Fast Food Customers Are Privy To This Menu Trick That's Been Trying To Fool Them For Years

If you are a fast food aficionado, there's a little feeling of excitement every time your favorite restaurant introduces a new menu item. Unfortunately, those new items don't always live up to expectations. Far too often, restaurants try to pull one over on customers by adding a single ingredient, like bacon, or a new sauce to an existing menu item, then presenting it as something new.

In 2019, McDonald's rolled out the Bacon Big Mac, which was just a classic Big Mac with bacon added. The Quarter Pounder got the same bacon upgrade. In 2022, they introduced the Smoky BLT Quarter Pounder, which was, again, a Quarter Pounder with bacon added. Wendy's periodically adds the Big Bacon Classic to its menu, but as many have pointed out, this is just a Dave's Single with bacon added, which you could order any time. Even Taco Bell added a bacon cheeseburger burrito and a BLT taco back in the 1990s, which were just standard items with bacon added.

Every few years, restaurants will just baconify a burger to make it new. A&W claims to have invented the bacon cheeseburger in 1963, and it has obviously remained popular ever since. When bacon isn't enough, there is a second trick many restaurants will rely on to offer a new spin on a classic. But the more often you see these tricks, the less new they feel.

In addition to bacon, many restaurants will offer a barbecue or Western version of a classic as a new menu item. Burger King has done this a few times with things like the Rodeo Burger, which is basically just a Whopper with onion rings, bacon, and barbecue sauce. Carl's Jr. did very much the same with its Western Bacon Cheeseburger. So did A&W with its Ringer burger. The Western Whopper split the difference by adding bacon and barbecue sauce to a classic Burger King Whopper.

McDonald's in Canada introduced the Western BBQ Quarter Pounder, which was a regular Quarter Pounder with barbecue sauce, bacon, and crispy onion. Checkers and Rally offered a similar burger. Wendy's also took this route with its Barbecue Cheeseburger.

Fast food restaurants have been doing this for years, and diners are very much aware of it. In 2012, Burger King added bacon to a sundae that got criticized for being lazy and pandering. That was over a decade ago. Everyone is savvy to the trend now.

If it's true that we are all hip to the bacon trick, why do restaurants keep doing it? According to MarketWatch, it works. Americans buy $6 billion worth of bacon a year. Everyone seems to love a bacon burger. It's cheap to add bacon or barbecue sauce as an embellishment because it's almost guaranteed to pay off. It may not be innovative, but it's what a lot of people want.