If you’ve ever visited a Wendy’s, and felt like whoever was making your burger went a little OD on the amount of lettuce they slapped inside of your burger, then you might want to have a word with this TikToker to swap stories.
Jovani (@weluvjovani) recently went viral on the popular social media platform after uploading footage of a burger order they received from a Wendy’s location that included what they called a “lily pad” amount of lettuce.
TikTokers who saw the clip were tickled pink by the clip, mainly by the social media user’s choice in words when describing their grievance with their sandwich.
“I ask these motherf*ckers for a burger they gave me a g*dd***ed lily pad!” the man exclaims in the video while showing off the burger they received from the fast food chain. It’s sporting a massive piece of lettuce that’s jutting out from underneath the bun and on top of the patty.
He adds in a caption for the video: “Cmon wendy ik i needa lose weight but damm”
Several TikTokers who saw the video said that the massive slab of lettuce reminded them of another viral video from a Wendy’s customer who aired their grievances with the quantity of a vegetable they received with their meal, aka, the tomatonator.
Then there were other folks who were just happy to hear the term “Lily Pad” again, stating that it’s been a long time since they’ve first heard the word and that they were happy someone was bringing it back into the collective consciousness: “i haven’t heard lily pad in YEARSSSS,” one said. Another wrote: “FRICKIN LILY PAD! I’m sobbing laughing!”
There was one TikToker who couldn’t believe that the Wendy’s employee appeared to be doing less than the bare minimum when it came to garnishing the burger: “At least fold the lettuce they jut slap the leaf down and be on their way”
According to a metric from The American Customer Satisfaction Index for 2023 that ranks fast food restaurants on 11 different qualifiers including menu variety, accuracy of orders, mobile app quality, food quality, and others, there is one king in the fast food kingdom when it comes to pleasing its patrons: Chick-fil-A. The chicken-centric brand received a whopping 85 satisfaction score on the survey, which was a 2 point increase over the previous year which put it at the top of the heap. Close behind it? Jimmy John’s, followed by KFC, Papa John’s, and Domino’s.
Wendy’s, on the other hand, was the best of the bottom bunch with a ranking of 74 (at least it was a 1% increase from the previous year) followed by Jack in the Box and Sonic.
One of the benefits of getting fast food is that it’s supposed to provide a “uniform” experience for the consumer: There’s a certain familiarity associated with getting grub some a specific place and knowing that, for the most part, no matter where you’re at in the world that the food you’re getting in one state or country is going to more or less taste the same as the good you’re getting in another state or country somewhere else.
While homogenization can often be lambasted as a “ticky tacky” step-and-repeat experience, picture if you’re an employee working on the road and you want something familiar that helps to remind you of home. Or, if we’re going to get dramatic about things, let’s say you’re a visiting a foreign country and you’ve just underwent a scary or trying ordeal, and the taste of something from back home would help to bring some normalcy to your life.
@weluvjovani Cmon wendy ik i needa lose weight but damm😔 #fyp #wendys ♬ original sound – I luv Jovani
So slapping a ginormous “lily pad” of a piece of lettuce on a sandwich, isn’t really doing much for that uniformity, neither is a tomatonator. So while it’s easy for the Jovani to simply fold that piece of lettuce onto his sandwich and then scarf it down accordingly, it’s understandable why he was so taken aback by how large it was.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Wendy’s via email and Jovani via TikTok comment for further information.