Editor's note: This story has been updated to include a response from McDonald's.
QSR heavyweights Wendy’s and McDonald’s celebrated National Cheeseburger Day Monday with deeply discounted offers – McDonald’s offering its double cheeseburger for 50 cents and Wendy’s offering its Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger for 1 cent with any additional purchase.
Both deals were only available through the companies’ apps and both seemed too much for those apps to handle. According to social media and outage websites, both apps eventually crashed under the weight of cheeseburger deal seekers. On X, the site formerly known as Twitter, Wendy’s posted, “Today is the day that is good and nothing bad happens. Yup, National Cheeseburger day. Celebrate with a 1 cent jbc with any purchase on the app.”
The post garnered nearly 900 replies, most of which were about the app crashing.
Updown radar confirmed the app was down for many customers, with a reports starting to trickle in around 4 p.m. and continuing through much of the night. Most of those reports (over 600) came from the Washington, DC, market.
One commented, “Of all days for the app to be down, national cheeseburger day!!!
Come on, this has gotta be deliberate and every website I that check says the app up. I feel gas lit, never spending my money at Wendy’s again.”
Some users commented they were going to McDonald’s instead.
Wendy’s deal is running through Sept. 22.
Meanwhile, over at McDonald’s, reports of its app crashing also began proliferating on social media, while the website Downdetector, which reports app outages, spiked at noon with over 800 reports.
As user arisgma commented, “No 50cent cheeseburger for me. Don't advertise what you can't supply my app is all screwed up. I am just deleting it. Not worth the trouble.”
Another user commented that several people were in line with the same problem, but added that the manager “gave us the deals anyway.”
Some users commented they were going to Wendy’s instead …
A McDonald's spokesperson acknowledged there was a temporary issue with the McDonald's app on Monday, however added that most fans were still able to redeem the 50-cent Double Cheeseburger offer.
Nation’s Restaurant News also reached out to Wendy's and will update the story accordingly.
Contact Alicia Kelso at [email protected]
