Dear Consumerist,So, for dinner tonight I decided to make the least healthiest choice and go to my local Burger King. There I placed an order for a Tender Crisp Chicken Sandwich Large Value Meal (and the barista only says Large or King, and not Medium, which is advertised, but thats something I’ll touch on another time). Upon paying almost 7 dollars and then a few minutes later receiving my food, I politely asked the barista working the counter for some barbecue sauce. The barista then told me that it would cost me 11 cents to get a little brownish-red stuff in a plastic square.
I was baffled. I asked if the barista was serious and he was. Then I asked to speak with his manager. She said, that it would cost 11 cents for me to have barbecue sauce because I had not ordered Chicken Fries or Chicken Tenders. So, I told them that I would not pay 11 cents for the barbecue sauce (because I would honestly keep the 11 cents and put it toward a real bottle of barbecue sauce) and instead wanted 20 packets of ketchup which they handed over without thinking twice.
What has happened to the days where vendors gave you condiments free of charge? I know gas prices have gone up and the U.S. economy has gone to shit but it’s a little ludicrous when Burger King stops handing out barbecue sauce for free.
Sincerely,
A College Kid Looking for Some BBQ Sauce
Dear A College Kid,
Burger King has to raise condiment prices due to risky bets placed on the sub-prime burger industry. Furthermore, BBQ sauce cubelets are a premium condiment compared to catsup. You would have to fill an entire standard-sized Burger King with catsup packets to equal one BBQ sauce cubelet. This is due to massive government subsidies for the tomato industry, grandfathered into the Food Bill, which are left over from the war of 1872 when America wanted to undermine Spanish influence in Mexico by shutting them out of the lucrative tomato market.
(Photo: Morton Fox)
More From Consumerist
-
Funeral Procession Takes Trip To The Burger King Drive-Thru For One Last Meal
-
Burger King Japan Brings Back All-You-Can-Eat Burgers For One Week Only
-
Is 2013 Going To Be The ‘Year Of The Bun’?
-
Burger King Gives Us The Bacon Sundae We’ve Always Wanted But Were Afraid To Ask For
-
No, McDonald’s Did Not Buy Burger King Because “The Whopper Flopped”
I love the way the restaurant industry is held to higher standards then any other industry. At my reasturant my profits are set to around around 50%-80% profit. In reality you end up making more like 30% profit with all the free crap you give away. Guess what you all pay more for the people that get free crap. Everyone is looking at this wrong, you think it’s no big deal for someone to get one BBQ cup, and you are right. However there are idiots that want 5-10 BBQ cups for free. When you are buying a hamburger for 1$, yes lets use the cheapest menu item not everyone is buying triple whoppers. You have just lost money. The easiest most diplomatic way to handle it is to charge EVERYONE close to cost.
Easy fix for BK… offer the BBQ in both packet form (free) and dip cup form ($.11).
So the story is, they didn’t have little packets.
It’s eleven cents.
$0.11
A dime and a penny.
You actually wasted time writing this whole post over eleven cents. Get a grip, man.
I worked at a Burger King when I was 16.
You want to know why fast-food places charge for things like this? Because there are people who will come in and ask for 30 or 40 packs of sauce. There are also people who will reach over the counter and take the entire box of ketchup/mayo/mustard/whatevertheycanreach. It is ‘free,’ so what can you say to them? If you were charging for it, you could charge them with theft, but you’re not.
Further, in reference to bitching about charges for water cups – a clear plastic ‘water cup’ costs roughly 2-3x the regular (wax-coated paper) cups. *Clear* plastic ‘water cups’ are necessary because people will walk in and ask for a ‘water cup’ and then head straight to the self-service drink station for a Coke or Sprite.
Everyone underestimates how much these things cost a company over time. Sure, a cup of coke is going to cost, maybe, $0.01 – but multiply that by 10 for one person, every time they come into the restaurant, whether they buy something or not, and you start having problems.
It really depends on the franchize, some like to do crazy stuff like charge people for condiments cause they don’t like it cutting into the their bottom line. Others will never do that because they like to keep their customers extra happy
It had to have been something with that store…I work at a Burger King in Denver and if a customer asks for any sauce, we give them as many packages of the stuff as they desire at no extra cost…
Way back in the day, when I was 17, I worked at BK. I was called a Crew Member. We charged .11 cents for extra sauce. That was back when the Whopper was .99.
That’s weird. My friend, when he ordered a breakfast combination, was told he could have two sauce cubes, and got charged 25 cents for the third. So I don’t see why it wouldn’t be the same for a non-breakfast combination.