# What happens if someone orders 100 hamburgers at McDonalds? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 18, 2013, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-someone-orders-100-hamburgers-at-mcdonalds/655997 "2013-04-18T02:22:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-someone-orders-100-hamburgers-at-mcdonalds/655997/41 "2013-04-19T05:03:40Z")
The next dopefest should be at a McDonald’s where we can test the upper limit of this! ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-someone-orders-100-hamburgers-at-mcdonalds/655997/42 "2013-04-19T05:19:24Z")
Do we have to eat the food? ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-someone-orders-100-hamburgers-at-mcdonalds/655997/43 "2013-04-19T07:53:57Z")
If there’s only one of you ordering the 100 burgers and the cashier asks if it’s for here or to go, I’d think about finding a plan B. ---
**Author:** ![Khendrask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3e96dc/32.png) [@Khendrask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khendrask)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-someone-orders-100-hamburgers-at-mcdonalds/655997/44 "2013-04-19T08:39:31Z")
If you do this at the drive-through window in front of me, prepare to pull out on 4 flat tires. ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-someone-orders-100-hamburgers-at-mcdonalds/655997/45 "2013-04-19T09:16:52Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > Tell me about it. > > Of course, my experience is that the problem with buses isn’t the number of burgers being ordered, it’s that each person orders and pays separately. If they’d just have the coach/tour guide/whoever make a list and do it all in one order, there would be a much smaller impact on other customers. The cash registers wind up being a bigger bottleneck than the kitchen. A friend and I were taking a walk around town when we decided that it was time for a beer so we went to a good watering hole nearby only to find ourselves squeezed in between two bunches of Russian tourists seated in 7-8 (or more, I don’t remember) coaches in each bunch. Fortunately everything was arranged and payed for beforehand and they could only choose between two dishes so it went quite smoothly after all. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-someone-orders-100-hamburgers-at-mcdonalds/655997/46 "2013-04-19T14:12:11Z")
> [@Ruby](#): > > I think it’s trendy now. I seem to recall a recent celebrity wedding who catered hundreds of In 'n Out burgers for the reception. Now, In N Out at a wedding I can get behind. 🙂 I’ve been to several weddings that have served White Castle burgers, but that’s only been done as a “midnight snack” kind of thing maybe three hours after dinner, not as the main meal. As much as I love In N Out, you’d have to shoot me before I threw a party for my closest family and friends and only treated them to fast food burgers. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-someone-orders-100-hamburgers-at-mcdonalds/655997/47 "2013-04-19T15:16:46Z")
> [@Ranger\_Jeff](#): > > If there’s only one of you ordering the 100 burgers and the cashier asks if it’s for here or to go, I’d think about finding a plan B. When I bought lingerie the cashier asked the same question. \ ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-someone-orders-100-hamburgers-at-mcdonalds/655997/48 "2013-04-19T15:29:12Z")
this should provide adequate sustenance for the doctor who marathon. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-someone-orders-100-hamburgers-at-mcdonalds/655997/49 "2013-04-19T15:41:43Z")
From my experience at Jack in the Box, the answer is “the grill guy curses under his breath and starts making 100 hamburgers”. Most I ever recall making for a single order was 30, though. ---
**Author:** ![watergallop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3bc359/32.png) [@watergallop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watergallop)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-someone-orders-100-hamburgers-at-mcdonalds/655997/50 "2013-04-19T22:22:51Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > McDonald’s (and White Castle, which I’m also partial to) hamburgers are pretty good microwaved. I’ve known people who buy and freeze a Crave Case (30 White Castle sliders) and eat them all week. I’m sure you could do something similar with McDonald’s. > > Not that I’d want to. I may be a fast food connoisseur, but I’ve got a figure to maintain. However, if they were on sale really cheap, I might think about it. > > The only times I can remember large orders like that at McDonald’s were when we had a canned food drive and offered a free (or cheap, can’t remember which) cheeseburger for each can. Moms would empty their whole pantry to get a good deal on a crapload of McDonald’s cheeseburgers. Either they had huge families or they froze the burgers for use in several meals. When I lived and worked at a national park in rural Utah, there was one guy who would drive two hours to McDonald’s, buy 50 cheeseburgers, drive back and sell them to other employees for $3 each. Whatever didn’t sell he’d freeze and sell later. The food they took $ out of our paychecks for was nasty, there was no grocery store nearby, and most people didn’t have cars. I still wouldn’t eat a car-temp or frozen-then-microwaved McD burger.EEugh. ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2013, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-someone-orders-100-hamburgers-at-mcdonalds/655997/51 "2013-04-20T15:05:53Z")
> [@PoorYorick](#): > > I learned a long time ago to \*never \*stop at a fast food place that had a bus in the parking lot. I used to play in a band that used an old 66 passenger schoolbus to go to gigs. Most of the interior space was used for equipment. It was always fun to pull into a fast food place and see the employees scramble to meet the rush, then see the looks on their faces when there were only five of us. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2013, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-someone-orders-100-hamburgers-at-mcdonalds/655997/52 "2013-04-20T20:05:52Z")
Stopping when there’s a rush ensures your food will be fresh. If you stop when it’s slow, any pre-cooked food might have been sitting for several minutes before you bought it. Back when I worked at McD’s, standard holding times for food was 10 minutes. By rule, if 10 minutes elapsed since an item was cooked, it was supposed to be thrown away. I’d seen that rule abused many times. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2013, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-someone-orders-100-hamburgers-at-mcdonalds/655997/53 "2013-04-20T20:14:26Z")
I’ll add that a 10-minute old burger was still good. But at 15 or 20 mins? Starts degrading. When does it cross the line to bad? The Filet-O-Fish sandwich probably doesn’t stay good as long as the burger. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2013, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-someone-orders-100-hamburgers-at-mcdonalds/655997/54 "2013-04-20T20:48:46Z")
Not sure what happens when you order 100, but when you order 58, Napier comes trotting up right behind you to get his goddam stupid lunch. At least, based on experience, this is what happens. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2013, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-someone-orders-100-hamburgers-at-mcdonalds/655997/55 "2013-04-21T16:43:53Z")
> [@echo7tango](#): > > Stopping when there’s a rush ensures your food will be fresh. If you stop when it’s slow, any pre-cooked food might have been sitting for several minutes before you bought it. Back when I worked at McD’s, standard holding times for food was 10 minutes. By rule, if 10 minutes elapsed since an item was cooked, it was supposed to be thrown away. I’d seen that rule abused many times. Everyone I know says it’s okay to order fresh fries, so I’m surprised you couldn’t order a fresh burger. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-someone-orders-100-hamburgers-at-mcdonalds/655997.md?page=2)