Burger King plans to open a new chain of Whopper Bars, serving customized burgers. According to the Wall Street Journal, these new joints will be expanding the traditional Whopper menu. New options may include the Angry Whopper, a spicy onion– and jalapeño-topped burger that already has been served in Germany. Burger King’s Russ Klein explains that the new restaurants will have a different look from the typical BK:
Workers will place toppings on the burgers in front of the customers ‘to put a little more theater into it,’ Mr. Klein said, representing a shift for a company that has always hidden food preparation from patrons. Early design plans call for the bars to have chrome, wood, exposed brick and plasma-screen televisions with images of fire playing on them to evoke Burger King’s flame-broiled motto.
These Whopper Bars could spring up in casinos and airports before the end of the year, but unless they’re serving beer, I’m going to have to call them “Whopper Kiosks.” I mean, what’s a bar without the booze? These joints won’t even be coffee bars—company officials opted against copycatting the coffee campaign at McDonald’s. Burger King does sell alcohol overseas—I drank my first underage beer through a straw over Whoppers during a school trip to Italy—but whether or not they’ll start serving Bud Lights in to-go cups here in America is still up in the air.
April fool’s?
Its just Harveys…
(not sure if they have that in the US, but Harveys is a burger chain in Canada that does almost exactly what they are describing)
So basically, Subway for burgers. I actually think this is a pretty good marketing tactic.
Didn’t Jack in the Box do something similar to this a few years back and fail miserably? Yes, if their converted JBX stores in San Diego are any indication (I live in SD). At the time, JBX was an upscale version of Jack in the Box, serving “nicer” burgers in a fast-casual environment. While some of the JBX menu items moved over to the regular restaurants, the concept, as a whole, failed.
And while this is an interesting concept in terms of locations, I can’t help but wonder if anyone’s really going to want a “dressed up” burger joint…