It was Mom’s turn to try the Beyond Meat burger at A & W. (My review of it from a few weeks ago is HERE)
Bringing on the non-meat patty was a brilliant marketing move on A & W Canada‘s part. With all of the gourmet burger shops dotting the fast-food landscape, it’s got people talking about good ol’ A & W again. The vegetarian burger, brought to market by investors such as Bill Clinton and Leonardo DiCaprio, is selling like mad. Customers can ask to substitute real beef for the Beyond Meat patty in a Teen Burger, for example. This country has an appetite for it. A Beyond Meat spokesperson says they’re having trouble keeping up with demand.
Beyond Meat is in US burger chains White Castle and Umami Burgers and about 30,000 grocery stores, but not A & W USA. That’s not surprising. Its headquarters is located in Lexington, Kentucky, a red state all the way. In 2016 the mail-order-steak-commander-in-chief won the Kentucky primary the by the largest vote margin of any Republican since Richard Nixon in 1972. They’re not about to go hunting soy.
Although my brother often meets us when we visit Mom, he refused to join us at A & W. He’s a burger snob, like I’m a coffee snob. Fair enough. Ever since I badgered Kevin into trying soy milk and he had an allergic reaction that caused his throat to close up, I learned my lesson about letting people decide what goes into their own pie holes. Driving my heavily-wheezing brother to the ER while, in the back seat, he’s teaching his panicked then-girlfriend how to do a tracheotomy on him with a ballpoint pen in case we don’t get there in time, isn’t something you forget, even after all these years.
But I digress.
We arrived at the drive-thru on Saturday shortly before the lunch rush, planning to take our food to a shady picnic table beside the Grand River in Dunnville. To our collective horror, we were greeted by a sign. “We are out of the Beyond Meat Burger. Sorry for any inconvenience!” The little voice in the speaker told us it would be two weeks before they had the veggie patties again. Derek responded with something about not being able to wait that long for lunch and we all ordered regular Teen Burgers instead.
What a disappointment. The Teen Burgers were fine, and the setting by the water was nearly perfect, but certainly not what we came all that way for. Mom’s review of Beyond Meat will simply have to wait. The lack of inventory doesn’t appear to be a marketing ploy. It’s a genuine misjudgment of demand. A Twitter user claims Beyond Meat is a “limited time” offer at A & W, although I see nothing to that effect on their website. It’s part of their permanent menu, when they have it in stock. They offered to email us when the burgers are back in stock but we declined. So we’ll wait awhile, and try again.