As you squeeze your packets out to make a nice little pile of ketchup on your plate/burger wrapper, no matter how efficiently you squeeze your ketchup, as that last drop goes from the packet to your plate, something is crystal clear to you: there is still a bit of ketchup on the tip of your packet! Do you toss it aside, leaving a pile of goopy packets? Or as you finish squeezing each packet, do you delicately bring it to your mouth, licking or puckering your lips to suck that last bit of ketchup off the packet into your mouth?

Earlier this year, we asked So Good readers if they were a yogurt lid licker and 74% answered yes. Well what about ketchup? Are you a ketchup packet licker?

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

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“With more beef and cheese, the $1 ¼-pound Double Cheeseburger beats competitors’ sandwiches, such as McDonald’s Double Cheeseburger and Wendy’s Double Stack,”

“1/4 pound of hot, not so fresh, delicious preservative laden beef!”

Dollar menus or value menus have been all the rage in the fast food world in the last few years, as companies look to offer as many deals and variety as possible to bring in more customers. Consumers love it, because instead of paying $6 for a value meal, they can fill themselves up on the cheap. For example, a McChicken and a McDouble at McDonalds is my go-to order – only $2 and it leaves me pretty satisfied. Well, satisfied from a fullness perspective, I am never satisfied when I’m forced to eat McDonalds.

The dirty secret of dollar menus though, that I alluded to in my opening paragraph, is that franchise owners HATE them. They feel that dollar menus allow people to load up on a few cheap items, instead of paying more for a value meal, costing them valuable sales dollars. Burger King has been fighting this battle with their franchisees for nearly 2 years now, as BK owners aren’t exactly eager to sell a burger for $1 that has been retailing for nearly $2.50.

Just last year, McDonald’s gave up their $1 double cheeseburger gambit, raising the price to $1.19 and adding the “McDouble” (essentially a double cheeseburger, sans one slice of cheese) to the dollar menu in its place. Yet now, BK is offering up a 1/4 pound version of what McDonald’s couldn’t afford to keep on its dollar menu? Good luck with that BK.

On the topic of cheap burger sizes, do you remember when the quarter pounder was considered to be literally a huge thing? People were all “whoa dude, quarter pounder. Alright. You aren’t messing around at this meal.” Uh yeah. Not so much anymore. A quarter pounder ain’t shite anymore people. Sorry dudes, but you are definitely not ballin’ if you are all about the burger that the local homeless dude can afford with a good 20 minutes of panhandling. But hey, in this economy, that’s a lot of sustenance for not a lot of money, so go buy it. Or don’t. I really don’t care.

H/T to Fast Food Maven and GrubGrade.

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So this is a new one to me. A burger with butter on it? Hmmmm. I know places that butter, or sometimes even heavily butter the buns they put their burgers on, but putting a big old slab of butter directly onto a burger? Wow. I stumbled across these butter burgers when reading a post on Andrew Sullivan’s blog, featuring a new ad for Miller High Life that prominently features this high-fat treat.

That looks awful and awesomely appealing at the same time. Apparently butter burgers are a Wisconsin favorite, and have been made famous by a place called Culver’s. Check out a review of these burgers from Would I Buy It Again?

Anyone tried one of these bad boys?

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Yes, it’s a “sandwich” containing bacon, cheese and Colonel’s sauce, with two fried chicken patties serving as the bread.  Now some of you may be thinking, “Eick, I thought So Good was supposed to be on the cutting edge? I already read about this someplace else, why didn’t you see this sooner?” Valid question, and one the 15 (no exaggeration) people who have e-mailed me about this new product have asked.

I actually came across this last week, in the form of a post on Food Geekery that dated all the way back to July 28.  But do you know why I didn’t write about it right away? I didn’t believe it. Thought it was a fake. A spoof. A hoax. No WAY a national chain is actually using pieces of chicken as buns I thought. Considering it’s been a few months since I broke a major story on So Good, despite having done it quite often last year, I thought this was my golden bullet. I was going to expose the Double Down as a grand and elaborate hoax and reap the traffic benefits as everyone praised So Good for exposing the fraud that was the Double Down.  I Googled around. I read and re-read the post on Food Geekery. I freeze framed parts of the commercial on YouTube for clues that it might be a fake. At one point I even thought some of the “evidence” it was a hoax was that one of the actors in the commercial kind of, sort of, looked like one of the sketch comedy actors from Barats & Bereta.

With no clear evidence confirming or denying this products existence beyond the one initial source online,  I called the location in Nebraska where Foodgeekery allegedly bought this. No answer when I called twice on Thursday. When I called back on Friday, they did answer, and informed me that yes, they carried the Double Down sandwich.  Dammit. I was all primed to be the one that exposed to the world the great hoax that was the KFC Double Down. Alas, I was wrong. Dead wrong. And with that, my motivation to write about it before leaving the office vanished. The weekend awaited. That magical time of sleep, sex, drinking, more drinking, watching baseball and sleeping again.  The story would have to wait, because the sandwich is real, and it’s being tested in Nebraska and Rhode Island.

There were other skeptics out there, which is why Foodgeekery went BACK to the KFC and snapped a few confirmation photos:

KFC public relations finally got into the act and shared their “estimated” nutritional info with Huffington Post. They claim it is 590 calories with 31g of fat and 10g of saturated fat.

I don’t need to make some grand proclamation about what this sort of food offering says about our culture. I think these photos pretty much speak for themselves.

Additional coverage on Consumerist, This is Why You’re Fat and Slashfood.

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These are the final 10 stores on the list of the QSR 50.

Once again, this list is determined by total dollar sales.

• 41 Jimmy John’s
• 42 Captain D’s
• 43 Jason’s Deli
• 44 Qdoba
• 45 Jamba Juice
• 46 Cold Stone Creamery
• 47 Krystal
• 48 In-N-Out Burger
• 49 Einstein/Noah’s Bagels
• 50 Tim Hortons

This is where it probably gets dicey for some people in terms of knowing these chains.  I’m actually familiar with all of these except for Captain D’s and Jason’s Deli.

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Via Next Round and Jock and Balls.

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Today I stumbled across a relatively new Corn Pops commercial called “Dragon Dreams.”  The title was intriguing, so I gave it a watch. I don’t know what else I should have expected from something that used both the word “Dragon” and the word “Dreams” in its title, but this entire commercial was like one giant acid trip right from the get go.

Now I know kids have this crazy active thing we like to call an “imagination”, and thus kids ads are different, but is there any type of food product with ads that are anywhere in the same ballpark as cereal ads in terms of trippiness?  Liquid Generation even put together a compilation video of what they believe are the ten trippiest cereal commercials:

If you’re in your late 20’s like I am, you must still have a whole host of memories about some crazy trippy cereal ads you saw when you were a kid.  Well then So Good readers. What do you think? Share some of your favorite trippy cereal commercials in the comment section.

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Once again, this list is determined by total dollar sales.

• 31 Boston Market
• 32 Culvers
• 33 El Pollo Loco
• 34 Bojangles’
• 35 Papa Murphy’s
• 36 CiCi’s Pizza
• 37 White Castle
• 38 Del Taco
• 39 Baskin Robbins
• 40 Sbarro

It appears with numbers 31 – 40 we’ve entered the land of Chicken and pizza. FOUR chains in a row are all chicken focused, Boston Market, Culvers, El Pollo Loco and Bojangles.  Plus, with Papa Murphy’s, CiCi’s and Sbarro, you add three pizza chains to the list as well.

Sbarro is all the way down at #40 is SHOCKING for me.  I’ve never even heard of Papa Murphy’s or CiCi’s, but Sbarro is in just about every food court I’ve ever been in. Is this a regional thing?

Any chains in this batch of 10 surprise you? Any that STILL haven’t cracked the top 40 that you can’t believe?

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(Disclosure: As I’ve mentioned before, I do social media consulting for Domino’s, but this clip is too amusing for me not to post!)

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Once again, this list is determined by total dollar sales.

• 21 Carl’s Jr.
• 22 Chipotle
• 23 Panda Express
• 24 Whataburger
• 25 Church’s Chicken
• 26 Little Caesars
• 27 Long John Silver’s
• 28 Steak n Shake
• 29 Zaxby’s
• 30 Checkers/Rally’s

Wow. Who knew that Little Caesars still had enough stores open to clock in at #26. I thought that company was basically left for dead.  I knew all of the Top 20 pretty well, but in this next batch of restaurants is the first one I’ve never even heard of: Zaxby’s. Huh?

Also, I’ve never been to a Whataburger, Church’s Chicken, Long John Silvers, Steak n Shake, or Checkers.   Four of those five I’ve never been to largely because of the regions of the country I’ve lived in, but my never having been to a  Long John Silver’s is more based on a personal lifestyle choice to always avoid fast food fish.

Thoughts on #’s 21 – #30?  Who are you most surprised to STILL not see make the list, even after getting through the top 30?  How many of these chains are you familiar with?

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Any restaurants that are on (or not on) this list that surprise you?

• 11. Arby’s
• 12. Jack In The Box
• 13. Domino’s
• 14. Chick-fil-A
• 15. Panera Bread
• 16. Dairy Queen
• 17. Papa John’s
• 18. Hardee’s
• 19. Quiznos Subs
• 20. Popeyes

My first thought? Whoever is still going to Arby’s frequently enough to put them at #11 should probably be rounded up and deported.

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• 1. McDonald’s
• 2. Subway
• 3. Burger King
• 4. Starbucks
• 5. Wendy’s
• 6. Taco Bell
• 7. Pizza Hut
• 8. Dunkin’ Donuts
• 9. KFC
• 10. Sonic Drive-In

Wow, I had no idea that Sonic was a Top Ten chain. Also, McDonald’s just absolutely dominates: $30 billion in sales versus only $9.6 billion for the second place Subway.

What do you think readers? Are there any chains you would have expected to see on this list that didn’t make the cut? Any chains that are higher than you expected?

Update: Here is a top 10 list in order of total number of stores:

• Subway 21,881
• McDonald’s 13,958
• Starbucks Coffee 11,567
• Pizza Hut 7,564
• Burger King 7,512
• Wendy’s 6,630
• Dunkin’ Donuts 6,395
• Taco Bell 5,588
• KFC 5,253
• Domino’s 5,047

All info for this Top Ten list as well as other posts about the rest of the top 50 fast food chains by $$ sales comes from the QSR 50, published by QSR magazine.

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