A hungry dad says he ordered “the biggest burger in the UK” after demanding that Burger King stack his bun with 36 beef patties for his birthday.
Craig Harker from Hardwick, County Durham wanted to celebrate his birthday in style and opted to sink his teeth into the massive 6,000-calorie meal.
The 36-year-old ordered a regular Burger King meal and added an extra 35 burgers – one to celebrate each year of his life – with fries and washed down with Diet Coke.
Footage shared on Facebook shows the bar owner casually ordering the £53.49 monster burger before being handed a bag so heavy he compared it to going to the gym.
When the father-of-three unveiled the foot-tall treat, his eyes lit up and he sank his teeth into it.
But the birthday boy’s eyes soon proved to be bigger than his stomach and he ‘only’ managed to devour 12 of the £1.30 burgers, before giving up and donating the rest to friends and family who live nearby.
Craig said: ‘I think it’s the biggest burger ever ordered from Burger King – a fitting birthday present.
‘ I think it’s an absolute bargain for the size of the burger. If you go to a restaurant for a burger that size, you’ll be paying a lot more than you’re paying for the extra burgers at Burger King.
‘When they handed over the hamburger, it was almost like they handed over the baton at the Olympics in the relay. I had to be careful picking up the food, mainly because it was so heavy.
“I stopped at 12 because my stomach was starting to feel like the hamburger – it was absolutely huge and I thought if I pushed any further down I would throw up.
‘I got to the point where I was like ‘okay, this is me comfortably done’ without me undoing a button on my pants.
‘I have a fairly large family and we all live close by so I offered the burgers for everyone to put on their own buns and then the leftovers went to the dog so there was no waste.’
Social media footage shows Craig ordering the gigantic meal from the store’s Stockton-on-Tees branch before carefully pulling it off the server, unwrapping and eating.
In the footage, Craig says, ‘I’m not a normal person, I love meat, I’m an absolute carnivore (…) and you all know how much I love fast food.
‘I came to Burger King (and) what I’m going to get is the biggest birthday burger you can get your hands on.’
After placing the order and waiting for it to be taken off the grill, Craig admits that he chose a specific outfit to help prepare his meal.
Craig said: ‘I wore these jeans especially today because they’re a little stretchy – they’re like maternity pants for men.’
In the clip, just before the waiter delivers the meal, another waiter can be heard yelling ‘Diet Coke’, to which Craig jokes ‘Diet Coke is for me, I’m watching the calories’.
Food lover Craig, who runs the food blog Dad Loves Food as well as owns The George Pub and Grill in his hometown, said he loves letting his followers know about food hacks.
Craig said, ‘When I go out food blogging across the country, one of the things that everyone has on their doorstep is a national chain – whether it’s Burger King, McDonald’s or a KFC.
‘At Burger King you can put as many hamburgers as you like.
‘In the app I think it only goes up to eight but I thought I’d take a chance (in the store) and see how many I could go.
’ I had made other burgers smaller so I knew not to put cheese on every layer because the burgers would slide all over the place.
“It’s definitely a contender for the biggest commercially available burger because there’s a Burger King on everyone’s doorstep.”
‘Personally, I’ve never seen a bigger burger from a national or global chain. People can order this in any country where there is a Burger King.
A Burger King spokesperson said: ‘We always encourage customers to do it their way – whatever and however that may be.
‘Thanks to Craig for choosing Home of the Whopper to create his mighty birthday burger.’
Please contact our news team by emailing webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this one, check out our news page.