The ever popular Westside, New York burger joint, “The Shake Shack” successfully taught all of the high paid Wall Street financial gurus, marketing advisors and business experts a thing or two about the power of simple “Buzz Marketing” and the law of supply and demand.

When the restaurant found themselves with an excessively large supply of “specialty bacon” left over from a big “Pancake and Custard: promotion they had been running, Manager Mark Rosati wisely utilized the proverbial wisdom of the old assaying, “When you have lemons, make Lemonade!”

This time, what manager Rosati had, was NOT lemons, but a ton of gourmet bacon left sitting around in the restaurant. So in a way that would have made Elvis Pressley proud, except for the fact that he forgot the bananas, Rosati quickly devised a recipe for “Peanut Butter Bacon Burgers,” … and a STAR was born.

According to both “The Gothamist”, “The New York University News,” and the Westside Independent, they ran the “Special Menu Item” for only a week, relying on regular customers and other interested Bacon Freaks to create a “Buzz” on the street, by calling up and telling two friends, who told two friends, who told two friends, and so on.

Before long, this limited edition, “Word of Mouth” phenomenon had people waiting in lines that went all the way around the block, as if people were in line to catch the opening or closing night to a popular Broadway musical. No reports of violence, line crashers, pace jumpers or ticket scalping were reported, so apparently people were willing to behave and avoid the risk of missing out on this once in a life time experience by being turned away like in “Seinfeld-esque” variation of the “Soup Nazi” episode.

Nobody wanted to hear those fatal words: “No Burger For You!”

Sadly and surprisingly, once the gourmet bacon was gone, so was the menu item and The Shake Shack has made it clear that no amount of personal requests, cards, letters and phone calls are going to change their mind.

So if you were there, it’s something that you will be able to tell your grandchildren, similar to those glory filled golden dream stories of seeing the Beatles at Shea Stadium.

If you weren’t, I’m sure that with time, one of the fast food franchise chains will pick up the gauntlet and proceed to offer “a version” of the original item, that will be hopefully a lot closer to the authentic item than one of the numerous Beatles Tribute Bands that still make a living touring across America, 40 long years after the fact.

Signing off at Pigging out!
Rocco “Boss Hog” Loosbrock

A very wise man, a long, long time ago once said “The Hand That ROCKS the BACON … Rules The World!”

Now, as the economic downturn really begins to sink in and take a “Big Bite” out of the recently flourishing, “fine dining” restaurant profits, the upper echelon of franchise dining are finely looking around and trying to get their bearings once again. They are suddenly realizing that as the economy take its toll; “sizzlingly successful” ideas continue to roll.

It seems that every single fast food franchise that wise returns back to the “Bacon Rule” and introduces it’s latest 1 to 5 new Bacon Burgers to their menu, suddenly increases their market share substantially and moves closer to the head of the heard.

Now this truth is being applied successfully by some of the “mid-range” dining option franchises. We’re talking about those “nice,” sit down, charmingly themed eateries with a well trained staff, ornately adorned in pithy flair and sufficiently choreographed into some well organized maneuvers of people pleasing personality, pizzazz and a pseudo-posh presentation.

Yes, Applebee’s, in an extension of their increasingly popular “Real Burgers” line, is now proud to present it’s new line of “Regional Burgers” by introducing it’s long awaited “Cowboy Burger,” topped with crispy onion strings, melted white cheddar cheese, and “heapin’ helpin’” of apple-wood smoked bacon. The burger is then served on a toasted bun with Southern BBQ sauce, lettuce, tomato, onion, and pickles.

Guess what, people absolutely LOVE it!

Meanwhile, over at The Cheesecake Factory, they are rolling out their latest line of what they refer to as their “Glamburgers” (pun clearly intended), as they proudly present Blue Cheese BLT Burger. This is a tasty, gourmet burger served up with crispy bacon, lettuce, tomato, onions and mayonnaise, with lots and lots and lots of delicious blue cheese.

So now, as office cubicles all across the land begin to empty out, these once struggling restaurants that are more “suit and tie” than “shorts and sneakers” are grabbing back a huge portion of the customers that they lost when the “BACON WARS” first began.

That’s the wonderful thing about success and bacon burgers – the taste is always sweet and satisfying!

Signing off at Pigging out!
Rocco “Boss Hog” Loosbrock

This got me thinking, is there anything that isn’t better with bacon?

Hamburgers, better with bacon. Steaks and scallops better when wrapped in bacon. Eggs so much better with bacon. Salad, add some bacon and its better. Baked potatoes again, you guessed it better with bacon.

Bacon can add a variety of different flavors that brings any dish to that next level weather you are cooking for yourself or family and friends. Bacon can be sweet, it can be savory, it can be Smokey, it can be flavored, but whatever food you are cooking up, it is better with bacon.

Bacon has this unique ability to go with so many of the everyday foods that we eat.

Because we all agree that bacon has a magical ability to make almost any food better (lets face it you are reading a blog all about bacon), why not keep your kitchen well stocked with a variety of different bacon products.

Baconfreak.com offers the “Bacon Is Meat Candy” Bacon of the Month Club where you can get two different packages of bacon delivered to your house each month.

And for all you vegetarians out there who miss out on the many uses of bacon and its delicious taste, Bacon Freak has not forgot about you and have created there own Hickory Bacon flavored seasoning.

-Matt Kufeld

OMG … it looks like Carl’s Jr. (http://www.carlsjr.com) has done it again my fellow “Baconistas!”

While all of the “fast food” giants are desperately trying to impress a world gone crazy with “Baco-Mania” by coming up with more and more complex and clever creations based on the average “Bacon Freak’s” (http://www.baconfreak.com) obsession with bacon, Carl’s Jr. has quite wisely chosen to take that path less traveled and move further and further toward absolute simplicity.

So while many of its competitors continue on the path of constantly tossing more and more elaborate ingredients onto their burgers, Carl’ has effectively broken the magic formula down to it’s essential basic, fundamental, foundational “bacon blueprint” of consummate, consumable simplicity.

Introducing Carl’s new Grilled Cheese Bacon Burger! (http://www.carlsjr.com/company/releases/carls-jr-launches-ultimate-comfort-food-grilled-cheese-bacon-burgers)

We’re talking something as basic as a grilled cheese sandwich, made of American and Swiss cheese on sourdough bread, with a tasty charbroiled hamburger patty and some bacon stuck in up top, for good measure.

Executive Vice President of Marketing, Brad Haley admits that originally, idea for the new burger initially was part of a plan for Carl’s corporate “mother company”, “CKE Restaurants Inc.” (http://www.ckr.com) to better serve their ever growing menu needs of their ever growing “vegetarian” customer base.

So the plan was to introduce a delicious, top quality grilled cheese sandwich that tasted like something more than mere conventional fast food …”Hold the meat!” Haley adds … “But, being Carl’s Jr., a chain known for its decadent burgers, someone suggested that we try it with a charbroiled burger patty and bacon for our carnivorous customers,” Mr. Haley explains, “and the Grilled Cheese Bacon Burgers were born.”

He then went on to make sure that he mentioned that Carl’s vegetarian customers can still order the “Grilled Cheese Sandwiches” without the burger and bacon.

From my personal experience, Carl’s has always been very good about looking out for it’s vegetarian friends and customers, who for decades now, have been able to “special order” several of the items found on their menu without the meat and according to many of my friends, they actually taste pretty darned good as vegetarian fare as well.

Still … as for me, I prefer to have my grilled cheese sandwich with the delicious and nutritious burger and bacon tossed in for good measure, so that I can enjoy some of that
awesome protein powered “taste extravaganza.”

But I certainly do applaud Carl’s Jr. for having the insight and vision to buck the trend toward complexity and complications, and simply “go simple,” succeeding at doing the just the right thing, for all the right reasons!

Signing off at Pigging out!
Rocco “Boss Hog” Loosbrock

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