The Hanover Collaboration

Ever since the Airtran Cup thing, I’ve gotten a lot more familiar with the Wendies Menu. The menu from one on Mass ave at Berkley contains:

#Junior Cheeseburger $.99 #Junior Cheeseburger Deluxe $.99 #Junior Bacon Cheeseburger $.99

If you’re unfamiliar with Wendy’s fare {JCD}—{JC} = {pickles, onions, mustard} and {JBC}—{JC} = {bacon}.

You can’t ask for a “Junior Bacon Cheeseburger Deluxe” since that isn’t on the menu—get kicked out of the store. If you ask for a “Junior Cheeseburger Deluxe with bacon” if you’re lucky, you’ll get a sandwich but it’ll costs you $1.39. Chances are good that you don’t get anywhere with that order either.

The correct thing to order is a “Junior Bacon Cheeseburger with pickles, onions and mustard” since adding those items is explicitly allowed at no charge¹. But it is perilous to order with that particular wording because you will find yourself with a cheeseburger lacking tomato and lettuce and mayo. What tends to work for me is, “Junior Bacon Cheeseburger to which I would like added [pause] pickles, onions and mustard.”

The key is to stress the word add. They are going to need to press a special button to make your order work… a button that says “ADD” on it. Then you watch their eyes and gauge the level of fear—you need to be prepared to quickly call it off to avoid destroying the whole restaurant.

Another insider Wendy’s trick is that you can get ground up M&M’s in your frosty for $.30 extra (and occasionally for free if the cashier is new or flustered from your JBCD).

¹ While the posters say that they even encourage this sort of customization, in practice it would seem otherwise.