How many of you guys steal these little number things Whataburger gives out? Seems a mite strange to me. From today's WSJ:
One of Whataburger’s most popular items isn’t on the takeout menu, but diners walk out with it all the time.
The Texas-based burger chain is so beloved in the South that its “table tents”—the little plastic A-frame order numbers customers get as they wait for their food to be delivered—often don’t make it back to the stack at the cash register.
People pilfer them constantly. Some swipe their lucky numbers, others their birthday or anniversary digits. Athletes go for their jersey numerals. Die-hards want a complete set of 1 through 96.
Misappropriating an orange-and-white-striped Whataburger order number has become a rite of passage of sorts in the Lone Star State, where some posit you can’t be truly Texan unless you’ve filched a tent or two…or 10.
“I have 8, 80, 88, 89, and I think I have 87,” says 18-year-old Katlynn Kincy of Cypress, Texas, who says she sometimes sits on a table tent to hide it until she can pocket it. She keeps her carryout contraband lined up in a closet and wants to collect all with her favorite number, 8. “It’s definitely a big Texas thing.”
Whataburger says its 815 restaurants in 10 states from Arizona to Florida go through roughly 1.2 million tents a year, although it doesn’t track how many people carry off. Some locations, particularly near high schools and colleges, lose numbers so fast they have to order new ones every month, the company says.
In Denton County, Texas, police took notice several months ago after spotting piles of the little tents in cars during traffic stops. James Edland, chief of the area’s Northeast Police Department, says officers made the drivers—mostly teens and young adults—return the tents to a local Whataburger in Cross Roads, Texas, 40 miles north of Dallas.
“It’s just a little piece of plastic, but it’s not yours,” Mr. Edland says. “Don’t take it.”
Whataburger wasn’t involved in the police crackdown but doesn’t encourage the stealing of table tents, says Rich Scheffler, Whataburger’s vice president of Marketing and Innovation.
The restaurants don’t do much to stop the numbers from walking off, though. “If those things are disappearing and making their way onto somebody’s shelf or dashboard or wherever it may be, that is advertising that Whataburger would love to pay for,” Mr. Scheffler says. “We would never want to stop that.”
Still, customers delight in the furtive act of filching. Most say they slip the table tents into a pocket or purse, hoping no one notices. The numbers are printed on customers’ receipts, so servers can call out a number if they don’t see it—a loophole some collectors exploit by pretending they never got one.
Others say they boldly stare a cashier in the eye as they lift numbers.
If a Whataburger employee doesn’t ask for the table tent when delivering an order, it’s as good as gone, says Marlena Jordan, a 21-year-old from Denton, Texas, who says she has roughly 80 Whataburger tents at home, some of them gifts from friends.
“Most of the time, they just leave them on the table, and that’s our sign,” says Ms. Jordan, who started boosting tents in college to see how many she could amass.
It wasn’t until 2004, when Whataburger redesigned its tents to mimic its restaurants’ bright-orange-and-white-striped roofs, that fans started to slip off with them routinely, Mr. Scheffler says. Before that, the chain used blue tents with white numbers and a little W.
The chain was surprised that people would find the new numbers so irresistible, he says, but has come to appreciate their passion for the tents, which cost the company about 25 cents each.
The tents sometimes end up for sale on eBay . A No. 69 is currently listed at the asking price of $2,000. Its seller, Ramy Rabi, 18, says his cache of tents started with his soccer jersey numbers: 26, 17, 7, 9 and 19.
Mr. Rabi says he listed the tent several months ago just to see how much a Whataburger fan might pay. He’s gotten several inquiries. The highest offer has been $69.
Spotting Whataburger numbers in the wild is a bit of a tradition itself. A television news crew in Houston in March reported catching the table tents—whose orange hue is akin to a traffic cone’s—being used to mark evidence at a murder scene.
“In a pinch, they utilize whatever they can get their hands on,” Houston police spokesman Victor Senties says, noting that using Whataburger tents as evidence flags isn’t best practice because of the contamination risk.
The tents disappear so quickly that some Whataburger restaurants are left temporarily numberless and others appear to have taken the most popular numbers out of rotation, some customers report. Whataburger says it can’t confirm those reports.
The burger chain started to capitalize on their popularity three years ago, issuing a commemorative table tent for graduating classes. The 2017 version is for sale on Whataburger’s website for $6.99.
Mr. Scheffler’s team also fields—and fulfills—numerous polite requests for the standard tents. A few days ago, a man inquired wanting a No. 74 tent to display on the dash of a 1974 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia he had painted orange. Whataburger says it is shipping him that tent.
Die-hard fan Blake Miller, 23, showed up at a tattoo parlor in San Antonio last year to get a Whataburger-themed tat on his arm. He settled on putting his area code—361 for Corpus Christi, Texas, where Whataburger originated—on the face of a table tent after the tattoo artist pulled him aside to show off a pair of stolen order numbers.
“Whataburger is just like a hometown tradition,” he says of the meaning behind his tattoo. “It’s just where we go, like a second home.”
Mr. Miller says he and his friends have nicked dozens of Whataburger table tents over the years. “I mean, who doesn’t?”
One of Whataburger’s most popular items isn’t on the takeout menu, but diners walk out with it all the time.
The Texas-based burger chain is so beloved in the South that its “table tents”—the little plastic A-frame order numbers customers get as they wait for their food to be delivered—often don’t make it back to the stack at the cash register.
People pilfer them constantly. Some swipe their lucky numbers, others their birthday or anniversary digits. Athletes go for their jersey numerals. Die-hards want a complete set of 1 through 96.
Misappropriating an orange-and-white-striped Whataburger order number has become a rite of passage of sorts in the Lone Star State, where some posit you can’t be truly Texan unless you’ve filched a tent or two…or 10.
“I have 8, 80, 88, 89, and I think I have 87,” says 18-year-old Katlynn Kincy of Cypress, Texas, who says she sometimes sits on a table tent to hide it until she can pocket it. She keeps her carryout contraband lined up in a closet and wants to collect all with her favorite number, 8. “It’s definitely a big Texas thing.”
Whataburger says its 815 restaurants in 10 states from Arizona to Florida go through roughly 1.2 million tents a year, although it doesn’t track how many people carry off. Some locations, particularly near high schools and colleges, lose numbers so fast they have to order new ones every month, the company says.
In Denton County, Texas, police took notice several months ago after spotting piles of the little tents in cars during traffic stops. James Edland, chief of the area’s Northeast Police Department, says officers made the drivers—mostly teens and young adults—return the tents to a local Whataburger in Cross Roads, Texas, 40 miles north of Dallas.
“It’s just a little piece of plastic, but it’s not yours,” Mr. Edland says. “Don’t take it.”
Whataburger wasn’t involved in the police crackdown but doesn’t encourage the stealing of table tents, says Rich Scheffler, Whataburger’s vice president of Marketing and Innovation.
The restaurants don’t do much to stop the numbers from walking off, though. “If those things are disappearing and making their way onto somebody’s shelf or dashboard or wherever it may be, that is advertising that Whataburger would love to pay for,” Mr. Scheffler says. “We would never want to stop that.”
Still, customers delight in the furtive act of filching. Most say they slip the table tents into a pocket or purse, hoping no one notices. The numbers are printed on customers’ receipts, so servers can call out a number if they don’t see it—a loophole some collectors exploit by pretending they never got one.
Others say they boldly stare a cashier in the eye as they lift numbers.
If a Whataburger employee doesn’t ask for the table tent when delivering an order, it’s as good as gone, says Marlena Jordan, a 21-year-old from Denton, Texas, who says she has roughly 80 Whataburger tents at home, some of them gifts from friends.
“Most of the time, they just leave them on the table, and that’s our sign,” says Ms. Jordan, who started boosting tents in college to see how many she could amass.
It wasn’t until 2004, when Whataburger redesigned its tents to mimic its restaurants’ bright-orange-and-white-striped roofs, that fans started to slip off with them routinely, Mr. Scheffler says. Before that, the chain used blue tents with white numbers and a little W.
The chain was surprised that people would find the new numbers so irresistible, he says, but has come to appreciate their passion for the tents, which cost the company about 25 cents each.
The tents sometimes end up for sale on eBay . A No. 69 is currently listed at the asking price of $2,000. Its seller, Ramy Rabi, 18, says his cache of tents started with his soccer jersey numbers: 26, 17, 7, 9 and 19.
Mr. Rabi says he listed the tent several months ago just to see how much a Whataburger fan might pay. He’s gotten several inquiries. The highest offer has been $69.
Spotting Whataburger numbers in the wild is a bit of a tradition itself. A television news crew in Houston in March reported catching the table tents—whose orange hue is akin to a traffic cone’s—being used to mark evidence at a murder scene.
“In a pinch, they utilize whatever they can get their hands on,” Houston police spokesman Victor Senties says, noting that using Whataburger tents as evidence flags isn’t best practice because of the contamination risk.
The tents disappear so quickly that some Whataburger restaurants are left temporarily numberless and others appear to have taken the most popular numbers out of rotation, some customers report. Whataburger says it can’t confirm those reports.
The burger chain started to capitalize on their popularity three years ago, issuing a commemorative table tent for graduating classes. The 2017 version is for sale on Whataburger’s website for $6.99.
Mr. Scheffler’s team also fields—and fulfills—numerous polite requests for the standard tents. A few days ago, a man inquired wanting a No. 74 tent to display on the dash of a 1974 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia he had painted orange. Whataburger says it is shipping him that tent.
Die-hard fan Blake Miller, 23, showed up at a tattoo parlor in San Antonio last year to get a Whataburger-themed tat on his arm. He settled on putting his area code—361 for Corpus Christi, Texas, where Whataburger originated—on the face of a table tent after the tattoo artist pulled him aside to show off a pair of stolen order numbers.
“Whataburger is just like a hometown tradition,” he says of the meaning behind his tattoo. “It’s just where we go, like a second home.”
Mr. Miller says he and his friends have nicked dozens of Whataburger table tents over the years. “I mean, who doesn’t?”
