Fast food is a billion dollar business. It can be easy to become complacent and not try to keep up with today’s fast pace lifestyle where new trends come out on a weekly basis. Some fast food places are trying new weird trends to try and entice people to eat out at their establishments. We decided to take a look at some fast food gimmicks both past and present and see what kind of quirky ideas fast food joints have delivered or intend to deliver very soon.

Wendy’s SuperBar

During the 1980s, Wendys created a super buffet that they called the ‘SuperBar’. The buffet had three sections: Salad (Duh!), Mexican (Tacos and Burritos) and Italian (Pizza,Garlic Bread). The SuperBar was an expensive upkeep for Wendys. The idea was decent but it never seemed to catch on with consumers as much as Wendy’s executives hoped it would. Also, The food was not replaced as often compared to a more conventional buffet restaurant which left the food to be less than fresh. After 10 years, Wendy’s ditched the SuperBar and replaced it with simple side salad meals that could be switched into a combo free of charge if the customer didn’t want to order a french fry, baked potato or chili on the side.

Burger King Dining-In Service

In the mid 90s, Burker King decided to classy up their establishment and created a dine-in service where customers didn’t have to walk up to the cash to place their order and had a burger king employee come to their table to serve them. Customers had the option of chowing down on some free popcorn while they waited for their food to be ready. Customers weren’t sure whether they should tip their servers after each meal and ultimately realized that it was cheaper for them to just walk 5 feet to the cash and pay for their meal then it was to sit down and wait for it like at a restaurant.
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Fast food joints have been around since the early 1960s. The increase in the number of fast food franchises has caused the market to become saturated. The same tried and true mainstays at most fast food places simply aren’t bringing in the revenue that they once did. This is causing quite a panic for fast food executives who are always creating new meal ideas and testing them out in test markets to see whether they will succeed or fail in the bigger markets of North America. One such example is the recent success of KFC’s Double Down sandwich which got as much media hype for its sodium content and number of calories as it did for its successful marketing campaign. Customers were impressed enough that it helped to increase KFC’s quarterly profits and became one of the top ten new menu items for fast food joints in 2010. Unfortunately, not every new food item becomes a massive success as you will see in some of the examples that we provide below.

Burger King Enormous Omelet Sandwich

-Breakfast is supposed to be the most important meal of the day but I don’t think that’s what Burger King executives had in mind when they created this sandwich. It’s not a good start when the breakfast sandwich has more calories over Burger King’s Whopper. The problem with this sandwich was that it simply wasn’t tasty at all. The sandwich had bacon, cheese, sausage and yet nothing came together and tasted as if you just took all of these foods and piled them together on a bun. The only thing that this sandwich had going for it was that it was bigger than any other breakfast sausage which wasn’t necessarily a good thing. The sandwich was discontinued in the USA but is still sold in select international markets.

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There are people out there who love to drink soda. As in the random example above – there are those who really… really love their soda. For every ‘Coca-Cola Classic’, there has been a ‘New Coke’. Coca-Cola decided to officially re brand the formula for Coca-Cola in 1985 with a strong ad campaign telling people that they had made coke ‘Even Better’. Despite the backlash, New Coke actually sold well and helped the Coca-Cola company reach an 8% gain in sales compared to the previous year. Unfortunately, there was too much public outcry to return to the original formula despite scientific research in later years that proved that most people couldn’t tell the difference between the two drinks. The gigantic public relations failure by Coca-Cola actually turned into one of the best marketing campaigns of all time as the re-introduction of Coca-Cola under the brand name ‘Coca-Cola Classic’ helped to reinvigorate people with the brand and helped Coca-Cola outsell both ‘New Coke’ and Pepsi the following year. This isn’t the only example of bad soft drinks that entered the market only to be soon forgotten. Let’s take a look at some other drinks that hit the market only to eventually vanish and never be heard from again.

Jones Thanksgiving Holiday Pack

– In 2004, the Jones Soft Drink company got the weird idea of turning Thanksgiving classics such as mashed potatoes & butter or turkey & gravy into soft drinks in order to boost the company’s profile with the mainstream media. The holiday pack would also include cranberry soda and green bean casserole soda. The company’s spin on the concept was that people could enjoy the taste of a Thanksgiving dinner without ever having to chew a single bite. Needless to say, the drinks tasted awful and the concept was soon abandoned and never to be heard from again.
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