🍔 November 16 – Fast Food Day: Because Sometimes You Just Need Fries with That 🍟

Blame (or thank) White Castle. Back in 1921, this Kansas-based burger joint kicked off America’s fast food frenzy with five-cent sliders and the wild idea that you could get your food fast and know what to expect. McDonald’s followed suit in the 1940s with the “Speedee Service System,” a.k.a. the original TikTok attention span meal. From there, it was a whirlwind of fries, shakes, nuggets, and global domination.

Fast food today is a $600+ billion industry with franchises in just about every country that has Wi-Fi. It’s not just food—it’s a culture. A deliciously salty, often controversial, undeniably iconic culture.

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🍔 Fun, Weird & Greasy Facts About Fast Food

🥤 The McDonald’s Golden Arches are more recognized worldwide than the Christian cross. Not saying it’s a cult...but also, maybe it’s a cult.
🍗 The first Happy Meal was launched in 1979. It included a burger, fries, cookies, a drink, and—of course—a toy that definitely ended up under the car seat.
🍟 In 2010, KFC debuted a sandwich with no bun. The Double Down used two fried chicken fillets as the “bread.” Because buns are for amateurs.
🌍 Taco Bell tried opening in Mexico. It failed. Hard.
🥪 Subway has the most locations of any fast food chain globally, beating even McDonald’s. Apparently, people love their questionable footlongs.

🍕 10+ Quirky Ways to Celebrate National Fast Food Day

1. Drive-Thru Crawl 🚗💨 – Hit up a different fast food joint for every course. Fries from McDonald's, tacos from Taco Bell, shake from Sonic. You’re not indecisive—you’re a connoisseur.

2. Dress Like Your Favorite Mascot 👑 – Whether you rock the Colonel’s white suit or Ronald’s terrifying smile, it's your moment.

3. Fast Food Olympics 🏆 – Compete with friends to create the weirdest fast food combo. Whopper with nuggets inside? Pizza-wrapped burrito? Go wild.

4. DIY Drive-Thru at Home 🛎️ – Set up a fake fast food window for your family or roommates. Use silly voices. Bonus points for themed menus.

5. “Guess That Sauce” Blind Taste Test 🧴 – Can you ID ranch vs. garlic aioli with a blindfold on? Only one way to find out.

6. Watch a Fast Food Doc 📺 – Super Size Me, The Founder, Food, Inc.—educational and just the right amount of guilt to pair with your fries.

7. Make a Gourmet Fast Food Dish 👨‍🍳 – Use McNuggets to create a fancy appetizer. Turn fries into a “poutine-inspired hash.” You’re a chef now.

8. Host a “Vintage Menu” Night 🕰️ – Recreate old-school menu items no longer around: McDLT, Taco Bell’s Bell Beefer, or the discontinued Wendy’s SuperBar.

9. Rank Your Favorites ⭐ – Get passionate (and dramatic) about your top 5 fast food fries. Prepare to lose friends over this.

10. Invent Your Own Chain 🧠 – Come up with a fake fast food concept: What’s it called? What’s the gimmick? (Mine’s “Nap Shack” – we sell mini burgers and adult-sized nap pods.)

11. Leave a Silly Review 📝 – Rate your burger like you're a Michelin-star critic. “The patty whispers of nostalgia and sodium.”

12. Learn the Jingles 🎶 – Bonus points if you can still sing “Have it your way” without looking it up.

🍔 Entrée: Smashburger Sliders with Secret Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground beef (80/20 for juicy drama)

• Slider buns, toasted

• American cheese (don’t fight it, it's classic)

• Pickles, shredded lettuce, diced onion

Secret Sauce:

• 1/4 cup mayo

• 1 tbsp ketchup

• 1 tsp yellow mustard

• 1 tsp relish

• Pinch of paprika and onion powder

Instructions:

• Roll ground beef into golf ball–sized balls.

• Smash onto a hot cast iron skillet (parchment paper + spatula = crispy edges).

• Cook 2–3 mins, flip, add cheese, cook 1 more min.

• Toast buns, slather with secret sauce, stack high with toppings, and devour like you’re sitting in the parking lot of your teenage memories.

🍟 Side: Fancy Fries with Truffle Salt & Garlic Aioli

Because you’re fast, not feral.

• Use frozen shoestring or waffle fries (air fryer or oven = 425°F until golden).

• Toss with a dash of truffle salt or grated Parmesan and parsley if you're feeling it.

• For aioli: mix mayo + minced garlic + lemon juice + tiny dab of Dijon.

• Dip like royalty.

🥤 Drink: Copycat Cherry Limeade

The Sonic drive-in who?

• 1/2 cup lime juice

• 1/4 cup simple syrup

• 1/4 cup maraschino cherry juice (yep, from the jar)

• Club soda or lemon-lime soda to top

• Maraschino cherries + lime wheels for drama

Mix, pour over crushed ice, sip with a straw like you’re in a convertible.

🍦 Dessert: DIY McFlurry-Style Ice Cream Cup

Because the machine always breaks, but you are the machine now.

• Vanilla ice cream (softened slightly)

• Crushed Oreos, mini M&Ms, peanut butter cups—your mix-in kingdom

• Stir together in a bowl like a monster. Eat with a small spoon so it lasts longer than 3 minutes.

🎉 Bonus Serving Tip: Wrap everything in faux takeout packaging, eat it in your car parked in the driveway, or serve it on a tray while watching retro fast food commercials. Fast food... but make it fashion.

🍕 Elementary Classroom Idea: Build-a-Burger Writing & Math Combo Meal

Overview:
Students will create their own imaginary fast food restaurant, complete with a quirky name, custom combo meals, silly slogans, and prices. They'll practice descriptive writing, menu math, and even a little economics. Bonus: it's all calorie-free!

🧂Materials:

• Printable "Menu Maker" template (includes sections for restaurant name, meal items, and prices)

• Paper food cutouts or let kids draw their own (burger, fries, nuggets, milkshake, mystery meat blob, etc.)

• Markers/crayons

• Optional: empty fast food containers (ask parents to donate clean ones!)

• Mini whiteboards or paper for order totals

🍔Steps:

1. Burger Brainstorming – Begin with a class discussion: What do you love (or love to hate) about fast food?Introduce silly fast food ads or jingles.

2. Restaurant Design – Students name their restaurant and design a logo. Think: “FrankenFries” or “Galactic Grub.”

3. Menu Creation – Kids create 3–5 wacky combo meals (e.g., "The Unicorn Nugget Delight") and set realistic prices.

4. Writing Time – Have students write a persuasive paragraph advertising their weirdest combo: Why should customers choose yours?

5. Math on the Menu – Give each student a few “customer orders” from a peer’s menu and ask them to calculate totals (with tax, if you’re feeling spicy 🌶️).

6. Optional Extension – Let students role-play as cashier and customer using fake money and order pads.

💡Differentiation:

• Younger students can use simple pricing and single-item orders.

• Advanced students can work with decimals, add sales tax, or offer discounts (“BOGO Spaghetti Tacos!” anyone?).

🍟 Secondary Classroom Idea: Fast Food Economics & Persuasive Pitch Project

Overview:
Students become fast food executives tasked with launching a new brand or turning around a failing one. They’ll dive into advertising strategies, marketing psychology, pricing models, and persuasive writing, all while competing for the coveted title of Fastest Climber on the Capitalism Ladder. (No actual ladders will be climbed.)

🍕Materials:

• Devices for research & digital slides (or poster materials for analog folks)

• “CEO Challenge” instructions handout

• Sample fast food ads (video or print)

• Optional: Fake money for investment game

🥤Steps:

1. Hook & Context – Start with clips from clever fast food ads (think Wendy’s clapbacks or vintage McDonald’s jingles). Ask: What makes these effective?

2. The CEO Challenge – Students work in teams to create their own fast food brand or revamp an existing one. They must:

   • Create a brand name, logo, and slogan

   • Design 3 menu items (with pricing and unique selling points)

   • Write a persuasive pitch to investors (you or their classmates!)

   • Analyze and respond to ethical questions about fast food (labor, nutrition, advertising to kids)

3. Pitch Presentations – Each group presents Shark Tank-style. Encourage props, accents, and over-the-top enthusiasm. Dramatic jingles = bonus points. 🎤

4. Class Vote & Reflection – Have students vote on the best pitch and reflect: What persuasive techniques worked? What did we learn about consumer psychology?

💡Differentiation:

• Add a math component with break-even analysis or profit margin calculations.

• Incorporate ELA standards by focusing on rhetorical appeals (ethos/pathos/logos) in their pitches.

🍟 Quirky in the Workplace

A.K.A. “Supersize the nonsense, please.”

Fast Food Day is here to honor the greasy, glorious chaos that fuels your lunch breaks, regretful 3 p.m. choices, and 2 a.m. life decisions. But why just eat fast food when you could celebrate it with flair—office style?

🥤 The Great Office Drive-Thru

Transform your workspace into a human-powered drive-thru. Each department (or desk cluster) becomes a “fast food window” offering a bizarre themed snack, coupon, or activity. Here's how it works:

• Marketing hands out “Fried Idea Nuggets” (brainstorm prompts on napkins).

• Finance gives you a “Budget Burger” (a fake sandwich made of invoices).

• IT’s window just says “Closed for Maintenance,” obviously.

• HR offers emotional fries: one salty, one sweet, one mysteriously soggy.

Coworkers walk (or roll) from window to window placing “orders” with made-up lingo like:

“I’ll take one Passive-Aggressive Pickle with extra bandwidth, please.”

Drive-thru hats and headset mics optional, but deeply encouraged.
Slogan for the day: “Have it your way—unless your way breaks company policy.” 🍔✨

🎬 Movie Pick: Super Size Me (2004)

• Why it’s perfect: This documentary by Morgan Spurlock is the ultimate fast food deep dive. He eats nothing but McDonald's for 30 days to explore the health impact of fast food. It’s funny, shocking, and informative—and probably the only time you’ll feel judged by a french fry.

• Bonus Points: You'll question your life choices while simultaneously craving nuggets.

📺 TV Episode: Bob’s Burgers – S3, Ep1: “Ear-sy Rider”

• Why it’s perfect: Bob Belcher may technically run a burger restaurant, but let’s be honest—his burgers would be served in greasy wrappers in real life. This episode has biker gangs, teenage rebellion, and yes, plenty of juicy, over-the-top burgers.

• Fast food energy level: Maximum. With a side of sass.

🍟 Wrap It Up With Ketchup & Sass

Fast Food Day is not about health food, food shame, or culinary elitism. It’s about gratitude for the crispy, cheesy, golden, convenient joys that make life a little tastier. So today, embrace the grease. Celebrate the crunch. And for once… yes, you do want fries with that.

📲 #Hashtags for Your Fast-Food Frenzy

#FastFoodDay #DriveThruDreams #GreaseIsTheWord #FryYay #BurgerGoals #ChickenNuggetChampion #NoShameJustSauce #CelebrateQuirky