Wendy's Surge Pricing Rumor

Submission 2,756

Part of a series on @Wendys. [View Related Entries]

About

Wendy's Surge Pricing Rumor refers to a series of memes about Wendy's fast-food chain possibly implementing surge pricing for its items similar to systems used by Uber and Lyft. Jokes and backlash about Wendy's implementing fluctuating prices for its food achieved virality in late February 2024. Wendy's later issued a statement denying that the company intends to introduce surge pricing.

Origin

On February 26th, 2024, Wendy's CEO Kirk Tanner spoke about the company investing $20 million into high-tech menu boards able to update prices in real-time. A Wendy's spokesperson told the New York Post^[1] that "dynamic pricing can allow Wendy’s to be competitive and flexible with pricing, motivate customers to visit and provide them with the food they love at a great value."

On that day, the New York Post made a post on X^[2] / Twitter claiming that Wendy's was planning to introduce "Uber-style" surge pricing in its restaurants. The post (shown below) garnered over 3,800 reposts and quotes and 2,000 likes in three days. Wendy's later issued a blog post^[3] clarifying that "dynamic" pricing will only result in discounted prices during slow times and not increased prices during times of high demand.

Spread

Starting on the same day, users on X / Twitter posted memes that compared the rumored surge pricing introduction to a stock market specializing in burgers and other fast food items, posting memes based on films about stock trading such as Margin Call and The Wolf of Wall Street. On February 26th, 2024, X^[4] user @KlendathuCap posted the earliest notable meme about the system, gaining over 1,000 reposts and 11,000 likes in three days (shown below, left).

Later that day, X^[5] user @KennethDredd posted a My Parents at Age 29 meme about not being able to purchase a burger from Wendy's with a $6.25 bid, with the post gaining over 6,500 reposts and 62,000 likes in three days (shown below, right).

More memes about the rumored change were shared online in the following days. On February 27th, 2024, X^[6] user @gazpachomachine shared a photograph of a fridge filled with Wendy's bags, commenting, "just got 110 burgers from Wendy's. nice try but your surge pricing won't get me, I'm stocked up for the year." The post (shown below, left) garnered over 7,000 reposts and 151,000 likes in two days.

Also that day, X^[7] user @matthewesp posted a meme that received over 6,600 reposts and 116,000 likes in two days (shown below, right).

The format maintained popularity on X / Twitter through late February 2024, as well as being referenced in numerous memes on sites such as Reddit.^[8]^[9]