So do you actually get HAM on your HAMBURGER? No, I thought not. I actually thought this OP was going to be the opposite. I get surprised when I ask for a somethingburger and it doesn’t come with cheese. To me, a burger has a meat patty, cheese, salad, sauce, and (unfortunately), in Australia, beetroot. At McDonalds, although a Quarter Pounder is officially a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, you just ask for a Quarter Pounder and you’ll get cheese anyway. To me, cheese is the default setting, no-cheese should be a request.
Interesting rant. I grew up in my parents restaurant, where the main fare was (you guessed it) burgers. We had the basic hamburgers and cheeseburgers plus maybe a half-dozen or so “specialty” burgers. Never, ever, ever, ever did I ask someone if they wanted their hamburger without cheese. And for the life of me, I don’t remember anyone ever complaining that their hamburger did not have cheese. Oh sure, from time to time someone would say “I thought I ordered a cheeseburger” when they had actually ordered a hamburger, or vice versa. But never did anyone “expect” cheese on a hamburger. Not once.
I guess the world has changed for the stupider since my youth …
Down here in Texas, we have a fast food chain called Whataburger. They make what I consider the best fast food hamburgers. I would rather go there than any other fast food place.
But, damn it! Could I please get my Whataburger without cheese? Just once.
Here is my typical Whataburger transaction -
ME: I want a #1 combo with mayonnaise, no onions. Whatasize it with a large Diet Dr Pepper.
FAST FOOD WORKER: Do you want cheese on your Whataburger?
ME: No, thank you.
(FFW punches in a long series of codes on the register, sending my order back to the grill worker, or possibly starting the launch sequence for a nuclear missile in an underground silo in North Dakota.)
FFW: What kind of drink do you want?
ME: Diet Dr Pepper.
FFW: OK. That’s a #1 combo with no cheese. Whatasized with Dr Pepper.
ME: Diet Dr Pepper.
FFW: Right. Diet Dr Pepper.
Money is exchanged. Food is delivered.
What do I get? A Whataburger with cheese. And onions. Maybe mayonnaise, but sometimes it’s mustard.
At least they usually get the Diet Dr Pepper right.
I try to order in the most clear and efficient way possible to reduce any confusion on the FFW’s part so that my order is made correctly. But I’ve yet to figure out how to do that.
On a related note, are there a group of farmers somewhere that produce tomatoes that have the woody stem core through the whole tomato? And if so, do they only sell these mutant tomatoes to fast food restaurants? And would it be possible to wait until the tomatoes are somewhat ripe before selling them to said fast food places? I’ve tried to include a “no tomato” clause in my above order spiel, but have finally given up on that. It’s just much easier to take the tomato off myself.
I do the same with pickles. I’ve never understood why pickles are standard for burgers, but I realise that I’m in the minority in my dislike for them, so I don’t rant. I used to specify ‘no pickles’, but only one franchise ever managed to consistently fill that request. So now I just pick them off myself.
I do the same thing (with tomatoes also). Oddly, I do like the little bit of pickle taste left over on the bun after you remove them, but I don’t like the actual pickles.
When I ate fast food burgers, I just ordered them “plain”. Which would throw the entire restaurant into disarray, of course, but I like causing chaos through mundane requests.
Somewhat related anecdote:
I was in Amsterdam this past November with some friends, and ended up in an Argentinian steakhouse for dinner one evening. I ordered a cheeseburger and then asked, “What kind of cheese does that come with?”
The waiter looked at me blankly, and said, “Just cheese.”
“Yeah, but what kind?”
“Umm… white?”
I turned to my friends and said, “Now I know how the French feel.”
As it turned out, the hamburger not only came with “white” cheese, it also came without a bun. That, at least, I was willing to chalk up to cultural differences, although I don’t know if it was an artifact of Argentinian or Dutch culture.
I’ve had a moron who ordered “plain” and was PISSED OFF screaming at my me, and then my manager because his “plain” burger came with bread.
Everyone has a different understanding of plain, so “plain” orders always made me nervous. I’d say 20% of the time people were unhappy with what thei “plain” got them.
Plain? Heck, I had a guy come in who wanted me to sell him the raw meat. He said he was Native American and he was used to eating raw beef.
I didn’t, of course. That would have violated health code.
My wife often has difficulty ordering a Sausage McMuffin. If she says “Sausage McMuffin”, half the time it comes back as a Sausage and Egg McMuffin. If she emphasises that she just just wants a Sausage McMuffin by saying “plain Sausage McMuffin” then half the time it comes back with nothing but sausage and muffin, no sauce, no cheese.
The other day I ordered one for her and the guy doing the grilling gives the guy who served me a blank look and says “hmmm so is that with cheese?” I had a lot of difficulty restraining myself from saying “look Fuck Knuckle, it’s on the menu board, it’s called a Sausage McMuffin, it comes with cheese and sauce, learn how to make the fucking menu already!”
Which is why I say, “Just meat, cheese, and bread. That’s it. Plain. Nothing else.” And half the time, I still didn’t get what I wanted.
Well in that case the restaurants you go to are just asking because of their incompetancy, I always made sure what plain meant to each customer because of their incompetancy.
Have you ever worked fast food? It might help you understand why the orders come out wrong often (though we were fairly good). My register was at least 25 years old and crappy dot matrix, and when I made it “print order” the current to go over with the customer, it didn’t group the meals together at all, so I had no idea which sandwich went with which meal.
Combomeal #2 w/o ketchup, Combomeal #3 no onions, an extra whopper w/cheese and med fries becomes (print):
Whopper-no ketchup
Doubler whopper-no ketchup
whopper-cheese
med fry
med fry
med fry
med drink
med drink
med drink
Another common occurance was people would get a tray with 5 different combo meals on it, seemingly pick a bag at random, when it wasn’t their exactly meal, they come and complain before even checking the other bags. This happened multiple times per day, and I had to pretend the customers weren’t total idiots.
Fast food=hell. Everyone should be forced to do it at least once in their lives.
What that should’ve said.
This thread is kind of depressing. It’s like the only people dumber than those working at fast food places are the ones ordering in them (I fall in the latter category.)
Ferrous said
Especially on chick-fil-a sandwiches.
Can someone tell me why a Wendy’s Single combo come without cheese, but the Double comes with cheese?
I think that the assembly workers just automatically throw onions on the burgers or whatever, myself. Nowadays, I always check before I drive off…do I have the right items? Do MY foodstuffs have no onions on them? And pizza delivery is even more fun. I can’t eat onions. It’s not that I just don’t like them, but that if I eat them, I’m setting myself up for a few days of gastro-intestinal hell. Even if I pick onions off of my pizza or burger, the juice is likely to give me a lot of distress.
As to the related note, actually, the tomatoes that are grown for fast food sales have been selected for sturdiness and resistance to bruising. Since tomatoes will ripen off the vine, and they’re far more vulnerable to bruising when they’re fully ripe, they’re picked and shipped when they’re still somewhat unripe. Then, of course, the FF place can’t really devote the space and time and effort to fully ripen the tomatoes, so you get the atrocities that you have noticed. You have to either garden or know someone who gardens to get a proper tomato these days.
I’ve actually been to Argentina and eaten hamburgers there several times. They’re just like in the US. Only the beef is much, much better.
I go to McDonald’s about once a month and I’ve come to a nonscientific conclusion about the cheese thing: Cheesed burgers are more popular than noncheesed burgers, and so they are likely to have more of them (in their various forms) sitting around. If things are slow and they are caught up they might just ask you if you want cheese, or actually give you a noncheesed burger if you request one. If, on the other hand: 1) Things are lively. 2) You are in the drive-in and less likely to complain and/or 3) Supplies of prepared food are low, they will give you whatever is handy, which is statistically likely to be cheesed.
McD’s offers sausage biscuits for breakfast. I prefer mine with cheese, so the other day I ordered one. The worker repeated that back to me, it showed up on their digital drive through screen and she indicated that I owed her the exact amount such an item would cost.
I go to the window and pick it up, then pull to the side to make sure it is correct. What I found was a McGriddle (I think that’s right) bun, a piece of cheese and absolutely nothing else. No sausage, ham or meat of any kind.
I park and take the bag inside. The manager greets me to ask if the order was wrong, since it came without sausage.
If they knew in advance, how did that happen?? All I can say though, is that if they make it all eventually the way I wanted it and don’t overcharge, I’m usually ok with any mistakes. I actually feel bad for most the employees and how they’re usually treated. That has to be one of the most thankless jobs in the world.
But I certainly understand the overall frustration. It’s gotta get old, especially if you encounter it every single day.
Er, actually, buttermilk can be made with low-fat milk. It’s an intentional bacterial “infection” that makes milk into buttermilk, not the addition of butter.
[hijack]
My mom tells us that she stopped putting together the tacos for us when every single one (of eight) demanded the ingredients in a different order. Mine had to be (and still does), from the bottom up, beans, meat, onions, salsa, cheese, lettuce, tomato. Another was meat, onion, cheese, and so on. Another was salsa, cheese, meat, no onion!, and so on. And so on. And you want to see a table that’s a disaster area? Try one where eight kids have been putting together their own tacos! I think she just used the garden hose to clean it.
[/hijack]