Why Did Burger King Have Sit-Down Service In The 1990s?
Imagine that you're at Burger King, waiting in line. You go up to the cashier and you place your order as usual. The cashier directs you to have a seat over in the dining area where, instead of the linoleum booths and tables, there are candlelit tables with velvet tablecloths and classical jazz playing over the speakers. You notice employees walking around, carrying trays full of Whoppers and fries to different tables or refilling people's glasses with Coke or Pepsi. To your left of you, you notice a family eating a basket of fries, while to the right, a man and a woman snack on complimentary popcorn. Needless to say, this doesn't feel like the Burger King you're used to.
The late '80s and '90s were an interesting time for fast food, to say the least. It seemed that many fast-food companies found themselves taking a good long look in the mirror and saying, "It's time to grow up." The name of the game was sophistication — class and style were what the people wanted. McDonald's rolled out its "mature" Arch Deluxe burger to sate the discerning palettes of sophisticated grown-ups frequenting its drive-thru (via Eater). Pizza Hut tried to invoke cozy memories of Italian grandmothers and Sunday dinners with its Priazzo pies, which resembled deep-dish pizzas crossed with casseroles.
For Burger King, customers wanted not just to sit down and eat, but to also enjoy a fully-fledged dinner with sides and all — or so they thought.
Burger King had table service and dinner baskets
What was it that customers sought out in a "real" restaurant that they couldn't find in a fast-food restaurant? The answer, according to Burger King, was simple: sit-down service and dinner baskets. Table service was exactly what it sounded like: Burger King employees would bring their order over to the customer while they sat at their booth, just like how a waiter would bring your meal over to you in any other restaurant (via The Associated Press).
As commercials featuring MTV's Dan Cortese show, at any time from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., customers could order a "dinner basket," which consisted of an entrée like a Whopper, a Meatloaf Sandwich, a steak sandwich, shrimp, and chicken, with a side order of fries, a baked potato, coleslaw, or a salad. Some commercials even went so far as to flaunt a popcorn machine, which would be used to serve customers complimentary popcorn while they waited for their food.
By offering dinner bundles with choices of sides, complimentary popcorn, and table service, Burger King hoped to present itself as a fast-food restaurant that sold more than just Whoppers and fries. It was a place where you could sit down, relax, and enjoy a hearty meal for a low price — a place where you would be treated like royalty, sort to speak.
But did people really respond to all the frills and pomp of table service, free popcorn, and dinner baskets?
Table service may have been too slow for fast food
Ask anyone if they want to go to Burger King, sit down, and wait for their food. Your response would be somewhere along the lines of "If we're going to wait, why not just go to another restaurant?" While table service may have looked fancy, it certainly didn't seem to fit into the concept of "fast food."
In fact, the idea of table service meant that customers would have to wait for their food, rather than get it and go as quickly as they came in, something that proved to be unpopular (via The Morning Call). At the launch time, Burger justified the decision by reasoning that, unlike the lunch rush, customers wouldn't be particularly busy and would have time to relax and enjoy table service. Besides, the company reasoned, usual drive-thru and take-out operations weren't affected in any way, so should customers be in a hurry, they could skip table service altogether.
Notably, Retroist recalls that the offering of table service and side dinners appealed to some customers, who may have found the combination of cheap food and standard restaurant hospitality to be a pleasant change. Some who worked at Burger King at the time, such as one Reddit user, claim that table service was exclusive to certain menu items like the dinner baskets, which would upset people who expected the same treatment too.
While Burger King's table service was a short-lived experiment, the chain still has plenty of successes to ring home about. Just don't expect complimentary popcorn during your next visit.