Super Duper, the San Francisco-born burger chain, has stumbled into a surprise hit with what it’s calling a “recession burger.”
The burger costs $7.50 for a single patty smashed with red onions and topped with a relish, inspired by the Oklahoma-style smash burger. (A combo costs $10.) It feels made for the moment: The economic vibes are tremendously bad, even if we’re not officially in a recession. Recession-core as a concept has gained mainstream traction. Reports abound of millennials and Gen Z’ers taking on second jobs in order to sustain big city living, enough so that some marketing firm coined the term “polyworking.” Chipotle is Klarna-able. Precarity is the default.
But Super Duper has said the quiet part out loud: Everything is expensive!
Legend has it that the humble Oklahoma-style burger — a predecessor to the smashburger where a ground-beef patty with a hunk of onions to ensure a crisp, lacy edge and deeply caramelized onions — was invented at the height of the Great Depression, explains Super Duper vice president of operations Ed Onas.
“Back in those days, during those times, because there were not a lot of resources as far as getting beef, people were really trying to stretch out what they have,” said Onas. “A couple of guys started, as fillers, adding onions to the patties as they cook so that it's more robust and more filling.”
(That re-telling, like most great American food myths, is not verified. Some shops say it was invented in Oklahoma years prior to the Great Depression.)
Still, as a tribute to its most popular origin story, the idea of naming their smashed quarter-pound burger the “recession burger” stuck, Onas said. To make it a true recession meal, they decided to price the combo at $10.
The deal is flying off the grill. It’s earned some virality online, too, with responses ranging from bemusement at the name or sticker shock that a (non-McD’s) burger combo can go for a Hamilton in San Francisco.
“This particular special on its own has already outperformed our previous specials for the entirety of when we had them available,” Onas said.
In just a month and a half, the recession combo has outsold Super Duper’s last two promotional items — an al pastor sandwich and a Havarti arugula burger. The combo could very well eclipse its perennially-popular truffle burger, which up until now, is its best-selling special.
“Even though this item is only $10, our sales have not been negatively affected by it,” Onas said. “For us, sales have stayed the same. We're probably serving more customers given the tradeoff in the price.”
Even if it was a happy accident, Super Duper had to be aware of all the other fast food chains that are rolling out cut-rate combo meals, right? Just about every fast food joint, from Taco Bell to McDonald’s, has come up with a discount menu in recent months to combat the perception of rising fast-food costs and slumping sales. I asked Onas about the market trends, and he denied the idea that the burger was made in response to this race to the bottom in the fast-food industry.
“We created the combo not necessarily to make a ‘statement’ or to be in step with the events going on around us,” he insisted.
But the sentiment has stuck, even though the burger will go away at the end of the month as they roll in a new special. Besides, Super Duper doesn’t seem likely to let this accidental smash fall by the wayside.
