
I just bought 1000 burgers on Kickstarter. Want one of them? - andrewmcdonough
http://howwastheburger.com/i-just-bought-1000-burgers/
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patio11
That's a genius use of that offering. Great instant story.

As for the offering itself (pre-paying a large sum in advance for,
essentially, free-food-for-life at a new restaurant): I wonder if that's a
sane method for restaurants generally. There are two in Ogaki that I'd happily
spend $1k on, but I'd worry that it would change my relationship with the
owners. Being a regular at the local diner is great -- the owner comes out to
greet you when you come in, you always get exactly what you like exactly the
way you like it, and in general they try to make you feel like a king. I'd
hate to have date night in 2019 ruined by "Patrick, you're here _again_? Dude,
it's a Saturday night. I could _sell_ that table. #($'#( it. Well, OK, what
will it be -- the free #%(#ing burger again?"

~~~
venomsnake
Well a 1000 burgers are 3 years worth of lunch. Also if you are allowed to
take a few at a this is great marketing for free - telling all the colleagues
- a few burgers are on me in that place. Chances to convert to a regular at
least one of them is high.

Probably it is how the awards will be defined. Because kickstarter is not
preorder.

Also the Kickstarter community so far has shown to be remarkably supporting.
So I doubt that they will abuse the privileges that will be awarded. Also
basic rule for the rewards should be that you are overpaying but you like it
that way. The 1000 burgers for 1000 GBP is clearly unsustainable. But looking
at the KS it seems more like a marketing stunt the high tiers. So it is
probably budgeted.

~~~
ashray
It's quite unlikely that someone who orders a 1000 burgers is actually going
to eat them. I can't picture myself eating 1000 of the same kind of burger ..
or in the same place..

I guess most people would eat 200 burgers (I'd say at the high end..) which
would come out to 5GBP per burger. Not bad for the establishment.. I can't
think of any average but even 100 sounds high to me.

~~~
shasta
Did you see the picture of the burger in the article? All this guy has to do
is declare that remaining prepaid burgers are non-transferable upon death, and
he'll only ever have to make a few hundred per buyer.

~~~
andrewmcdonough
Actually the burger in the picture is healthier than you'd think. It's very
good quality beef. I have a balanced diet and exercise lots. I also subscribe
to the 'fat is not the enemy' school of thought. Maybe I'll take some before
and after photos to prove it!

~~~
asciimo
The quality of the beef isn't the point.
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/too-
mu...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/too-much-protein-
could-lead-to-early-death-study-
says/2014/03/04/0af0603e-a3b5-11e3-8466-d34c451760b9_story.html)

~~~
andrewmcdonough
There has been much discussion on this piece of research, and issues raised
about the reporting of it. I think the response from the NHS was balanced:

[http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/03March/Pages/high-protein-
diet-...](http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/03March/Pages/high-protein-diet-may-be-
harmful-for-middle-aged.aspx)

------
jasonkester
Tangentially on topic, McDonalds used to have a special once a week where
they'd sell cheeseburgers for $0.35 or hamburgers for $0.25. I would, from
time to time, walk into the place with fifteen dollars in my pocket (and two
co-workers, as they put a limit on how many one person could buy), and walk
out with a sack o' sixty neatly wrapped hamburgers.

I'd bring them back to the office, and simply start tossing them at people in
their cubicles (or in the parking lot from a moving vehicle if they were
unlucky enough to be walking past when I pulled in), and basically just feed
the entire building.

I don't think they intended that to happen with their little loss-leader deal
to get folks in the door, but it sure was fun. It caught on too. If you
haven't had a sack of 20 warm burgers dumped into your lap while you weren't
paying attention, you haven't lived.

~~~
zachrose
I do something similar from time to time at bottomlessburgers.com.

The way it works is simple: you pay me a fixed price, like $6 or $10, and show
up at a particular restaurant at a particular time. My partner and I order
hamburgers and cheeseburgers and you get to have as many as you want.

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Wintamute
So will this guy eat 500 burgers himself? That could be at least a year and a
half eating burgers for lunch. Good lord, it can't be healthy! :S

~~~
andrewmcdonough
Actually, I think it will be healthy. I'll probably do 2-3 interviews a week,
so it's not like I'll be eating burgers for every meal. Burger Bear's burgers
are made with very good quality beef. I am somebody who exercises regularly,
and from my work at my startup Tribesports, I'm very aware of how to balance
my activity and diet. In fact, one of the things I might do on the blog is
record my weight and health throughout the project.

~~~
Wintamute
I don't doubt you're capable of keeping in shape, but the jury is definitely
out on the long term health implications of eating a lot of red meat and
animal protein - I don't mean just getting fat.

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jongold
fwiw these are the best burgers I've had anywhere in the world & Tom is a
total dude - back him on Kickstarter while you can :)

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norswap
That picture had my mouth watering, too bad I'm not in London.

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Theodores
_Speaking as a vegetarian with a sense of British humour that not all y
'mericanz get..._

A better deal for you meat-eaters - go to market and buy your own cow!!! I
think that with post and packaging you could get a whole one for £200 or so
depending on how lame it was. Give your cow a name, e.g. Ronald.

Next, get some meat grinder or improvise one. Pop to your local hire shop and
just hire one of those chipper things tree surgeons use to turn whole trees
into small bits. Give it a proper clean and now put your freshly purchased cow
through it. You might want to hire a chainsaw too so you can cut things like
the anus out first, or maybe the eyes or perhaps the teeth if you don't want
to choke on them in your burger. You could even cut off things like Ronald's
gonads for a special treat. Depends on when you hire, but you can expect to
part with a good £50 - £100 for hiring such tools.

Now for freezing your 100% pure British Beef. Get a few chest freezers from
the local tip or advertised on a freecycle thing. Expect to pay a few bob to a
mate with a van big enough to get your chest freezers home. Maybe offer to pay
in burgers.

The electricity bill for the freezers could be £100 a year, maybe even higher
depending on how big your cow was. Depending on how many burgers you scoff and
how quickly your 'leccy bill will vary.

How many burgers you end up making depends on how thin you make your burgers
and how much connective tissue (brain, spinal cord) you put through the wood-
chipper. You could make many, many thousands of them rather than a mere one
thousand. Or you could make just the one cow-sized burger. Or do whatever on a
day to day basis, maybe making other beef creations like shepherds pie from
the basic mix. Or perhaps meatballs - just drop them in the deep-fat fryer as
and when the urge arises.

One benefit of this DiY approach is that any sarky vegetarians will be
impressed that you haven't left the difficult killing bit up to some distant
abattoir, plus you will have connected with your inner hunter-gatherer self by
getting immersed in the gore of killing an animal, as God intended. There will
also be considerable benefits when the zombie apocalypse happens, as predicted
by George W Bush in 2001.

~~~
drdeca
Speaking as someone who apparently believes feigning incomprehension (also,
immitation) is funny:

I don't get it. Why would you name the cow? It's not like it's a pet, or even
a dairy cow. It's for eating.

Also why would you use a chainsaw?

Seems imprecise and messy.

I think it would be more efficient to have a specialized tool. But that tool
would require a significant ammount of capital... Probably more than the cow!
(or buying the burgers).

Maybe someone could have as a paid service a system where you could pay to use
or rent the relevant equipment?

Is anyone doing that? Might be profitable. Note to self or others: look into
that.

Although, I don't really feel like making a business out of that? It doesn't
seem particularly elegant.

Also, my cooking skills aren't very good, so I don't think it would turn out
as well?

Maybe I could do the initial cutting apart though?

And then pay someone else to turn the meat into burgers?

That's yet another thing to pay for though, and I don't think anyone is in the
business of making burgers out of customer provided meat at the individual
scale yet though.

Note to self: investigate this business idea as well.

(combined with renting out the machine???)

All in all, it seems rather time consuming though.

Maybe once every other month as a novelty?

Could be entertaining.

I wonder if the same equipment works with chickens.

... Speaking of which, I'm having trouble imagining a chicken bleed. Does it
look the same as other animal blood?

Is it different because it's a bird?

I can imagine a cow bleeding fine, but that might be because the fur is short?

I also have trouble imagining a fish bleed, but I think I kind of remember
that, so it's a bit easier.

I guess chicken bleeding would look normal then?

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johnzim
Burger bear tom has the best burger in London. 80% of the programmers at the
company I work for (myself included) went in at the 1-month-of-burgers level
as soon as the KS launched and then the company chipped in to buy a team lunch
for everyone.

The London startup scene around Shoreditch is great fun, particularly because
of these ancillary bonuses (being in a trendy part of town)

Interestingly, Burger Bear has long been a bitcoin-friendly vendor; one of the
other programmers has bought all his burgers in Btc so far! Only times I've
ever witnessed a real-life Btc transaction.

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alinajaf
I've accidentally run into Andrew at various points in my career, he's a very
smart and capable guy, I always come away having learned a lot from him. He
already knows basically everyone in the London startup scene, so I'd wager
that anyone who has a burger with him will have more to gain from an hour of
his time than the other way around.

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lifeisstillgood
That is genius - I will happily buy you a beer to wash them down with just for
the chance to meet and say hi. Count me in:-)

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buf
I can confirm these are some of the best burgers London has to offer. In
addition, I recommend the "bacon jam."

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BurgerBear
Basically, this is genius. Thank you all for an interesting read... The
#BB1000 is a big time KS reward for sure. To be fair, anyone who backed me on
this reward can have what ever they like.... This is the start of my new world
and you made it happen. #Cryptohub #BurgerHack #DiscoJoint

See you there!

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md2be
This is expensive $$ for the project. I assume that this burger retails for
$8-10 dollars and that his location will sell 200 burgers a day. So he is
giving up 1% of revenues for 1 1/2 years! Freemium doesn't work in the
restaurant space.

~~~
Recoil42
Careful when making assumptions. Not only is 200 burgers a completely
unfounded number, but you've neglected to include things like fries and drinks
in your calculations.

------
buf
Head's up to the OP, you have a typo in your title here:
[http://howwastheburger.com/i-want-a-
burger/](http://howwastheburger.com/i-want-a-burger/)

Want _on_ of ...

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stegro32
Naming your Google Apps organisation with your own name has at least one
amusing side effect: "This form was created inside of Andrew McDonough".
(Probably true, literally speaking...)

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namenotrequired
> It was a ridiculous idea, and so I knew I had to do it.

I like this guy.

I work for an Amsterdam startup and expect to be in London later this year, is
this open to foreigners?

~~~
andrewmcdonough
Yes, I'd love to interview startup people visiting London, so just let me know
when you're over. I'll also introduce you to other startup people and some
great events, like Silicon Drinkabout, if you'd like.

~~~
namenotrequired
Awesome thanks, I'll get in touch when I know the exact dates! :)

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techaddict009
Great way to get what you love and what you want!

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finishingmove
Good luck to you and your cardiovascular system!

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nawitus
Do you offer vegan burgers for non-meat-eaters?

~~~
jongold
There's a vegetarian burger on the new menu; I'm not sure if it's vegan
though.

~~~
johnzim
There was definitely cream cheese/yoghurt/mayo on it when I had it yesterday!

It's also cooked with the same griddle and spatula at the moment. A lot of
vegans might find that a little bit disconcerting. I don't know how it will be
when he has his diner up though!

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Bocker
Interesting idea. Could be a great spin on Seinfeld's Comedians In Cars
Getting Coffee for the tech/startup scene.

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malandrew
I'm a huge burger lover, but 500 burgers can't be healthy for you unless you
spread this out over several years.

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buro9
I know you already, but damn I'm putting myself down to have a burger lunch.

I'll bring my best stories, you know I have a few.

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chris_wot
You ought to team up with the pudding cup guy. You could get free flights AND
burgers.

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mjklin
Would you mind if I had a sip of your tasty beverage to wash this down?

~~~
BurgerBear
Go right ahead....

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wcummings
Mark Karpeles used all the BTC on cheeseburgers [1] #bitcoinconspiracy

[1]
[http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20091104170948/trailerpar...](http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20091104170948/trailerpark/images/a/a0/Randy.jpg)

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itsnotvalid
Costing 2 pounds for a story is quite a bargain.

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hownottowrite
Airfare included?

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lamby
I'll bite (hah) and report back.

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pskittle
marketing ninja!

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rjfarley
I wish I lived in London

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TazeTSchnitzel
Now I'm hungry.

