A Look Back At The 1970s Burger King Menu

Like other fast food burger chains, Burger King built its reputation on hamburgers and french fries. Burger King is most famous for the Whopper, for example, featuring a ¼-pound, flame-broiled patty on a sesame seed bun, though it wasn't around when Burger King first opened. It was introduced in 1957, and proved incredibly popular. The core menu didn't include much more than that for many years; the only sandwich option aside from variations on a hamburger was a fish sandwich, there were two options for sides, a few drinks, shakes, and an apple pie for dessert. The whole menu fit on two boards.

To remain competitive, Burger King began expanding its menu through the 1970s. While it kept hamburgers as the core offering, the chain tried its hand with different kinds of sandwiches and some sides. Some of those items are still on the menu today, while a few only lasted a short time. It's not always easy to find information on these short-lived menu items Burger King sold over 40 years ago, but there are still a few old ads and commercials, plus firsthand accounts from customers and ex-employees, to help fill in the blanks. Some items may have only been available in certain markets, and others have vanished and returned a few times over the ensuing years. Nevertheless, we still know Burger King has always been willing to experiment and take risks, even if they didn't always pay off.

The Big Plain was marketed using the idea of freedom and featured American flag-print text in ads. The idea was simple. The Big Plain was a ¼-pound burger that ads claimed was somehow bigger than other ¼-pound burgers. It was served with nothing on it. The commercials suggested you could top it however you want, showing the freedom you had. A big problem was the Big Plain sold for 90 cents, but a Whopper, which was just as big but had toppings, only cost 85 cents. As you might guess, the Big Plain flopped big time.

The perplexingly named Yumbo has a long history at Burger King. Introduced in 1971, it was a hot ham and cheese sandwich served on a buttered bun. It was phased out after a few years so the chain could focus on its core items, despite being fairly popular. The chain brought it back a few times since. In 2014, Burger King revived the Yumbo, but it was a flop. Instead of bringing back the fan favorite original, the chain updated the Yumbo with a hoagie roll, lettuce, and mayo. It wasn't the same sandwich, but you can still order something close today.

The Whaler was Burger King's original fish sandwich. For a time, it was the only non-beef sandwich on the menu. Just based on commercials, which made it look about twice the size of a Filet-O-Fish, it's one discontinued item we'd love Burger King to bring back. The Whaler featured a crispy, square fish patty served on a sesame seed bun with lettuce and tartar sauce. It was removed from the menu in the late 1970s but returned in 1983 for a time. There was even a Cajun variant.

Further expanding its beef offerings, Burger King introduced a roast beef sandwich in 1979 before rolling it out nationally in 1980. The sandwich came on a long sesame seed roll and was topped with lettuce, tomato, mayo, and thinly sliced deli roast beef, much like a sandwich from Arby's. You could also ask for cheese, but it was a special request. Customers could get au jus for dipping or horseradish on the side.

In the late 1970s and through the 1980s, Burger King introduced a line of specialty sandwiches. Things get a little muddy with the history because many of these sandwiches were tweaked several times over to become other menu staples. The chicken sandwich went on to become the Original Chicken Sandwich, which is still on the menu; the fish sandwich may have evolved from the Whaler; and the ham and cheese sandwich was distinct from the Yumbo because it was served with lettuce and tomato on a sub-style bun, rather than served hot on a roll.

As part of the line of specialty sandwiches launched in the late 1970s, Burger King introduced the Chopped Beefsteak Sandwich in 1979. The sandwich was topped with onion rings and lettuce and served on a long bun. It's hard to tell what sauce might have been included, but other steak sandwiches from Burger King typically came with barbecue sauce. McDonald's also had a chopped beefsteak sandwich around the same time, but that version was topped with raw onion and steak sauce.

Even though the Whopper has been a staple on the menu since the 1950s, in the 1970s, you could order the Mustard Whopper. The Mustard Whopper was a Whopper like any other, with onion, lettuce, and tomato on a flame-broiled patty; it just came with mustard. It was the same price as a regular Whopper, and word is the mustard was a substitute for the mayo on the regular version. It stayed on the menu in some locations at least until the 1990s.

In 1976, Burger King was advertising double beef everything, including the Whopper. The double meat Whopper was just what the name suggests: a Whopper with two patties instead of one. That means a ½ pound of beef with lettuce, onion, and tomato. It cost about $1.30. Cheese cost an extra 10 cents. A standard Whopper was just 80 cents, so an additional 50 cents for another patty doesn't seem like a bad deal by today's standards. Eventually, it became part of the menu as the Double Whopper. Today, one costs about $7.99.

The Double Whopper was not the only double meat item to hit the menu in the 1970s. The double cheeseburger also got a big push from Burger King, including its own commercial. It's noteworthy that the double cheeseburger didn't really become a staple of the Burger King menu until 1976, given that Big Boy is credited with inventing the double cheeseburger back in the 1930s.

In 2016, Burger King got Snoop Dogg to help advertise hot dogs joining the menu, but this was not the company's first attempt at a flame-grilled glizzy. Though there's little information about them online, images of menu boards from the 1970s show hot dogs listed right alongside Whoppers. According to one user on Facebook, who said they worked at Burger King in the 1970s, the hot dogs were "the best you ever had in your life."

Onion rings are fairly ubiquitous today, but they have a strange place in fast food history. Big chains, such as McDonald's and Wendy's, don't offer them, but Sonic, A&W, and Carl's Jr. do. The fact that not everyone sold them was how Burger King marketed its onion rings in the 1970s, positioning them as a unique item you could only get at Burger King.

It should come as no surprise that french fries were a menu staple at Burger King in the 1970s. Next to onion rings, they were the only side dish you could get. Available in two sizes and well under 50 cents, at least for a time, french fries were on the original Burger King menu when the restaurant opened, and they're still there today.

One of the most notable changes to the Whopper occurred during the 1970s. Even though the burger was mostly the same as we know it today, in 1973, Burger King switched from a plain bun to a sesame seed bun. Despite people reminiscing about how a Whopper in the 1970s was a bigger hamburger than today's version, Burger King insist it's the same ¼-pound patty today as it was back then.