire half inch of it, was great! Tyrannosaurus rexes all over the world were probably turning over in their graves as I savored the massive slab of charbroiled pleasure. This burger would actually have made the original Carl's Junior's commercial make sense, with the dripping ketchup and everything. The thing was messy; we needed like a quarter of the napkin dispenser.

I've yet to see the world, but this burger trumps all. My only regret was that we ordered the combo meal. What a waste.
P.S.: The Portabello 'shroom burger ain't half bad, either, and the only burgers I'm eating from McDonald's ever again are its Third Pounders. Big Macs aren't that big anymore.

NOTE: This is an independent article and is Moufflets is not associated in any way whatsoever to Carl Karcher Enterprises, Inc.

Another Six Dollar Burger experience.

Limit One Per Customer

This morning, noon, or afternoon, my family and I made a trip to McDonald's for lunch. We had in our possession four McDonald's coupons. The fine print on them was some of the longest I ever saw:

Expires 5/5/08. Valid only at participating McDonald's restaurants in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura Counties. Current prices and participation based on independent operator decision. Prices may vary. Not valid in conjunction with any other offer, discount, coupon or combo meal. Cash value 1/20 of 1 cent. Limit one coupon per person per visit. Plus tax if applicable. Price of required purchase posted on menu board. Coupon may not be transferred, copied or duplicated in any way or transmitted via electronic media. Valid when product served. may not be valid for custom orders. © 2008 McDonald's.

When placing our order, the cashier proved extremely annoying and unsympathetic. "I'm sorry, but it's only one coupon per person," she whined. I'm already risking my heart eating there and they want to give me a headache? Luckily, our family happened to be one of four, so we each had to take a place in line so that we could make use of all the coupons.

This system is rather stupid. First of all, McDonald's printed those coupons, so they should expect to make a smaller profit than usual. Then they complain when we use more than one coupon during a transaction on separate items.

Say I buy a Big Mac (which really isn't as big as it looks on the pictures), and use a "Buy one Big Mac and get another Free". So I get two Macs for the price of one. Then I also buy a Cinnamon Melt and use a "Buy a Cinnamon Melt and get a Free Medium Iced Coffee" coupon for a hundred-ninety calorie overdose of sugar.

So in reality, I'm getting a two Big Mac's, a Cinnamon Melt, and an Iced Coffee for the price of a Big Mac and an Iced Coffee when using the two coupons at once. If I used them separately, I would have gotten two Big Mac's for the price of one AND a Cinnamon Melt and an Iced Coffee for the price of a Cinnamon Melt. If my passing Geometry Honors with two Asian fails say anything, I think the two equations come out the same.

Okay, so we're using the coupons "in conjunction with other offer(s)" and other purchases. It's not like we're using the coupons on something we got for free, so McDonald's isn't losing money.

They also have this "per visit" thing. It would be assumed that a visit would consist of walking through one of the several doors that a McDonald has and then walking out through the same or different door. So I go in, buy something with a coupon, and then leave. I then return on a second "visit" and use another coupon.

What would that leave McDonald's with? A lesser profit, since they have to waste another piece of a paper, another tray to clean, a table to wipe, etc... and a less satisfied customer. McDonald's then argues that a "visit" means once a day. Well, I frankly don't see what difference it makes other than make me madder.

Furthermore, "valid only at participating McDonald's restaurants only". What the hey is this? McDonald's presents itself as a chain restaurant. Therefore, every restaurant is expected to be more or less the same. One McDonald's should be the same as any other McDonald's restaurant, and I don't want to have to walk into one only to find out that the restaurant isn't participating because the owner didn't feel like it and have to go to another just to use that discount. Don't you know there's a fuel shortage going on? I'm not even going to talk about "prices may vary".

On a side note, the coupons may be worth $0.0005, but apparently they were also selling on eBay for a dollar or two. Auction for that piece of problem causing paper closed a couple hours ago, so I can't find the link.